How Nakamura Rolled Around With Sonic

As stated in my previous blog, I talked slightly about Sonic The Hedgehog's composer and producer Masato Nakamura briefly, but I still wanted to tell more about Nakamura and this career before, during and after his work for SEGA. Even though Nakamura only worked on the first two Sonic games he is strongly remember for them in the gaming community.

Before Nakamura was created iconic music of Sonic, he was, and still is, the bass guitarist for the Japanese Pop (J-Pop) band Dreams Come True. Dreams Come True debut self-titled album in 1989, which would go on to sell more than a one million copies. In 1990, SEGA picked Nakamura to compose Sonic's soundtrack and Sonic was painted on Dreams Come True's tour bus revealing Sonic for the first time. Nakamura was quoted by Sonic City, defunct webiste, saying that he really wanted to sign on because he saw SEGAs passion to beat Nintendo's Mario. All was going up for Nakamura musical career.

Nakamura during the time he was creating music for Sonic Team, he quoted by Sonic City saying it was the perfect time to make the soundtrack because it was the turning point in music industry where it was shifting into the computers and the soundtrack was made on an Atari computer. Nakamura would continue to compose and produce the sequel Sonic The Hedgehog 2. Much like the first Sonic soundtrack, Nakamura composed the soundtrack was if it were a movie by creating music based on atmosphere and feeling of the zones. Sonic Team gave Nakamura almost complete musical control over Sonic's soundtrack. Nakamura would continue to knock Sonic 2's soundtrack, but this would be his last composed and produced Sonic soundtrack.

Sonic Team would drop Nakamura from composer of their next game Sonic The Hedgehog 3 because of financial disagreements. Nakamura would continue his music career with his band Dreams Come True, but he didn't leave SEGA on bad terms. Nakamura in 2006 remixed his song "Sweet, Sweet, Sweet" from Sonic 2 for the Sonic The Hedgehog (2006) game. He also allowed Wave Master to remix his music for the game Sonic Generations. Nakamura's music still lives on in Sonic soundtracks that are released today and will continue to in the future.