I love hearing the inspiration to a lot of my favorite classics. I would love to see a follow up to this to hear who else were inspired by bands or music artists.
This video came to me because I went down a Cassiopea rabbit hole and I remember listening to the first or 2nd track of their self titled Cassiopea album and thinking this sounds like the opening race sequence for some tracks in Mario Kart
Great video. I had a really similar experience to you. If you're a Castlevania fan, Swallow by Casiopea (track 6 on their self-titled 1979 release) might sound familiar to you. Hearing that for the first time while spinning the record was really fun.
Absolutely. I’m a massive Casiopea fan! Mint jams was the first jazz fusion vinyl I got and then I just went crazy on Discogs and bought all Casiopea’s 80s discography on vinyl and most T-Square on vinyl 😂
@@ErekLadd I've always got my eye out for an affordable copy of Mint Jams. That was the first Japanese jazz fusion album I heard (recommended randomly via UA-cam!) and I love it. I got Cross Point and Make Up City off Discogs just before COVID hit and the price of shipping records from Japan to the UK went through the roof.
@@shinynewjb I feel you. I was buying in bulk off Discogs from Japan because DHL was the only carrier shipping over that period and one record was $50 shipped to me in australia. So it made sense to just clear out and just pay $50 for multiple records rather than just one. If I recall I think there’s a reprint of mint jams going around that may be cheaper than the original pressing!
I randomly heard T-Square and Casiopeia on Spotify "Discover Weekly" after listening to a lot of City Pop stuff. I immediately recognized some Sonic and Mario music in their songs and instantly fell in love with these bands.
Love this, Japanese Jazz Fusion is a genre that always puts me in a good mood! I've been playing Sonic Adventure on the good old Dreamcast recently and some of the songs on the ost really give off the Casiopea/T-Square vibe. Heck I put in a T-Square CD in the system's built in cd player & the aesthetic along with the music could not have been a better vibe!
Fascinating! Great video! I love the soundtrack to Contra on the NES. There was a video where a guy was playing it on drums, but it’s no longer around. The video is newer then the game, but it was still cool to watch and listen to.
Thank you! I once had a video of me playing Contra on drums here on this channel - it's hidden though now that I shifted all the music covers to the Retro Game Remix channel!
I've been on a similar journey recently. Mario Kart 8 was definitely my biggest exposure to jazz-fusion, even if all I knew it as was "big band but with guitars too" since I'd never heard it anywhere else before. After years of listening to swinging big bands from the 50s through to now, i stumbled across another video about Dimension playing on the Mario Kart 8 score and it all clicked. I had heard of T-Square before as well, but now i was finally going out of my way to listen to them. It all came full circle - you can even hear the "Mario Kart Lick" in some previous Dimension performances. But the real shocker was when I found a video from my childhood - a ridiculous toy commercial VHS for model trains and cars called "TOMICA WORLD" (UK Version). As a kid i watched this religiously, especially because I loved Thomas and had the very same toys from the video. But seeing it again, I realised the music was also of a Japanese city pop / jazz-fusion sound. This has been burned into my subconscious since before I even started playing Sonic and Mario. I basically came full circle twice over - first the inspiration behind my favourite game music, and then the realisation of where I'd heard it first, many years ago. Anyway, I'm hooked on this sound and don't know if it'll go away. "T-Square X Dimension Jubilee Live" is on repeat for me every day or so. I must have ten different live recordings of Japanese Soul Brothers in my playlist now, too.
I loved this video so much. Music is such a big thing in gaming and to know some of the inspiration behind it all is thrilling. I really loved Teikoku Academy’s theme from Yasunori Mitsuda in Inazuma Eleven because you can clearly hear the inspiration from Holst’s Mars. That piece is special to me since I’ve performed it as part of the youth orchestra I was in.
That's a great story!!! I really like that a lot. Thank you for watching. Music is such an important part of my life so I really just wanted to make this specific video cause this band has really changed me for the better!
You have a great way of presenting stuff, instant subscribe. I love those old bands from Japan and the moment I heard them I understood why it all reminded me of music from my favorite games and anime from the 80s/90s, but I had no idea about those songs and the link to specific tracks. Awesome video man.
Ha I literally had this experience over the last 2 days after randomly stumbling on a t square video and then watching the natural live show. Everything clicked into place and makes sense now! Hard to overstate the impact of game music back in the 90s with no internet and not having everything at your fingertips. What a great band and uplifting sound.
I'm glad tsquare is getting some attention. Casopeia tends to overshadow this band, mostly because I think they fit the Japanese city pop sound that has trended in recent years
Totally agree. I prefer T-Square over any other Japanese band personally. Casiopea is really great though! There’s loads of music between the two. Also recommend masayoshi Takanaka- super great musician!
So I clicked thinking either Yellow Magic Orchestra, or Casiopea... and of course it's another incredible Japanese group that I had never heard of that have made such an impact! Will be putting T-Square in rotation now. I love what the Japanese have done with western music. They have such a fresh yet accessible take (with their usual measure of high professionalism).
T-Squares album Adventures is like a compilation of video game music years before video games started getting music like it. 🤩 There's some flavour of Castlevania, F-Zero and many other games on it. Still one of my favourite albums.
After listening to and loving seafoam shoreline, and seeing this, I think you’d make a sick producer for a jazz pop album. As a big fan of pop music as well, I’d love to see a new artist dabble into something different, singing over well produced tracks like seafoam with a catchy melody would be sick.
Would be great! I learned a lot about songwriting and production when I had a studio for a few years. I’d love to give it another go for sure. Glad you like Seafoam shoreline!!!
This is so cool to hear a side by side comparison! I never knew! Okay maybe a little but I did not realize how many there were!
Great vid, was not aware of T-Square and the connections to older game music. Very Interesting.
Thanks! There's lot of connections but I think the most prominent is T-Square. Definitely worth checking out.
I love hearing the inspiration to a lot of my favorite classics. I would love to see a follow up to this to hear who else were inspired by bands or music artists.
Great idea! I'll do some research!
I had always heard of T-Square but never listened. Will absolutely been putting these albums on.
Great video as always!
Definitely! I'd recommend starting with "TRUTH" or "Adventures". Classic albums right there!
This video came to me because I went down a Cassiopea rabbit hole and I remember listening to the first or 2nd track of their self titled Cassiopea album and thinking this sounds like the opening race sequence for some tracks in Mario Kart
ALL THE T-SQUARE
Great video. I had a really similar experience to you. If you're a Castlevania fan, Swallow by Casiopea (track 6 on their self-titled 1979 release) might sound familiar to you. Hearing that for the first time while spinning the record was really fun.
Absolutely. I’m a massive Casiopea fan! Mint jams was the first jazz fusion vinyl I got and then I just went crazy on Discogs and bought all Casiopea’s 80s discography on vinyl and most T-Square on vinyl 😂
@@ErekLadd I've always got my eye out for an affordable copy of Mint Jams. That was the first Japanese jazz fusion album I heard (recommended randomly via UA-cam!) and I love it. I got Cross Point and Make Up City off Discogs just before COVID hit and the price of shipping records from Japan to the UK went through the roof.
@@shinynewjb I feel you. I was buying in bulk off Discogs from Japan because DHL was the only carrier shipping over that period and one record was $50 shipped to me in australia. So it made sense to just clear out and just pay $50 for multiple records rather than just one. If I recall I think there’s a reprint of mint jams going around that may be cheaper than the original pressing!
I randomly heard T-Square and Casiopeia on Spotify "Discover Weekly" after listening to a lot of City Pop stuff. I immediately recognized some Sonic and Mario music in their songs and instantly fell in love with these bands.
Love this, Japanese Jazz Fusion is a genre that always puts me in a good mood!
I've been playing Sonic Adventure on the good old Dreamcast recently and some of the songs on the ost really give off the Casiopea/T-Square vibe. Heck I put in a T-Square CD in the system's built in cd player & the aesthetic along with the music could not have been a better vibe!
Fascinating! Great video! I love the soundtrack to Contra on the NES. There was a video where a guy was playing it on drums, but it’s no longer around. The video is newer then the game, but it was still cool to watch and listen to.
Thank you! I once had a video of me playing Contra on drums here on this channel - it's hidden though now that I shifted all the music covers to the Retro Game Remix channel!
I've been on a similar journey recently. Mario Kart 8 was definitely my biggest exposure to jazz-fusion, even if all I knew it as was "big band but with guitars too" since I'd never heard it anywhere else before.
After years of listening to swinging big bands from the 50s through to now, i stumbled across another video about Dimension playing on the Mario Kart 8 score and it all clicked. I had heard of T-Square before as well, but now i was finally going out of my way to listen to them. It all came full circle - you can even hear the "Mario Kart Lick" in some previous Dimension performances.
But the real shocker was when I found a video from my childhood - a ridiculous toy commercial VHS for model trains and cars called "TOMICA WORLD" (UK Version). As a kid i watched this religiously, especially because I loved Thomas and had the very same toys from the video. But seeing it again, I realised the music was also of a Japanese city pop / jazz-fusion sound. This has been burned into my subconscious since before I even started playing Sonic and Mario. I basically came full circle twice over - first the inspiration behind my favourite game music, and then the realisation of where I'd heard it first, many years ago.
Anyway, I'm hooked on this sound and don't know if it'll go away. "T-Square X Dimension Jubilee Live" is on repeat for me every day or so. I must have ten different live recordings of Japanese Soul Brothers in my playlist now, too.
I loved this video so much. Music is such a big thing in gaming and to know some of the inspiration behind it all is thrilling. I really loved Teikoku Academy’s theme from Yasunori Mitsuda in Inazuma Eleven because you can clearly hear the inspiration from Holst’s Mars. That piece is special to me since I’ve performed it as part of the youth orchestra I was in.
That's a great story!!! I really like that a lot. Thank you for watching. Music is such an important part of my life so I really just wanted to make this specific video cause this band has really changed me for the better!
You have a great way of presenting stuff, instant subscribe. I love those old bands from Japan and the moment I heard them I understood why it all reminded me of music from my favorite games and anime from the 80s/90s, but I had no idea about those songs and the link to specific tracks. Awesome video man.
Ha I literally had this experience over the last 2 days after randomly stumbling on a t square video and then watching the natural live show. Everything clicked into place and makes sense now! Hard to overstate the impact of game music back in the 90s with no internet and not having everything at your fingertips. What a great band and uplifting sound.
I'm glad tsquare is getting some attention. Casopeia tends to overshadow this band, mostly because I think they fit the Japanese city pop sound that has trended in recent years
Totally agree. I prefer T-Square over any other Japanese band personally. Casiopea is really great though! There’s loads of music between the two. Also recommend masayoshi Takanaka- super great musician!
Another great T Square Song is Megalith which something Namco lifted for Rolling Thunder 3 as Damnbad.
So I clicked thinking either Yellow Magic Orchestra, or Casiopea... and of course it's another incredible Japanese group that I had never heard of that have made such an impact! Will be putting T-Square in rotation now. I love what the Japanese have done with western music. They have such a fresh yet accessible take (with their usual measure of high professionalism).
Yeah, highly recommend T-Square!!! So good.
never knew any of this! so cool!
Super cool hey! I really enjoyed connecting the dots here a few years ago with this band and some classic game tunes!
T-Squares album Adventures is like a compilation of video game music years before video games started getting music like it. 🤩
There's some flavour of Castlevania, F-Zero and many other games on it.
Still one of my favourite albums.
T-Square's Adventures is definitely one of the most impactful albums ever. Not a single skippable track on that one.
some music kick your ass, some touch your heart. T-Square's music did both at the same time.
Well said!!
After listening to and loving seafoam shoreline, and seeing this, I think you’d make a sick producer for a jazz pop album. As a big fan of pop music as well, I’d love to see a new artist dabble into something different, singing over well produced tracks like seafoam with a catchy melody would be sick.
Would be great! I learned a lot about songwriting and production when I had a studio for a few years. I’d love to give it another go for sure. Glad you like Seafoam shoreline!!!
i think the lava reef one is a bit of a stretch beyond somewhat similar instrumentation
Dazzling by Casiopea blew my mind
Same!!! Such a great track.
I always thought Guardia Millennial Fair from Chrono Trigger sounded like Sing for the Day by Styx!
I think you're onto something there!
yes I felt the same way back in 2010 when i started listening to japaese fusion.. .I liked how it was a secret back then......
I was listening to Casio’s and said “damn this sounds like Nintendo 😂😂😂 well I wasn’t wrong 😂😂 great video, cheers
Definitely not wrong!! Thanks for tuning in!
T-Square made me enjoy F1 even more!
Definitely check out the F1 Grand Prix album that’s out there. Most of the T Square guys worked on that soundtrack and it’s AWESOME!
@@ErekLadd I already did! They sound great!
So.... When you getting a EWI? That's the real question 😂
I haven't looked into one yet but I would love to try it!!!! Also would love to try sax out as well. Never say never!
@@ErekLadd oh my that would be awesome