Crush 40

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Crush 40
Also known as	Sons of Angels[1]
Origin	United States/Japan
Genre(s)	Rock Hard rock Punk Metal Alternative
Years active	1998 – present
Label(s)	Victor Entertainment, Frontiers Records, Wave Master Entertainment
Associated acts	Anthem, Axel Rudi Pell, Hardline, Jun Senoue, Loudness
Website	http://www.junsenoue.com
Members
Jun Senoue Johnny Gioeli Takeshi Taneda Toru Kawamura
Former members
Naoto Shibata Hirotsugu Homma Katsuji Mark Schulman

Crush 40 is a Japanese American rock band originally known as Sons of Angels that was made to create music for the Sega arcade racing game NASCAR Arcade (also known as NASCAR Rubbin' Racing outside of America). The core of the group is the hard rock guitarist and video game composer Jun Senoue and vocalist Johnny Gioeli, who is also the vocalist for the bands Hardline and Axel Rudi Pell. Due to the reunion of the Norwegian band Sons of Angels, the band changed its name to Crush 40, and released its second album under this name.

Since forming, Crush 40 has released two studio albums, Thrill of the Feel and Crush 40. The band has also contributed music to game soundtracks for Wave Master Entertainment, including the Sonic the Hedgehog series. Most of the band's contributions are songs for the various games in this series.

Contents 1 History 1.1 Formation and Thrill of the Feel 1.2 Several changes and Crush 40 1.3 Continued work with Sega 1.4 New Releases 2 Musical style 3 Discography 3.1 Thrill of the Feel 3.2 Crush 40 3.3 Other tracks 4 Gameography 5 Band members 5.1 Current lineup 5.2 Previous members 6 References 7 External links

[edit] History

[edit] Formation and Thrill of the Feel

Crush 40's origin began with guitarist Jun Senoue and his employment with Sega. After graduating from college in 1993, Jun Senoue was employed by Sega to be a music composer for video games. His first project was creating two songs for Sonic the Hedgehog 3.^[2] Later, he worked on other games such as Dark Wizard, Sonic 3D Blast (Sega Mega Drive version), Sega Rally 2, and Daytona USA: Championship Circuit Edition.^[2]

In 1998, Senoue contacted the singer from Hardline, Johnny Gioeli, and recorded their first song as a group, Open Your Heart.^[3] After making the track, which would later be on the video game Sonic Adventure, the two stayed in contact. Eventually from this relationship spawned a project band to make the soundtrack for another game Senoue worked on, NASCAR Arcade.^[1] The band was formed under the name "Sons of Angels", the same as a song that Senoue performed with Eric Martin on the Daytona USA: Championship Circuit Edition soundtrack.^[3]

The original band included Senoue as the guitarist, Gioeli singing, and Naoto Shibata and Hirotsugu Homma from Anthem playing the bass and drums, respectively.^[1] In 2000, the band released their album Thrill of the Feel through Victor Entertainment.^[1][4] The album contained all of the tracks which they had written for NASCAR Arcade.^[1]

[edit] Several changes and Crush 40

The band resurfaced during the development of Sonic Adventure 2. Naoto Shibata and Hirotsugu Homma could not take part because they were performing with Loudness and later Anthem, so Katsuji and Takeshi Taneda were brought in to play the songs for the game. The resulting track was "Live and Learn", the main theme of Sonic Adventure 2.^[1]

When the Norwegian band "Sons of Angels" reunited under this alias that they had before, Gioeli and Senoue decided to change their band's name to Crush 40.^[5] When Senoue was asked why he picked "Crush 40" as the name, he responded, "When we had to find another good one, we picked up the word we like…“Crush” is one of them, and Johnny added the number on it. Crush is the name of the soda too…that's my favorite!"^[6]

Two years after the release of Sonic Adventure 2, the album Crush 40, a European cover version of "Thrill of the Feel", was released by Frontiers Records.^[7] The album contained the same music as their previous album with the same racing theme of the songs written for NASCAR Arcade,^[7] but without the previous album's instrumental tracks. Senoue claimed that Crush 40 was the project of himself and Gioeli, which is why the instrumental tracks were removed.^[8] There were, however, both prior Sonic theme songs "Open Your Heart" and "Live and Learn", as well as two bonus tracks: "It Doesn't Matter" featuring vocalist Tony Harnell, and "Escape from the City" featuring Ted Poley and Tony Harnell.^[1] Senoue's rationale for including these two songs was that he wanted to introduce some of his favorite songs featuring other singers to the fans.^[8]

[edit] Continued work with Sega

Crush 40 has not released any albums since 2003. However, the band has performed original music for several video games. The songs the band performed for these games were released on the soundtracks of each game, under Sega's Wave Master Entertainment label.^[9][10][11]

In 2003, Sega announced the first multiplatform Sonic game, Sonic Heroes, which featured two new Crush 40 songs: the theme tune "Sonic Heroes", a "bright, melodic song", and "What I'm Made Of...", a "distinctly dark hard rock song with metal sensibilities".^[1] The music itself was also released on the Triple Threat: Sonic Heroes Vocal Trax soundtrack.^[9] In the booklet for Triple Threat: Sonic Heroes Vocal Trax, Katsuji is credited as the drummer for "Sonic Heroes", but Mark Schulman is credited as the drummer for "What I'm Made Of..."^[12][13]

When Sega announced Shadow the Hedgehog in 2005, Crush 40 returned to perform the game's theme song, "I Am... All of Me". There is a second song by Crush 40 in the game, the ending theme named "Never Turn Back". Both of these songs also appear on the soundtrack called Lost and Found: Shadow the Hedgehog Vocal Trax. For Crush 40's contributions to this soundtrack, the drumming duties were passed on to Toru Kawamura.^[10]

Crush 40 also made contributions to Sonic the Hedgehog 2006. The band created its own rendition of "All Hail Shadow", previously performed by Magna-Fi in the game Shadow the Hedgehog. Crush 40 also recorded a version of "His World", the main theme of Sonic the Hedgehog in 2006. The latter of these two did not appear in the game, but both of these songs are on this game's soundtrack, Sonic the Hedgehog Vocal Traxx: Several Wills. Kawamura was also the drummer for this soundtrack.^[11]

The band also contributed several of its songs, including "Live and Learn", to the video game Super Smash Bros. Brawl.^[14] The song was also featured in an episode of the Japanese version of Sonic X.

In 2008, the album True Blue: The Best of Sonic the Hedgehog was released in Japan, and featured Crush 40's cover of the Sonic and the Secret Rings theme "Seven Rings in Hand", originally performed by Steve Conte. Also included on the album are Crush 40 songs "Live and Learn" (2007 Remastered Version)", "What I'm Made Of..." (2007 Remastered Version), "Sonic Heroes", two versions of "Open Your Heart", two versions of "It Doesn't Matter" (with Tony Harnell), and "Escape from the City" (with Ted Poley and Tony Harnell).^[15] The band record several songs for Sonic and the Black Knight, including the game's main theme, Knight of the Wind.

Jun Senoue recently announced on his official site's message board that Crush 40 is currently working on two future album releases, one being the sequel to their self-titled album which will feature all original tracks (not Sonic/videogame related) and the other being a compilation album of their best work, tentatively titled "Crush 40 : Works 1998-2008". The latter will feature mostly Sonic The Hedgehog related music, these albums are set to be released in Japan during fall.^[16]

On October 12, 2008, Jun Senoue and Johnny Gioeli performed a live concert at the Tokyo Game Show. The songs they performed included shortened versions of "I Am... All Of Me", "His World", "Sonic Heroes", "What I'm Made of" and the full version of "Live and Learn". Crush 40 also performed a shortened version of "Knight of the Wind". A live recording of this concert has been uploaded on Youtube and is linked from the Crush 40's website. This marked Crush 40's first live appearance with singer Johnny Gioeli.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] New Releases

September 16, 2009 the band will release a new compilation of their best songs. The album will be called Crush 40: The Best of Crush 40 - Super Sonic Songs.

[edit] Musical style

	Live and Learn The first track of Crush 40's self-titled album and an example of Crush 40's early music style.
Problems listening to this file? See media help.

	What I'm Made Of... An example of how Crush 40's style has changed since their early works.
Problems listening to this file? See media help.

In a review of their self-titled album, the band's style was referred to as "melodic hard rock, somewhere between XYZ and Burning Rain" by Bjørnar Bevolden of ProgressiveWorld.net.^[17] Among the songs of this album is "Live and Learn", a "cool in your face rocker", according to Michael of RevelationZ Magazine.^[7] However, Crush 40 has also experimented with other forms of rock music. For example, "What I'm Made Of..." is a darker song with elements similar to heavy metal.^[1]

When interviewed about his style and that of the band, Jun Senoue said, "I know what my style is, and I know what my favourite genres of music are. I listen to a lot of metal music, as well as other genres of music, and my inspiration is always there. The style of the music in the game does change, and it gives a great sense of progression... When we got together to write stuff for Shadow, we found that our fresh ideas were a lot different to the songs we’d written back in 2002 – our sound had changed."^[18]

[edit] Discography

Crush 40 has released two independent albums, as well as individual tracks for a number of video games.

[edit] Thrill of the Feel

Thrill of the Feel
Studio album by Sons of Angels
Released	March 23, 2000
Genre	Hard rock
Length	41:01
Label	Victor Entertainment

Thrill of the Feel is Crush 40's first album. It is the only album released under their original name, Sons of Angels. The album contains all of the tracks that the band recorded for NASCAR Arcade.^[1] This album was released by Victor Entertainment and was released for the Japanese market.^[4]

[edit] Crush 40

Crush 40
Studio album by Crush 40
Released	February 18, 2003
Genre	Hard rock
Length	44:13
Label	Frontiers Records

Crush 40 is the self-titled second album of Crush 40, released in Europe by Frontiers Records.^[7] The album contains many of the same tracks as Thrill of the Feel, but does not contain any instrumental tracks.^[8] Added to the track listing are "Live and Learn" and the bonus tracks "It Doesn't Matter" featuring Tony Harnell and "Escape from the City" featuring Ted Poley and Tony Harnell.

[edit] Other tracks

Song title	Soundtrack	Video game	Version	Year
"Sonic Heroes"	Triple Threat: Sonic Heroes Vocal Trax[9]	Sonic Heroes	Original	2003
"What I'm Made Of..."	Triple Threat: Sonic Heroes Vocal Trax[9]	Sonic Heroes	Original	2003
"I Am (All of Me)"	Lost and Found: Shadow the Hedgehog Vocal Trax[10]	Shadow the Hedgehog	Original	2005
"Never Turn Back"	Lost and Found: Shadow the Hedgehog Vocal Trax[10]	Shadow the Hedgehog	Original	2005
"Never Turn Back" (Alternative Version)	MelodicRock.com V3	Shadow the Hedgehog	Original	2005
"All Hail Shadow"	Sonic the Hedgehog Vocal Traxx: Several Wills[11]	Sonic the Hedgehog 2006	Cover	2006
"His World"	Sonic the Hedgehog Vocal Traxx: Several Wills[11]	Sonic the Hedgehog 2006	Cover	2006
"Seven Rings in Hand"	True Blue: The Best of Sonic the Hedgehog[15]	Sonic and the Secret Rings	Cover	2008
"Knight of the Wind"	Face to Faith: Sonic and the Black Knight Vocal Trax	Sonic and the Black Knight	Original	2009
"Through the Fire"	Face to Faith: Sonic and the Black Knight Vocal Trax	Sonic and the Black Knight	Original	2009
"Fight the Knight"	Face to Faith: Sonic and the Black Knight Vocal Trax	Sonic and the Black Knight	Original	2009
"Live Life"	Face to Faith: Sonic and the Black Knight Vocal Trax	Sonic and the Black Knight	Original	2009
"With Me"	Face to Faith: Sonic and the Black Knight Vocal Trax	Sonic and the Black Knight	Cover	2009

[edit] Gameography

Crush 40's songs have all been included in numerous video games.

Game	Console	Developer	Year
Sonic Adventure[1]	Dreamcast, Nintendo GameCube, PC	Sonic Team	1998
NASCAR Arcade[1]	Arcade	Sega-AM3	2000
Sonic Adventure 2[1]	Dreamcast, Nintendo GameCube	Sonic Team	2001
Sonic Heroes[1][9]	Nintendo GameCube, Xbox, PlayStation 2, PC	Sonic Team	2003
Shadow the Hedgehog[10]	Nintendo GameCube, Xbox, PlayStation 2	Sonic Team	2005
Sonic the Hedgehog[11]	Xbox 360, PlayStation 3	Sonic Team	2006
Super Smash Bros. Brawl[14]	Wii	Sora Ltd.	2008
Sonic and the Black Knight	Wii	Sonic Team	2009

[edit] Band members

[edit] Current lineup

• Johnny Gioeli – vocals
• Jun Senoue – guitars
• Takeshi Taneda – bass
• Toru Kawamura – drums

[edit] Previous members

• Naoto Shibata – bass
• Hirotsugu Homma – drums
• Katsuji – drums
• Mark Schulman – drums

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Jun Senoue official fansite
• Crush 40's Myspace profile
• Jun Senoue's official Myspace profile