Back for another 'blast from the past' feature, this time around starring the Taiko origins of quite the oddball shoot-em-up song trilogy...
Xevious Taisou (ゼビウス体操)| Version |  |  |  |  / |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Taiko 4 | - | - | x7 (337) | x10 (337) |
| Taiko 5 | - | x4 (213) | x7 (337) | x9 (337) |
| Taiko PS2 2 | - | x4 (213) | x7 (337) | x9 (337) |
| Taiko PSP 2 | x4 (129) | x6 (213) | x7 (289) | x8 (337) |
Taiko 4, 5, Taiko PS2 2, Taiko PSP 2
130
Gymnastics (Original) -> Game Music
???We've heard it Christmas-themed on this corner before and we've heard it original-styled as well, yet neither of these constitute the earliest invasion of music from Xevious, Namco's 1982 vertical scrolling shooter game. That honor, in fact, goes to quite the peculiar remix which molded the game's base BGM into an... exercise song?! Gymnastics broadcasts in Japan have played quite the heavy role in the country's pop culture, so much so that most radio stations are doing dedicated morning "Radio Taisou" broadcasts to start the day in a fit way, a custom that perseveres to this very day.
This Xevious rendition has been molded under the same spirit, with Yuri Musumi (みすみゆり) as its composer. The lyrics for this Taisou track have been penned by quite the important figure for the Taiko series' history: Ken Nakadate (中館賢), the current overall producer of the entire franchise as well as part-time lyrics writer for many other Namco Original tracks up until the Wii days, most notably including the 2nd Wii title's theme song, Lalala Happiness. While Xevious Taisou's singer has not been officially revealed in any Taiko-related merchandise to date, Kenji Ninuma (新沼謙治) is currently speculated to be the most likely person for the role to be given credit to, given the resemblance with his vocal contributions to the Katamari Damacy videogame series' earliest entries.
Coming from the old days of Taiko gaming, it's expected to see a song getting multiple changes with each passing game: starting from the temporary genre classification and one notechart for both Oni and Muzukashii modes, the Xevious Taisou has progressively got more unique modes and a proper genre label, ending up with a "legit" unique set on the 2nd Playstation Portable Taiko title, as part of its downloadable content lot. The one chart that was made for its debut back in Taiko 4 has remained the same one in all of the song's releases, with some of the earliest charting attempts on 1/16 cluster combinations on a low-flowing BPM value; its low note count, however, is definitely one factor to be accounted for its Oni mode's later rating devaluation, though!
