Let’s clear up one thing first: I don’t care if you call it Jet Set Radio or Jet Grind Radio. It’s supposed to be Jet Set Radio. The game is now sold as Jet Set Radio. But, come on, Jet Grind Radio is just a better name for a game. What are we even doing here, folks? Why can’t we ever keep the cool-but-wrong game names?
You ever notice nobody is allowed to say Princess Toadstool, anymore? Thanks, Biden.
Today’s song is “Humming the Baseline” from Jet Set Grind Radio. Literally any fucking song from that game is fantastic. Most of the game’s music is composed by Hideki Naganuma, who’s both brilliant and a lovable psychopath on Twitter.
“Humming the Baseline” is just the fucking coolest, very ‘90s song. It tells you absolutely everything you need to know about the game through sound alone. It establishes the style of the game. This is one of the first songs you hear when you turn it on, and you’re immediately sucked into a cartoony spray paint world.
Like I said, every song in this game absolutely slaps. Or “is good” as people say. I love Jet Set Radio and a lot of that has to do with its use of sound. Just a brilliant, perfect game. While that series is basically dead, there’s a very new spiritual successor called Bomb Rush Cyberfunk. You know who’s got some music in that little game?
Hideki Naganuma.
Bomb Rush Cyberpunk needs so much signal boostage.