A lot of purist Sonic fans were pretty excited when they heard that the upcoming port of Sonic CD would include the game’s original Japanese soundtrack. If you are one of those purists, prepare to be mildly-to-moderately disappointed. As you can see in the video above, the lyrics accompanying Sonic CD’s original music are nowhere to be found.
According to Christian “The Taxman” Whitehead, this is likely due to that notorious C-word that loves to interrupt and hinder ports of old games – copyright.
I know it’s a bit of a bummer that the vocals had to be left out. It’s definitely not something due to laziness or something silly. I couldn’t tell you the circumstances, but at least from my understanding there are some rights associated with the lyrics themselves.
My guess is that since Casey Rankin is no longer alive, there might be problems negotiating the use of the lyrics outside of Japan. Please, don’t take this as gospel though since I don’t work in legal.
Well that’s a bummer. I’m not too married to Sonic CD’s music, but if I’m going to hear the original Japanese tunes for the first time, I’d definitely prefer to hear them the way they were initially meant to be heard. What about you folks?
[Source: Sonic Stadium via Sega Bits]
It looks like the only way to experience Sonic CD ‘properly’ this generation is a Wii and the Japanese copy of Sonic Gems Collection. You at least get all three Streets of Rage games on the JPN release to soften the blow.
I wasn’t too fond of the rap
Thats sad!…
I don’t believe the rights to songs are just “lost” after a person passes away. Either the recording studio or her business people would own some sort of rights to the lyrics.
Regardless, this is pretty unfortunate because the video above is seriously lacking without the vocals in my opinion. I have to go play Sonic Jam now to remind myself of how awesome that song was.
But this is coming from the same person who enjoys the Sonic R soundtrack. Take that as you will.