Episode 24 -The 4th of July in December

It’s a special holiday episode of Shujin Academy VGM Club! We’ll celebrate the 4th of July by playing lots of American-themed songs about America! There aren’t any other notable holidays in December, are there?  Special thanks for this episode goes out to: Fellow VGM podcaster Jameson of barSILENCE podcast for contributing cover art. You can and should find barSILENCE podcast wherever you download podcasts, and check out his website at a barSILENCE.com.  Fellow VGM podcaster Drew Mackie of Singing Mountain for influencing my podcast in general and this episode in particular. He did an episode called “What Does America Sound Like” that shares two and a half tracks with this one, and that episode was an inspiration for this one. I didn’t think of his episode until after I’d assembled the playlist for this episode, but Drew had the idea to use fighting games to explore Americana long before I did, so he deserves credit for originating the idea. You can find Singing Mountain’s episode about American music at  https://open.spotify.com/episode/1scAQwRwxlD04hB0zj8heS?si=bd72d2343e444674  Save Point Sam for reminding me of the real reason for the season. If you want to reach me, you can email me at [email protected]. You can find me on Mastodon at @[email protected]. I’m active on Tumblr at https://www.tumblr.com/shujinacademyvgmclub, and on Instagram at ShujinAcademyVGMClub. And I can be found on Discord as ProfessorTom#7512. Episodes of the show are posted on my YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCw6CIUs81aap58U1EuaaFdA. Please leave me a five star rating on iTunes or Spotify or wherever you’re finding this episode. Track Listing: 00:00 - Show Tagline 00:09 - Double Dribble (arcade) - The Star Spangled Banner [composers: Francis Scott Key, John Stafford Smith, Unknown Arranger] 01:16 - Intro Talk Segment 04:21 - Super Street Fighter II HD Remix - Combat and Service (Guile’s Theme) [composers: Yoko Shimomura, Big Giant Circles, Justin R. Coleman] 06:09 - Street Fighter Alpha 3 - Plight (Guile’s Theme) [composer: Yuki Iwai] 09:09 - Talk Segment 09:39 - Capcom vs SNK 2 - Stimulation [composer: Satoshi Ise] 11:56 - Talk Segment 12:46 - King of Fighters ‘98 (Neo Geo) - SLUM No. 5 [composers: Masahiko Hataya, Hideki Asanaka, Marimo, Yasuo Yamate] 15:56 - Talk Segment 16:35 - Captain America and the Avengers (Arcade) - Stage 1 [composers: ] 18:15 - Captain America and the Avengers (Arcade) - Stage 5 [composers: Tatsuya Kiuchi and Tomoyoshi Sato] 21:20 - Talk Segment 21:53 - Top Gear - Las Vegas [composer: Barry Leitch] 28:49 - Talk Segment 29:52 - Rad Mobile - Soup Up [composer: Kazuhiko Nagai] 32:59 - Talk Segment 33:27 - Turbo OutRun (Arcade) - Rush A Difficulty [composer: Yasuhiro Takagi] 36:55 - Talk Segment 37:47 - Earthbound - Theme of Onett [composer: Keiichi Suzuki] 40:07 - Earthbound - Theme of Fourside [composer: Keiichi Suzuki] 43:28 - Talk Segment 44:03 - Civilization VI - America - The Industrial Era [composers: Steven Foster and Geoff Knorr] 48:34 - Outro Talk Segment 50:01 - Bad Dudes (Arcade) - Ending Theme (US Version) [composers: James Sanderson, Azusa Hara, Hiroaki Yoshida] 51:36 - Bonus Talk Segment 25:23 - Chocobo’s Happy Christmas [composers: Nobuo Uematsu and Masashi Hamauzu]