::The Immortals :: Mortal Kombat - The Album::
Ah, the days of arcade gaming. Spending all your parent’s quarters for no reward other than getting your initials on a high score list, unless you were lucky enough to have a 3 letter name. One game in 1992 sprung more controversy in the arcade world than any other. It was Mortal Kombat. Using digitalized images of actual people, it differentiated itself from the more anime style of other fighting games like Street Fighter II. Plus its involvement with blood spatter and the ever popular “Fatality”, there was a lot for politicians to be angry about. All this popularity, good and bad, helped enhance the excitement over the title. This lead to its first full motion picture, appropriately titled “Mortal Kombat” in the year 1995.
The album
Mortal Kombat - The Album uses different types of techno, j-pop, and rock to feed directly off of the kung-fu style of the motion picture. Using the main characters of the movie and the first game:
Johnny Cage, Kano, Sub-Zero, Liu Kang, Scorpion, Sonya, Rayden, and
Goro, the album gives a nice theme song for each based on their style and history. Such as
Rayden the Thunder God. His song on the album is mostly techno, and electronica. Giving nice house type style techno and rap to explain his origin and his involvement in the Mortal Kombat world. The nice, upbeat sounds really bring the Mortal Kombat feel to it.
The characters from the Earthrealm,
Sonya Blade, Johnny Cage, and
Liu Kang all have a different sound to them.
Sonya’s Tune begins with some nice electronica to get the kung fu mode in, and it swiftly turns into a speed-pop and rap mix. Sonya was on the police force chasing after
Kano, which is what convinces her to be in the Mortal Kombat. It goes on to explain how she has all the energy and power which directly links to her ego, which you get a feel for in the movie.
Johnny Cage has more of a J-Pop feel to it. It starts off with people shouting
“Prepare Yourself” then goes on with his story. Johnny Cage, a martial arts actor from California, is not afraid to die, because it would get him lots of publicity. His ego is again, explained much better in the movie. The mortal kombat, techno feel kicks in and instead of the first person rapping, like in
Sonya’s song, its people representing him as the young, strong, fighter who is fearless.
Liu Kang, the last Earthrealm fighter, has a much more authentic feel. Or at least in the beginning. It begins with some Chinese bell sounding techno beats. It builds into the disembodied voice that is ever so popular in the Mortal Kombat series. It goes into a house beat featuring some sounds from the video game, like his groans and battle cries.
The ninjas might be some of the more popular characters in the Mortal Kombat series.
Sub-Zero, with his ability to freeze people and manipulate ice, and
Scorpion with his palm spear and the fiery under skull which engulfs people in flame, have definitely made their mark.
Sub-Zero’s theme song begins with a Coldplay-esque piano intro with some Chinese drums and cymbals to enhance the sound. This sound and lyric combo make it very J-Poppy. No real explanation behind the character here, just some references to his heart being cold and a mysterious past. Some really nice techno mixes really get that Mortal Kombat, pre-combat feel.
Scorpion‘s track begins with a really deep voice (Scorpion) speaking
“Scorpion. Lost soul. Bent on revenge.” Then it gets all techno-ey on us. A very high voice, possibly a tenor, starts speaking with a pop tune “Lost sould with a revenge…” Then it uses some nice game voices of
Scorpion’s ever popular tag-lines
C’mere”, and
“Get over here”. More house music kicks in and the same tenor voice comes back into play.
The outworld prince, otherwise known as
Goro has his own song too. Even though he wasn’t a playable character, he was still one of the most memorable ones from the game for his immense size, his pony tail and oh yeah, his had four arms which the size of one fist was larger than the average man’s torso. This song is the darkest on the album. Opening with some really cryptic synth, it continues to tell his story. How he was born on a distant planet, had four arms, and has a prince he was trained to fight…to conquer. The vocals sound a bit cheesy when they yell his name, but its all good. With some woman screaming in the background, it gets a little more intense. This is a really great techno song that ends with some more haunting synth.
The last aspect of the album is the theme music. There is two different mixes of themes here. The first one,
Techno Syndrome, is the more authentic version, in that it sounds much more similar to the one that we all have heard. Beginning with a gong, it goes into a nice techno build up with a deep voice chanting “Test Your Might”, which was a popular mini-game from the first arcade hit. Then the famous “Mortal Kombat!” holler comes into the mix and it goes into the famous Mortal Kombat techno theme song, sometimes confused with the Mission: Impossible theme. There is occasional speaking of the main characters,
Johnny Cage, Kano, Sub-Zero, Liu Kang, Scorpion, Sonya, Rayden, and
Goro. The second version,
Hypnotic House has much more of a house style techno vibe to it. This time alternating from “Test Your Might” and “Mortal Kombat” in the opening. Then the bass kicks in and it gets more upbeat. Back to the saying the main characters, then it breaks down with some more sound clips from the game. The mix is pretty good, but the other one was better. Although it is nice to have two different versions of the theme on one album.
