New music for the week of 12/9/2013 + FireRed & LeafGreen soundtrack now on iTunes

As usual, three new Pokemon X & Y tracks:

-Camphrier Town
-Route 8
-Cyllage City

Additionally, the Pokemon FireRed and LeafGreen soundtrack is now on iTunes. The collection includes the Japanese vocal tracks.

New music for the week of 12/2/2013

Three new X & Y tracks this week:

-Gate
-Lumiose City
-Professor Sycamore's Theme

New Legendary Treasures interview before tonight's Instrumental PIRN

It's taken some time, but I've finally finished an interview from one of last month's Pokemon TCG Legendary Treasures prereleases. That interview debuts before tonight's Instrumental PIRN, which starts at 11pm Eastern/10pm Central. We discuss the following cards:

-Keldeo EX
-Mew EX
-Emboar
-Energy Switch

New music for the week of 11/25/2013

Three battle themes from X & Y this week:

-Battle! (Wild Pokémon)
-Battle! (Trainer Battle)
-Battle! (Gym Leader)

New music for the week of 11/18/2013

Three more tracks from the Pokemon X & Y soundtrack:

-Friends Theme "A New Meeting"
-Battle! (Friend)
-Santalune City

New music for the week of 11/11/2013

Pokemon X & Y music starts on the station this week:

-Kalos Region Theme
-Vaniville Town
-Aquacorde Town

Remember the soundtrack is available for purchase on iTunes.

Daylight Savings Time ends today + "Sky Ball" - The parody you'll never hear

Just a friendly reminder that Daylight Savings Time ends today, so the station has moved back one hour from -5 GMT to -6 GMT.

In other news:

Okay, so after about three weeks of owning Pokémon X, I finally got through the main game and beat the champion, and did some of the post-game content. Overall I’d say the game was pretty good, but I do have one major complaint. So, there are these new things called Sky Battles where flying and levitating Pokémon are used. They’re not super different from regular battles, but the part of it I find truly disappointing is that to catch Pokémon for these battles there’s no Sky Ball in the game, and…I really wanted to write that Adele parody. Those of you that know me know that I like to write song parodies, and I wanted to write one for this new generation, so when I heard about Sky Battles, I started to get some ideas on what I could do for a “Skyfall” parody. Prior to the game’s release, I bought the song and started listening to it to see how I could transform the lyrics. I won’t share everything I came up with, but here’s a brief outline:

So, the original song starts with a 25-30 second instrumental passage. In a parody there needs to be some indication that this is not the original song, so rather than leave it as is, I planned on putting in a conversation between two people that goes something like, “Did you hear about the new Pokémon games?”, “No, what are they called this time?”, “X and Y”, “What, did they run out of colors?”, you know, stuff like that, then towards the end it’s, “They’ve got this new thing called ‘Sky Battles’”, “Lemme guess, is there a new Sky Ball you can use to catch Pokémon?”. That would serve as sort of the opening to the piece.

Then the actual song would start with, “There is no end. Hold your breath here comes 6^th gen.” Throughout the first verse the theme was going to be, “Here comes more Pokémon-there’s nothing you can do about it-I’ve come to dread this moment-I love it and I loathe it”, which leads into the chorus, “here’s a Sky Ball, for your trouble, we will stand tall, and catch ‘em all-together”, and so on.

The second verse was going to focus on the singer adjusting to the new game’s features and such. I didn’t have too many ideas here-“so why is Honedge weak to dark?” was one of them, but leading into the second chorus I was thinking of using something like, “here’s my charge card number, you can take my cash, ‘cuz we’ll never grow apart!” As if the singer was giving in to their love of Pokémon and buying the game.

After the second chorus, the original song goes into this mostly quiet portion for about 20-25 seconds. I was planning on using it for more exposition-most likely another conversation between the characters from the beginning. After that you have the bridge and the final chorus, and my plan there was to wrap up and have the singer express how they liked the game and how it made them feel as a Pokémon fan, but by this time I really was pretty sure there was no Sky Ball in the game and I put this parody on the back burner, and to be honest, unless the TCG bails me out with a Sky Ball card in one of the first few XY sets it’s just not going to happen.

So, that’s “Sky Ball”, a parody you’ll probably never hear. On a happier note, be sure to check out my interview with Jess Domain from last week if you haven’t already. Thanks.

Two-part Jess Domain interview following today's Top 25 Countdown

I recently conducted an interview with Jess Domain, writer and performer of "We're Coming Home" the ending theme of Pokemon Movie 16. That interview will debut following today's Top 25 Countdown, which starts at 4pm Eastern/3pm Central. In the interview, we discuss her background as an artist, the song, and some of her other work.

Missed it?

New music for the week of 10/21/2013

It's a bit late in getting added, but there's a new song on the station this week:

-We're Coming Home

Pokemon Movie 16 DVD Releases December 3rd

Amazon has recently posted a listing for a DVD of the 16th Pokemon movie. According to the listing, the DVD will be released December 3rd, roughly a month-and-a-half after its debut on Cartoon Network on the 19th of this month. This marks the shortest gap between the premiere of a Pokemon Movie in the US and its DVD release in the post-Arceus Gap era.