Soundtrack September: Streets of Rage

Game: Streets of Rage (1991)
Platform: Genesis/Mega Drive
Composer: Koshiro Yūzō

One more Koshiro soundtrack this month. My favorite FM synth musician scored the entire trilogy of Streets of Rage games (Bare Knuckle in Japan) with a distinct techno/hip hop vibe – the perfect soundtrack to the circus of fisticuffs that constituted each game in the series. As raging as the title would have us believe the streets are, they sound pretty chill to me.

The original SOR has the trilogy's most iconic tracks, although SOR2 and 3 would reach new technical heights as Koshiro's expertise with the hardware improved. Shuffling R&B beats that bring to mind late-80s-early-90s radio hits like Bobby Brown's "Every Little Step" and Dino's "I Like It" give Streets of Rage just enough cheese and more than enough style. This game also has one of the best "stage clear" jingles around.