A look into Yuu Miyake's legendary soundtrack from the Katamari Damacy video game series, along with its impact and legacy.
Katamari Damacy is a video game series that started out being a single game under the same name for the Playstation 2 back in 2004. Created by Keita Takahashi and developed by Namco, the game's premise involves the "King of All Cosmos" accidentally destroying all of the stars, constellations, and the moon in the entire universe. He then blames it on the "Prince," our main character, for no reason whatsoever. The King sure pulled a real dick move. Now, the Prince has to recreate the stars, constellations, and moon by rolling up any object in its path with a sticky ball. This ball is able to roll up anything in its path that is relatively the same size or smaller than the ball. It gets bigger as more and more gets rolled up, so the user could be rolling up pencils and building blocks at first to buildings and cars as time progresses. Once the requirements are successfully met, the ball can then be sent into the sky and can be created into a star, galaxy, constellation, planet, etc. It's a really original and creative concept, despite myself thinking that Takahashi was most likely on some mushrooms at the time. Now 15 years old, Katamari Damacy is so unique and iconic, I can't think of a more enjoyably imaginative game that's both experimental and universal to its audience. Its sound is so originally fresh, that it doesn't even sound 15 years old.
For a video game with such a creatively insane premise, you would have to have a soundtrack that's just as insane, right? This would only make sense. The music is just as weird and crazy as the game. It's colorful, often experimental, and sounds so ridiculous that it's very comical at times and could be classified as a parody if you want it to be. The soundtrack combines all sorts of genres: jazz, vocal jazz, samba, J-pop, rock, dance, tribal, classical, and even ambient music. On paper, it's surprising that all of these genres end up together on one video game. It's unlike anything I've heard before while being very infectious. I would even say that the music is as essential as the gameplay itself. Without it, Katamari Damacy surely wouldn't be the same fun and grin-inducing experience. Its theme, "Katamari Nah-Nah" is simply singing several "na na"'s and the game's title over piano. It will be stuck in your head days and days after playing it, I guarantee it.
The original Katamari Damacy has some of the most iconic anthem-like tunes to come out of video games from the 21st century. Take the absolutely priceless "Katamari on the Rocks," the game's main theme. It is revolutionary how experimental, crafted and detailed the theme is, combining many different sounds and elements together without sounding like a mess of sounds. It perfectly blends harmonies, chaotic drumming, shouts, blaring horns, and countless amounts of layered synths and keys. Other tracks would certainly do the same as far as blending genres almost seamlessly. "The Moon & The Prince" combines hip hop, electronica, classical piano, and spoken word in a way that is both soothing and relentless. The hook on "Lonely Rolling Star" is insanely infectious and one of the best in the entire video game series. Vocalized swing and jazz music is perfectly mastered on "Gin & Tonic & Red Red Roses," with yet another beautiful female vocal lead.
The music behind We Love Katamari, its sequel, is just as iconic and revolutionary. I actually think it's even better than the original. A bold opinion, I know. It could be because I grew up playing We Love Katamari before playing the original. But the songs themselves are even more top notch, even more memorable, even more insane. One of the songs, titled "Katamari On the Swing," is grand, explosive, and iconic. It features a big jazz band and giant larger than life lead vocals. It's an anthem that can resonate universally with anyone and is purely ecstatic joy. It has psychedelic rock surely will melt your brain on the trippy "Kuru Kuru Rock." It has romantic, lush orchestral ballads like "Angel Rain" that progresses in a swirling hypnotic climax. Glitchy vocal guitar pop ("Houston"), powerfully ethereal and spacey ambient ("Blue Orb"), and incredibly powerful piano pop anthems ("Baby Universe") that truly stand with the rest of them. "Sunbaked Savanna" is a song that includes a full cast of sounds from every animal imaginable, with bongos and cow bells to boot. They surely know how to be hilariously memorable too.
I would argue to say that the music of Katamari Damacy would shape how detailed music would be as important to the game as its gameplay to come in future releases, from indie games to blockbusters, for years to come. It's hugely influential and perfectly captures the joyously out of this world experience that Keita Takahashi initially intended. Infectiously catchy are nearly all the tunes that are as detailed and immersive as the gameplay itself, the songs stand the test of time on their own. They seem to always leave an expressive smile to my face, just as you roll up pencils to frogs to people to buildings to planets. The music leaves a lasting impression as to how fun rolling up everything you can possibly think of can be. It's layered, experimental, detailed, imaginative, bright, colorful, purely fun, and full of variety. Even after 15 years, I can't think of any other soundtrack more chaotic and fun.