- Trombone Champ co-creator Dan Vecchitto has released ‘UFO 50,000,’ a massive two-hour mashup album.
- The project blends hip-hop vocals with Eirik Suhrke’s original 8-bit soundtrack for all 50 games in the UFO 50 collection.
- The mixtape features clever pairings like Lil Nas X with Grimstone and House of Pain with Waldorf’s Journey.
In the late 2000s, video game music mashups were at the peak of internet culture, fueled by iconic projects like Team Teamwork’s ‘The Ocarina of Rhyme.’ That nostalgic, high-energy era has officially returned with ‘UFO 50,000,’ a sprawling, two-hour mixtape that mashes up classic hip-hop vocals with the soundtracks of all 50 games featured in the retro-inspired collection UFO 50.
The ambitious passion project is the brainchild of Dan Vecchitto, co-owner of Holy Wow Games and co-creator of the viral rhythm game Trombone Champ. Vecchitto’s journey began after he was invited to guest on ‘The Secret Lives of Games’ podcast. He started by mixing a track from Onion Delivery with Dorrough’s ‘Ice Cream Paint Job.’ What was meant to be a quick creative exercise soon turned into a year-long obsession to complete the entire 50-game roster.
Mashing Up Retro Chiptunes and Hip-Hop
The resulting mixtape, now streaming on YouTube, is a brilliant exercise in thematic and musical pairing. Among the standout tracks is ‘Grimstone Road,’ which pitch-bends Lil Nas X’s vocals from ‘Old Town Road’ to align with the western RPG Grimstone. Meanwhile, ‘Still Mortol’ hilariously pairs the Geto Boys’ morbid classic ‘Still’ with Mortol—a game about sacrificing your own characters to progress.
Vecchitto’s personal favorite on the tracklist is ‘Waldorf Around,’ which sets House of Pain’s high-energy ‘Jump Around’ to the music of the walrus-themed platformer Waldorf’s Journey. According to Vecchitto, fitting the song’s complex, non-traditional time signature into a standard 4/4 hip-hop structure required immense audio chopping, ultimately transforming a rowdy party anthem into something dreamlike and ethereal.
Ultimately, ‘UFO 50,000’ is as much a testament to Vecchitto’s editing skills as it is to Eirik Suhrke’s masterfully versatile UFO 50 soundtrack. For fans of retro gaming, clever production, or classic hip-hop, this two-hour mixtape is a must-listen journey through one of the year’s best indie gaming achievements.
Source: Original Coverage
Leave a Reply