Super Meat Boy on PS4 and PS Vita will have a new, different soundtrack [UPDATE]
UPDATE: Composer Danny Baranowsky reached out and wrote a blog post detailing his reasons for not licensing out his Super Meat Boy soundtrack to Team Meat for the PS4/PS Vita version, citing the fact that he had terminated his professional relationship with Team Meat a few years ago for undisclosed reasons.
“Hey guys!
Many of you have probably already seen the news, but my soundtrack for Super Meat Boy will not be in the PS4/Vita versions. This is because I no longer have a working relationship with Team Meat. You may also know that I did not do the soundtrack for The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth. I made a decision a couple years ago to end my working relationship with them for many reasons that don’t really need to be listed here. I apologize for any disappointment this may cause my fans.
I’ve heard rumors that there were creative differences between us; this is not true, or at least was never communicated to me.
I own all the rights to my music, and Team Meat approached me to license the music for the PS4 and Vita versions. I didn’t feel like the license fee and exposure through PSN they offered was enough to make me seriously consider accepting the deal. I decided to decline their offer. I wish them and the new artists the best of luck with the game.
I genuinely appreciate all the outreach from fans today. I love you guys!
-danny”
Original Post:
There’s good news and bad news regarding the Oct. 6 release of Super Meat Boy on PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita. The good news is it’ll be free for PlayStation Plus subscribers. The bad news? Danny Baranowsky’s original, stellar soundtrack will not be featured and instead will be replaced by entirely new music.
In a post made by Team Meat’s Tommy Refenes on the US PlayStation Blog, the developer explained that the team couldn’t secure the rights to include the old soundtrack with the PlayStation release. To make amends for this, Team Meat employed a whole slew of other game composers to provide new music.
Matthias Bossi and Jon Evans’ Ridiculon (The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth) will provide music for most of the game, scoring The Forest, Hell, The Rapture and The End worlds, in addition to the jingles, intro, title screen and cutscene music. Additionally, David “Scattle” Scatliffe (Hotline Miami 1 & 2) was brought on for The Hospital and the Salt Factory levels, meanwhile Laura Shigihara (Plants vs. Zombies) will fill in for The Cotton Alley world.
Super Meat Boy celebrates its fifth anniversary this year. In our review of the original Super Meat Boy Special Edition Soundtrack, Harris deemed Baranowsky’s soundtrack to be full of “amazing content, ranging from high-octane electronic mixes to blockbuster orchestral tracks” and “definitely enhances the gameplay and character of the game, and even casual listeners are bound to love the music.”
While original composer Danny Baranowsky has not yet made a public statement regarding this news, we’ve reached out to him to see if we can find out what the hoopla’s all about.
Posted on October 2, 2015 by Patrick Kulikowski. Last modified on October 5, 2015.
About the Author
Patrick Kulikowski I'm a Rutgers University graduate with aspirations of joining the game industry. I have a strong love for videogames and their music. When not serving as a contributing writer for Game Music Online and Gameranx, you'll see me working on my game music drum cover project "VGdrum" and managing my Breath of Fire Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube fan pages.
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