Discography of The Streets of Rage Series - Streets of Rage Soundtrack

Streets of Rage Soundtrack

(all tracks by Yuzo Koshiro; produced by Koshiro and Kyoji Kato)

When the first game's development began in 1990, Koshiro was influenced by electronic dance music, or club music, specifically techno and house music, and wanted to be the first to introduce those sounds to chiptune and video game music. Many tracks also have a warm, Caribbean quality, and the soundtrack shows the influence of contemporary R&B and hip hop music; Yuzo Koshiro said that he was influenced by black music, which was growing together with house and techno, so he "naturally began to think about taking them all in." He was particularly influenced by "the swinging rhythms that characterized breakbeats," especially the "ground beat" (used in Soul II Soul's "Keep On Movin'" in 1988 and Enigma's "Sadeness (Part I)" in 1989) which inspired the "The Street of Rage" title track. Other artists who influenced him include Black Box, Maxi Priest and Caron Wheeler around the time of composing.

The soundtracks for the Streets of Rage series were composed using then outdated PC-88 hardware alongside Koshiro's own original audio programming language. According to Koshiro: "For Bare Knuckle I used the PC88 and an original programming language I developed myself. The original was called MML, Music Macro Language. It's based on NEC's BASIC program, but I modified it heavily. It was more a BASIC-style language at first, but I modified it to be something more like Assembly. I called it ‘Music Love'. I used it for all the Bare Knuckle Games." The soundtrack versions of the tracks use the NEC PC-88's Sound Board II (Yamaha YM2608) sound chip rather than the Sega Mega Drive's Yamaha YM2612 chip.

He said the most important element in recreating club music sounds for the games was to emulate the timbre and percussion sounds of Roland's rhythm machines (the most famous models being the TR-606, TR-707, TR-808, and TR-909), stating that "it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that that sound defined the genre." In order to achieve this, he used the YM2612 sound chip's 8-bit PCM (ADPCM) channel in conjunction with the other FM synthesis channels, with the Roland TR-909's kick and snare sounds sampled by the PCM, while the FM synth replicated the metallic sounds, hi-hat, and cymbal. He also replicated other percussion sounds such as the conga using detailed FM synth and MML programming. Beyond percussion, he also simulated the "unique, piercing" sounds of the Roland TB-303, an analog synthesizer that remains the most widely used bass synthesizer in club music (particularly acid and psychedelic music). He stated that it took "a good deal of painstaking work to recreate the sound of analog synths on FM synth, which lacks filter circuits, but I accomplished it using the same programming techniques as with the rhythm section."

GamesRadar considers the soundtracks to have some of the best video game music ever composed.

1. The Street of Rage
2. Player Select
3. Fighting in the Street
4. Attack of the Barbarian
5. Round Clear
6. Dilapidated Town
7. Moon Beach
8. Keep the Groovin'
9. Beatnik on the Ship
10. Stealthy Steps
11. Violent Breathing
12. The Last Soul
13. Big Boss
14. My Little Baby (Good Ending)
15. You Became the Bad Guy!
16. Up & Up
17. The Super Three
18. Name Entry
19. Game Over
20. The Street of Rage (Arrange version)
21. Fighting in the Street (Arrange version)
22. The Last Soul (Arrange version)
23. Keep the Groovin' (Arrange version)
24. You Became the Bad Guy! (Arrange version)