This week Night-Time Listenings moved to Tumblr, leaving Facebook for a second time after a short run. So this week we listened to two tracks from Advance Wars: Days of Ruin. Then we when one step back and listened to a selection from Advance Wars: Dual Strike. We then went further back and listened to some classic Andrew W.K. And Finally, we went even further back to Surf some Buttholes.

If you want to see the music as it goes up (and not wait every Saturday for these wrap-ups), remember to go to our new Tumblr page and follow it. Music for Night-Time Listenings goes up every weekday at 10PM

Advance Wars: Days of Ruin – We Will Prevail

Composed by Yoshito Hirano

 

Alright, now that Night-Time Listenings has moved to Tumblr starting today, let’s kicks things off will a little bit of Advance Wars. I finally finished the first game last week (I bought it this year), so now I’m on a big Advance Wars kick. The music of the series is what got me to finally jump into the Strategy Game franchise. So when I went and listened to the music of Days of Ruin, Ho… ly… Crap! It’s uncommon to hear Nintendo games do rock music (particularly hard rock and metal), but when they do, man is it awesome! This is the theme of the protagonist, Will.

Advance Wars: Days of Ruin

Composed by Yoshito Hirano

 

This is mainly me speaking from an outsider’s point of view, mainly because I’ve only played the first Advance Wars game on the GBA. But imagine the enemy getting the first move on you and you’re getting pretty thrashed on the battlefield. Then the Day (“Turns” in Advance Wars terms) is over. And then “Day 2: Rubinelle 12th Batallion” flashes on screen with this theme playing. The song just hypes you up to go and kick some major ass! The heave guitar riffs, the brass, the powerful percussion, all wrapped up in one helluva head-bangin’ package.

Advance Wars: Dual Strike

Composed by Yoshito Hirano

 

Okay okay, this is the last Advance Wars theme I’ll play for this week. But I had to put this one up. Jake’s theme from Advance Wars Dual Strike was probably my gateway to the music in Days of Ruin. When I started listening to Advance Wars music, I started from the first game and worked my way up. So when I heard this theme, I was blown away. It was more hard rock styled than the other themes in the game (yes, even the Black Hole COs’ themes). Not only was this a gateway for me, this was probably a gateway in and of itself to the way the music in Days of Ruin would be composed.

She Is Beautiful

Performed by Andrew W.K.

 

I remember when I was doing the Nintendo Ad Campaigns Retrospective, I distinctly remembered Andrew W.K.’s song “She is Beautiful” being used for one of the Gamecube’s montage commercials. This was in an effort to highlight the demographic Nintendo was aiming for early on with the Gamecube. If I remember, he also performed in one of Nintendo’s Fusion Tour concerts.

While we’re at it, there’s another musician, er band actually, that Nintendo used before this.

Who Was In My Room Last Night

Performed by The Butthole Surfers

 

And now, let’s listen to another song that Nintendo used for an… earlier time, way back to the SNES. “Who Was In My Room Last Night” was the song that welcomed Nintendo “Play It Loud” campaign for the SNES and Game Boy. Great choice of song. Like the campaign, it is was all out, in your face, no fucks given attitude song that doesn’t let up. This wouldn’t be the only time the Butthole Surfers would be involved in a videogame. In 2006 Harmonix used this song (in cover form) in Guitar Hero II, probably bringing back memories to those that remembered the commercial.