I’m a huge fan of Ben Folds Five. Caught them by accident on a side stage at Lollapalooza in 1996 while waiting for The Ramones and went on to see them live eight more times before they disbanded in 2000. They reunited last year and will release their 4th album, The Sound Of Life And Mind on September 18, 2012.
And now to talk about the above clip. The music video for the first single “Do It Anyway” has been produced in cooperation with Chris Hardwick and Lisa Henson, heir to Jim Henson productions. It features the return of another long dormant band, Fraggle Rock. Out of production since 1987, Fraggles have made sparse appearances in Muppet productions over the last decades, thought a feature film remains in pre-production at the Weinstein Company since 2005.
The combination of a beloved band and beloved children’s show is nothing new. In fact, Jim Henson Productions made a video pairing The Muppet Show and Weezer in 2002. Still, the effort is warmly welcomed, as this heralds the return of a band and a TV show that has only been in reruns for most of my adult life.

Can anyone explain why Anna Kendrick was in this video?

Time for one of those rare non-gaming Lost Classics! To be fair, 50 had two video games made featuring him (Bulletproof and Blood in the Sand), and his music has been featured in several video games, so here we go!

In 1999, a then-unknown Queens MC named Curtis Jackson grabbed the music world by the balls with his single How to Rob. The single, in which the rapper fantasized about robbing everyone from Jay-Z to Kirk Franklin catapulted him to the forefront of East Coast Hip Hop, pissing off several artists in the process. He wasn’t done yet though, heading back into the studio to add this controversial banger to his then-upcoming debut, Power of the Dollar. While the song was intended to catapult him to even greater heights, the resulting controversy instead gained him a large amount of infamy, and almost ended his life.

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Ok, I’m going to start off by immediately saying that this list does NOT, in fact, represent my top favorite game themes. Neither does it mean to undermine any of the multitudes of iconic first-level game tunes that didn’t make this list. This list is simply made up of those jingles upon first entering a game’s plane of existence that meant the most to me and why. (and yes, most are from older games)

I see you there with the pitchfork and torch. Don’t try to hide it.

So here are my top 5 most iconic 1st Level tunes from video games.

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Last month, I reported on a fantastic fundraising project started by German video game composer, Chris Huelsbeck (Turrican, The Great Giana Sisters, R-Type, etc.). The fundraiser, based on Kickstarter, was a project started to raise funds for a new fully-orchestrated soundtrack anthology dedicated as a tribute to all three of the Turrican games.

Within 2 weeks of the project start, the entire goal of raising $75,000 in order to fund production was fully amassed, of which Huelsbeck was excited for. However, what he perhaps wasn’t prepared for was for it to nearly double it’s original goal. With less than 2 weeks left of the June 3rd cutoff, the fund has nearly broken $140,000. With this extra support from fans and backers, Huelsbeck has increased the pledge rewards as a thanks for any and all contributions, from signed exclusive merchandise to early beta releases of the anthology music, to a hand-crafted music box featuring Turrican music!

It just goes to show how much dedicated fans are willing to give to pay homage to the great loves of our childhood.

Here’s what appears to be the theme song for the new Care Bears: Welcome to Care-A-Lot cartoon:

The song can be found on the American Greetings web site playing with the new “Care Bears Cheers For All!” game. The video from the clip above was added separately from other footage. An instrumental version of the tune can also be heard in the background of many of the videos that showed up recently introducing the cast of the new Welcome to Care-A-Lot series. It stands to reason this is the theme song for the show, but there has been no specific confirmation of this. We’ll know for sure come June 2nd at 8am when the show premieres on the Hub. How do you like the new theme song?

Check out the Care Bears section of the Hub web site for some new wallpapers and other cool stuff. I’ve included images of some of those below.

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So this is one of those rare non-gaming Lost Classics, but it’s justified since there are plenty of games based on the WWF (or WWE as it’s called now), and there are plenty of games featuring hip hop music.
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Remember back when I did that review about the Amiga and all the games I had remembered playing on it, and said that Turrican 2 was my absolute hands-down favorite because it’s music alone was what helped me find the game again after 15 years? Well, that was an understatement really, because the music of not only Turrican 2, but the entire Turrican series are some of the best of that era of gaming. Composer Chris Hülsbeck really outdid himself when he crafted the music for the Turrican series, going above and beyond what alot of games at the time were doing and cementing himself as a legend in the game music field.

Well now, 20 years after releasing his original Turrican Soundtrack Album, Hülsbeck is stepping it up a notch with a Kickstarter Project to help fund a new Turrican Soundtrack Anthology!

I’d like to create a Turrican Soundtrack Anthology Limited Edition Box Set, with nearly all of the music from the Turrican Series of Games. At least 3 CDs will contain these brand new, pristine studio recordings. Even music pieces that were featured on the 1993 Turrican Soundtrack CD will be newly recorded and arranged to update their sound. Highlights will include for the first time: the whole ‘Turrican 2 Title’, ‘Credits’ (all versions), ‘Metal Stars’, ‘Tower of Morgul’, ‘Unidirectional Flight’, ‘Concerto for Laser and Enemies’ and ‘Hall of Heroes’ – all as full length recordings/arrangements.

To fund the project, Hülsbeck has set a goal at $75,000. Those who donate get special goodies, such as signed copies of the early album release, and other signed memorabilia. So far the project has raised over 20k of the goal in just over 24 hours alone! With a June 3rd deadline, it’s not hard to believe that this dream could become a reality, but not without fan help! Please go donate and help Turrican and Hülsbeck fans relive a bit more of our childhoods!

As our coverage of MAGfest X continues, Sindra managed to get prime viewing for the Earthbound Papas performance at MAGfest X, and captured their entrance and first song!