From Taiko Drum Monster, down to... Taiko Drum Master!
As we've witnessed one of the highest Ura Oni spike bump resurgence in this ending week, today're we're talking about one song whose hardest chart's difficulty degree in its origin game definitely lingers around the complete opposite side of the spectrum!
That's The Way (I Like It)| Version |  |  |  |  |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| All (US) | x1 (110) | x1 (188) | x2 (265) | x2 (265) |
| All (JP) | x1 (110) | x2 (188) | x2 (265) | x7 (364) |
| All (2P) | x1 (88/88) (video) | x2 (148/148) (video) | x2 (184/184) (video) | - |
TDM
105
none
???TDM JP video
One of the four songs in English-friendly PS2 Taiko game whose Oni mode hit the lowest difficulty valley in its original North American release, here's one disco piece that definitely oozes of magic from the 70ies!
That's The Way (I Like It) is the 7th single release from the Florida-based disco/funk band KC and the Sunshine Band, founded in 1973 and named after the two founding pillars of the act: record store employee and part-time TK Records worker Harry Wayne Casey ('KC') and the local junkaroo act known as Miami Junkanoo Band, from which talents on both sides agreed to lend their talents in the then-named KC & The Sunshine Junkaroo Band project for the release of original disco singles stateside. Especially the coming of TK Records's talents in the likes of composer Richard Finch (and several sound engineer, among many others) was what marked the act's first works to hit it big in the worldwide musical scenario in the 70ies. With the disco genre's popularity decline, KC and the Sunshine Band had to disband in 1985 due to poor returning discography sales, but in spite of several internal issues between member fallover and a few unfortunate deaths, Harry Wayne Casey revived the act in 1991 with many of the original band's members and is still performing to this day.
Their indirect contribution to Bandai Namco music gaming made its 7" vinile debut on June 10th, 1975, predating its studio album primer in the band's 2nd album -KC and the Sunshine Band- of about a month (July 6th, 1975). The song is in natural minor with 13 performers on it, from KC as the lead lyricist and Richard Finch as the lead guitarist/percussionist to backing sets in trios for vocals, guitars, saxophones and percussions! Both said album and the single received high acclaim in the United States, peaking yearly charts for the best R&B album and the Cash Box/Billboard R&B Hot 100 charts respectively; the song alone was also a recurring high charter on foreign soil as well, peaking 1st in Canada and the Netherlands with many a European country soon to follow. That's The Way was also one of the few singles in history to chart 1st in any monthly worldwide chart (again, the US Billboard for this case) twice in a single year, on July and later on December in 1975! As a result to the song's everlasting appeal, it was adopted in the score of 1977's Saturday Night Fever movie, while in gaming it found its niche place as a cover piece in music games, with Namco alone starting first in Taiko Drum Master and later for Donkey Konga 2, using the same cover version of TDM with some slight alterations to it.
Musical notation is what we'd describe the song's first Oni chart best, punctuated with small clusters that seldon stray away from the vocal piece. The Japanese TDM's notechart take on it, as with many of the other returning licenses from the US version, takes some more liberties for itself in order to deliver a more challenging chart with 3-note clusters and more handswitch-involving moments in general.
