Cartoon soul
Buragata!
Or whatever is the sound that the tiki mask Aku Aku makes since pretty much every person has their own interpretation (in truth it is gibberish and was never intended to mean anything. However, various people on the Crash team say it sounds like ”Rutabaga).
Obviously we would not dare to leave behind (unlike the Super Smash Bros series) the other big 90s mascot with attitude, who alongside Sonic the Hedgehog was destined to fight against the plumber boy moustache man—as Crash himself refers to his nemesis—becoming in the process the unofficial mascot for the Sony’s Play Station who had just entered the ring in the heated console wars.
The idea was to explore the graphical capabilities of the console and the CD-ROM medium and bring them to their absolute limit and beyond, creating a truly playable cartoon that pays homage to the greatest hits of the Looney Tunes series with Indiana Jones thrown in for good measure.
From the facial animations, to the death animations, to the design philosophy and narrative concept, The all-possibe-angles platformer Crash Bandicoot came alive like no other game before, bringing various new literal perspectives to the oversaturated 2D platformes of the time. Conceived during a road trip, the developers set up to create a mascot for the brand new console from Sony, a classic mascot in the sense that it was meant to be a true animal with an alliterative name where the surname was the species (Felix, the Cat, Oswald, the Rabbit, Donald Duck, Sonic the Hedgehog, Mickey Mouse, Bugs Bunny) plus all the edge that 90s kids could muster. Willy the Wombat, as he was initially known, was meant to be cool, like the American market expects (Remember the rules: America is hardcore, Japan is cute, Europe is artsy). He took on an exotic species nobody had heard of, just like the crazy Tasmanian Devil from Warner that was popular at the time and who also destroys everything on his path with his vortex spin; was given a spiky punk haircut like Sonic and a sexy girlfriend like Roger Rabbit (…and Bugs Bunny? No judgement). At the end of the day the name Willy the Wombat was deemed too ridiculous so they ended up changing it to another exotic species from Oceania, the bandicoot— seems everyone picks oceania since the weirdest creatures apparently come from there (the people are mostly normal)—and just like Sonic was named after his capacity to travel at supersonic speeds, this bandicoot was named after his capacity to destroy crates—which were a late minute addition to the game when the developers felt their levels were too empty. Thus the final name also came pretty late.
Like many other cartoon characters his final design has little resemblance to what a bandicoot is supposed to look like, the color and clothes having more to do with what looked good on the screen produced by the 32-bit system and the TVs of the era. Crash himself was edgier and had more attitude in the marketing materials than in the game; inside the game he was more of a goofy, happy-go-lucky character most likely Nsane due to the experiments performed on him by the Frankenstein like doctors who are the big baddies of the series. The gameplay was mostly modeled on the Donkey Kong Country series with innovative camera angles that explored the new 3D medium.
The wombat, and later bandicoot, species dictated the islandic culture of the first game, with Polynesian imagery, Māori masks and totems, and inhabitants. The game is set on these Indiana Jones inspired temple ruins on the first half, and later, the laboratories with The Jetsons-like concentric circle designs and expressionistic castle from Dr Neo Cortex, who is also based on the Looney Tunes character The Brain. Everything here is Polynesian culture… well, naturally, except for the music which in typical media fashion is portrayed closer to ones from African tribesmen or the Caribbean as opposed to any attempt at Māori accuracy other than getting some samples and sounds for the didgeridoo instrument which in any case was developed by Aboriginal peoples of northern Australia.
The developers of Crash Bandicoot at Naughty Dog initially discussed populating the Crash universe with just ambient sounds and wacky, random sound effects just before coming to their senses and bringing at the last minute the services of the American music production company Mutato Muzika, founded by Mark Mothersbaugh of the band Devo. The LA company specialized in audio and music for media such as films and television; they were just dabbling in the medium of video games so they were looking for people who could do excellent MIDI mockup orchestration and knew enough about software programs. Enter composer Josh Mancell, who was fresh out of university and had all this computer savvy knowledge. He had just come to the competitive Los Angeles scene encouraged by his teachers in order to pursue a career in composing for media. Josh learned the piano at an early age but his main instrument are the drums. He pulled some strings and some contacts in order to meet up with the Devo musician and was just at the right time, right place since they were looking for experts on new technologies. He became the go to man for the first few video game gigs of the company. Universal Studios which were the publishers of the game, worried about the lack of music in the game, contracted the music production company unbeknown to developers Naughty Dog. Universal and the developers butted heads about the direction of the music; the former wanted it to be more traditional sounding while Naughty Dog wanted something bold and experimental. Composer had to find a way to please both. There was a two month deadline.
So the music for the original game was created very late into development. Even long after it was playable and most of the final concepts were entering their finishing touches. The levels were silent asides from the sound effects caused by Crash and the other characters that were taken straight from the psychologically addictive tried and true sounds from casinos, slot machines and pinball machines.
The final music ended up as a nice mix of the cartoon music popularized by Carl Stalling for Disney and Warner Bros, who alongside his musicians featured heavily the xylophone since The Skeleton Dance short animation and because the instrument was useful for the mickey mousing technique of following footsteps and runs. This was combined with heavy emphasis on African percussion and beats; all in tandem worked twofold with the tribal aesthetic since marimbas and wood mallets are one of the few melodic instruments that sound aboriginal and primitive. This was the case for the first half of the game. While the later part which were laboratories benefited from the composer’s popular music influences in industrial music and the use of new wave type synths alongside some surf guitars.
Following in the footsteps of the Hollywood tradition of making film music appropriate to scenes and not distracting from the dialogue or the visuals, it dismisses wall to wall melody opting instead for ambient drum beats, ostinatos and melodic licks—the contrast with Japanese games was deemed so wide that some of the music got overhauled alongside the character designs in order to make them more cute and melodic, the composer having to change all of the boss cues in a weekend and receiving strange comments such as the bonus music sounding too ‘nostalgic’ for Japanese audiences. Mancell’s initial tracks for the game were manic and hyperactive though, right before the producers directed him toward more ambient compositions.
Even though the Sony Play Station with its CD capabilities had room for pre-recorded music, which many games used, the memory bandwidth of Crash Bandicoot was exhausted with the graphical engine, so the music is composed of MIDI sequences as pictured here delivered by the composer alongside note samples that were later imported into the game. The composer has uploaded various Crash Bandicoot tracks in their pre-console mix which preserve the stereo and have the full quality of samples:
As said, Josh Mancell was initially directed to provide some demos for the main theme and other ambients. The message was for the music to be more atmospheric so the composer wrote some for the various environments that received a mixed reception; Yet they knew that they got the right man when he brought the ‘Hog Wild’ theme which had a higher sense of fun, allowing the composer to inject more melodic phrases to the score. Even so, he features heavily his main instrument, the drum kit, and African percussion, inspired by the combination of drumming with world instrumentation of groups like the African Head Charge:
Musical Analysis
As for the main theme, it is one of the most melodic tracks on the soundtrack but still using the combination of African percussion with drums. It is still sparse since there is not really a chordal instrument, just the bassline and the melodic instruments playing in unison. Since it is also the opening theme of the series, it pays homage to the Looney Tunes intro song, ‘The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down’ which also opens with a guitar slide and is based around mallets as per the cartoon hymn laws. Besides this, we can see also the blues/soul influence of the composer, using traditional chromatic based soul phrases and sax riffs commonly used on this blues influenced genre, from Ray Charles’s ‘Unchain my Heart’ to recent hits such as Jessie J’s ‘Bang Bang’.
The original demo for the main theme sent by the composer had a more complex melody and was later used for the second half of the first level:
The final theme uses licks taken from the C blues scale. It starts with the Looney Tunes intro which transitions into a blues progression. Then the bass walks. The melodies are in a call-response format during Section A while the Marimbist is allowed to improvise during Section B with the G minor pentatonic scale. The excitement of blues based music is the clash of major harmonic profiles with minor melodies. For the outro the theme goes to the Bb and introduces the high blues note E before connecting the loop with the chromatic restart.
Josh Mancell would go on to compose the soundtrack for the classic trilogy alongside the obligatory mascot kart racer. For some reason, even though apparently he was willing, Mancell was not called back to compose for the fourth entry—the game itself makes a point of not acknowledging the rest of the games—which was meant as a revamp and a call back to the original trilogy. As a fun fact, Among those who auditioned for the position of composer for Crash Bandicoot 4 was Grant Kirkhope from the Banjo Kazooie series who later shared his audition tracks after also being rejected for the gig:
Crash became one of the last classic cartoon mascots, right before games took a turn for more realistic characters allowed by graphical advancements.
The music and spirit of the game is captured in the Dash Dingo games from The Simpsons, which parody Crash.
Help to keep the rites going around here by supporting the shrine:
Media Files, requests and support for more interactive content
Thou shall donate since this is a cult and you are now a sheep
Help staying awake analyzing game tracks and writing posts or else everything will end up being written by A.I
- Inside The Score – Final Fantasy VI – Dancing Mad
Stairway to hell This one goes out for the masochists who want to spend their evening watching an entire opus that some other masochist painstakingly spent his time making with the primitive sound chip of the SNES (WARNING: the Visuaizer Music Tracks channel, Video Game Music Shrine and Google LLC… Read More »Inside The Score – Final Fantasy VI – Dancing Mad - Inside The Score – Final Fantasy VI – Kefka’s ThemeUncomfortable laughter After spending some time with the playfully sinister circus music of the Banjo-Kazooie series, finally we arrive at a character who is the personification of that idea and actually lives up to the sinister moniker, seeing as how this nihilistic psychopath who looks like a comic-relief jester is… Read More »Inside The Score – Final Fantasy VI – Kefka’s Theme
- Inside The Score – Banjo-Tooie – Cauldron KeepOminous stakes The sense of dread around the imposing tower’s lair of the villain sitting atop the highest peak of the Isle ‘o’ Hags is captured by this depressing track that receives the frantic chord change treatment of Grant Kirkhope but within a minor key context; if the C major… Read More »Inside The Score – Banjo-Tooie – Cauldron Keep
- Inside The Score – Banjo-Tooie – Jolly Roger’s LagoonSeamen port Finally, the developers fulfilled their promise and managed to complete the legendary lost game known as Project Dream…sorta. There is a reason that game was called that since over at Rare some of its lead members always had a thing for pirate adventures, being featured on the 8-bit… Read More »Inside The Score – Banjo-Tooie – Jolly Roger’s Lagoon
- Inside The Score – Banjo-Tooie – Hailfire Peaks (Lava Side)Duality of bear The duality of man, or rather of bear and bird. Because a series based around the contrasting personalities of its main characters sooner or later had to tackle such a level; the true twin peaks. Because why waste two levels with the generic lava and ice biomes… Read More »Inside The Score – Banjo-Tooie – Hailfire Peaks (Lava Side)
- Inside The Score – Banjo-Tooie – WitchyworldCursed clowns We are entering a Banjo-Kazooie spree. It seems that the respective safety authorities have been bribed since now we get to enter the famous park operated by the witch Gruntilda, who truly appears to be a tycoon outside her fairy tail home at Spiral Mountain. This is the… Read More »Inside The Score – Banjo-Tooie – Witchyworld
