This week’s Way Out Wednesday brings you that video game icon, Donkey Kong. This album gets credit for trying to give Donkey Kong a little backstory (as improbable as at might be). Interspersed through the story are some songs. We’ll feature some of the songs here, and I’ll do my best to fill you in on the story.
Here’s a catchy (and very ’80s) theme for DK himself. One note about the song: I don’t know whyit speeds up like that. The record isn’t warped (although some of the people involved with the record might be). I think it’s supposed to remind you of when the game gets faster and faster. Or the original version was warped when it was recorded and transferred to the record in the same condition. This is already more time than I’ve spent in years worrying about Donkey Kong.
The story opens with the circus coming to town with Donkey Kong as one of its attractions. He used to be part of the zoo, until the zoo closed down and he was sold to the circus. The circus truck passes by the old site of the zoo, now torn down. DK goes there, reminisces, and escapes from the circus truck to head to the construction site. This goes into a song called “The Climber,” which really has nothing whatsoever to do with DK himself. It could just as easily have been a song about Spider-Man. (more…)
This week’s Way Out Wednesday is dedicated to Popdose’s own D.W. Dunphy who left this comment on my very first post back in January: “When are we getting those Kid Stuff Pac-Man songs?” Well, today’s the day! This album is Pac-Man’s Amazing Adventures and it’s produced by Kid Stuff Records, whose records one site describes as sounding like “children’s music made in a condemned elementary school boiler room, under the influence of extremely heavy psychedelics.” Considering the subject of my previous entry, E.T. I Love You and Other Extraterrestrial Songs, was also from Kid Stuff, it’s hard to argue that point!
Okay, this one’s just downright freaky. It’s supposed to be songs inspired by the movie E.T. However, you won’t hear any songs remotely like this in the movie itself!