Pac-Man Fever (album)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Pac-Man Fever | ||||
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| Studio album by Buckner & Garcia | ||||
| Released | 1982 | |||
| Recorded | 1981 | |||
| Genre | Rock and roll | |||
| Length | 32:53 | |||
| Label | Columbia/CBS Records (1982) PC 37941 Buckner & Garcia Productions (1999) K-tel Entertainment (2002 version) |
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| Producer | Buckner & Garcia | |||
| Professional reviews | ||||
| Buckner & Garcia chronology | ||||
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Pac-Man Fever is a 1982 album recorded by Buckner & Garcia. It is also the name of the first song on that album. Each song on the album is about a different classic arcade game, and uses sound effects from that game. The album was released as an LP, a cassette, and as an 8-track tape.
The title song was released as a single in December 1981 and became a top-ten hit, peaking at #9 in March 1982 on the Billboard Hot 100[1] and earning a gold record. "Do the Donkey Kong" was the second single released from the album, but it failed to chart except on Bubbling Under Hot 100 Singles at #3.
Contents |
[edit] Track listing
- "Pac-Man Fever" (Pac-Man)
- "Froggy's Lament" (Frogger)
- "Ode to a Centipede" (Centipede)
- "Do the Donkey Kong" (Donkey Kong)
- "Hyperspace" (Asteroids)
- "The Defender" (Defender)
- "Mousetrap" (Mouse Trap)
- "Goin' Berzerk" (Berzerk)
Froggy's Lament also pays tribute to Smilin' Ed McConnell and Froggy the Gremlin from Andy's Gang with its lyrics "Hiya, kids" and "Plunk your magic twanger, Froggy!"
[edit] Re-release
In 1998 the duo was asked to record an unplugged version of the song exclusively for the syndicated radio show Retro Rewind. In 1999, a re-recorded version of the album was released independently by Buckner and Garcia, which was released commercially through K-Tel in 2002. The re-release was anxiously awaited by fans of the original album. However, Buckner and Garcia could not obtain the rights of the original master recordings from Sony Music Entertainment, so the duo was forced to recreate a lot of the sound effects either digitally or musically. The result led to disappointment on the part of many fans and began a widespread search for the original vinyl, now hard to find (although MP3s of the original songs are, perhaps ironically, easier to find than the remakes). Some of the changes that occurred between the original and the re-recorded version are as follows:
- The introduction to the 1982 LP version of Pac-Man Fever uses a clip of the game being played at a delicatessen, and the sound of a man ordering a pastrami sandwich is faintly audible; this clip was replaced.[2]
- The guitarist who reproduced the guitar solo in "Ode to a Centipede" could not keep up with the pace of the original guitarist, and subsequently bailed out of the solo toward the end until it became easier to play.
- In the original recording of "Hyperspace," the sound that followed singing of the word "hyperspace" was a sample of the player shooting taken directly from an Asteroid machine. In the re-release, the sample was replaced with a guitarist sliding his fingers down the neck of the guitar to simulate the sound, and it is not quite as on key with the rest of the song as the original sample was.
- The original recording of "Mousetrap" contained samples from the Mouse Trap arcade game. No working machine of the game could be found in time for the re-recording, so recordings of actual cat, dog, and pigeon noises were used in place of the game samples.
[edit] References
- ^ "Pac-Man Fever". Time Magazine. April 5, 1982. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,921174,00.html. Retrieved October 15, 2009. "Columbia Records' Pac-Man Fever ... was No. 9 on the Billboard Hot 100 last week."
- ^ Imberi, Jonathan. "Pac-Man's Notes - Pac-Man Fever CD" (in English). http://arcadegamer.googlepages.com/pac-manfevercd. Retrieved 2007-01-07.
