Formative Albums, Part 7: The Best of Crush 40

The Best of Crush 40: Super Sonic Songs by Crush 40

While I have a couple friends who could easily claim credit for this, I'm pretty sure I discovered Crush 40 from, of all places, the Smash Bros. Brawl soundtrack. Every other character got either original or remixed versions of some of their most iconic series songs, and so did Sonic the Hedgehog for at least a few of them. Admittedly, I was a Nintendo Power kid, firmly on Nintendo's side during that era's console wars, so I never played a Sonic game besides the first one. Still, even I can recognize the Green Hill and Scrap Brain Zones. I mean come on.

I was not, however, expecting the Crush 40 songs.

So, APPARENTLY Crush 40 is a sort of in-house rock band with one of Sega's composers and a vocalist who is usually Johnny Gioeli, though they've had many others depending on the game/song/era/circumstances. (Crush 40 fans have strong opinions and passionately-defended tier lists regarding their favorite and least favorite Crush 40 singers. I'm admittedly still not familiar with a lot of them, but I will say at this point that I like Tony Harnell more than a lot of people seem to.) It turned out that Sonic games have been using actual for-real rock songs, like with lyrics and vocals and everything, in game! I never knew.

Having loved what I heard in Smash, I went on to track down Crush 40's self-titled album, and from there onto their "best of" album. There are quite a few much-beloved tracks on their self-titled album that didn't make the cut on the best of (again, hi Tony Harnell) so one does not completely obsolete the other. However, the new stuff included in returned is generally a good trade overall. Some of my favorite tracks include "Live Life," "Free," and "Sonic Heroes," which I am told should be taken as proof of an inverse relationship between the quality of any given Crush 40 song and the game it's from. (Major exceptions: Other favorites include "Watch Me Fly" and "Is It You," both of which appear to be unaffiliated original compositions and not, like, from anything.)

Given how most of Jun Senoue's Sega composing career has revolved around racing games and Sonic, Crush 40 songs understandably are all about GO FAST, LIVE LIFE TO THE FULLEST, CONQUER EVERY OBSTACLE IN YOUR WAY THROUGH THE POWER OF FOLLOWING YOUR DREAMS AND NEVER SURRENDERING NO MATTER WHAT. I kind of expect a giant robot anime to spontaneously appear halfway through any given song, rather than a blue hedgehog. It's scenery-chewing cheesiness at its finest.

It's also actually pretty effective at its intended message. I ran two half-marathons back before my knees went bad, and listening to Crush 40 was my secret weapon that kept me motivated and going at full steam throughout the second. (I finished almost 15 minutes faster than the first, and yes, most of that is probably because I was very injured in the first, but still! I'd like to think being CRUSH 40 MOTIVATED played at least a small role, too.) I associate them so strongly with pushing myself, in fact, that I actually can't listen to them if I'm not. If I've recently fallen off the exercise wagon, or otherwise am not currently giving everything my 110% best, it just... feels wrong, somehow. It's like I don't deserve this music if I'm not providing the kind of epic action montage to fit with it.

Fortunately, we went through this one again for writeup purposes on a day when I'd just done an hour-long DDPY workout and was up all night cooking the next week's worth of food and also doing laundry, so I think we're probably okay.