Let's geek out about Kirby music

A few years ago I did a thread on Twitter about Kirby music I love that highlights the variety of the series' soundtracks. Songs that are a far cry from the jolly, upbeat standards that non-fans know from smash like Green Greens and Gourmet Race, showing the incredible range of HAL's composers. Having been playing Return to Dream Land Deluxe, I am once again thinking about how Kirby is one of my favorite things in the world, so I'm just turning that old thread into a blog post and also throwing in some additional songs.

Miracle Matter (Jun Ishikawa - Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards)

Sounds like the music that would play if you were fighting 20 guys with swords at a rave. I love how it fakes you out by sounding like the regular boss theme at first before descending in pitch and turning into a completely different song that goes hard as hell.

Vs. Marx (Jun Ishikawa - Kirby Super Star)

Marx's theme is a classic and sounds pretty normal on the surface, but then you realize that it's constantly changing time signatures. Every measure is however many beats long it wants.

The Last Iceberg (Jun Ishikawa - Kirby's Dream Land 3)

This one is just, all over the place stylistically, in a really fun way. Very EarthBoundy in certain spots.

Ripple Star Catacombs (Jun Ishikawa or Hirokazu Ando - Kirby's 64: The Crystal Shards)

This atonal track will always be infamous because it makes what would otherwise be a normal level downright SCARY. This song stresses me out just listening to it. Again, Kirby music's got crazy range!!

The Greatest Warrior in the Galaxy (Jun Ishikawa - Kirby Super Star Ultra)

Galacta Knight's theme is one of the more popular recurring tracks from the last decade of Kirby games, but I have to post it here because it's literally like. Gabber speed metal.

Sullied Grace (Jun Ishikawa - Kirby Triple Deluxe)

One of my all-time favorite Kirby tracks. With the church organ and the shredding guitars it sounds like it should be playing in a JRPG final boss fight or Castlevania or something. Instead it plays when Kirby fights an evil queen bee who does the ojou-sama laugh - which is included in the OST version of the track!!

Fatal Blooms in Moonlight (Hirokazu Ando - Kirby Triple Deluxe)

Sectonia's second form uses this equally great song, which opens with this beautiful piano section and slowly builds up in intensity as the fight continues. Ando isn't getting quite as much love in this post because Ishikawa tends to be the one who gets more weird with it, but rest assured, Ando is no slouch.

Pristine Office March (Jun Ishikawa - Kirby Planet Robobot)

Planet Robobot has a lot of electronic music that breaks from the usual Kirby sound palettes because of, you know, the robots, but I'll point to the "Laser Lab" theme in particular because it literally turns into dubstep.

La Follia d'amore (Jun Ishikawa - Kirby Star Allies)

I ended the original Twitter thread with one of the last boss themes from Star Allies, which is just... bananas, incorporating some more traditional Kirby sounds with heavy gamelan influences in the most frantic way possible.

The Battle of Blizzard Bridge (Hirokazu Ando - Kirby and the Forgotten Land)

Remember when I said Ando was no slouch? Yeah, just listen to the jazzy solos in this one, one of the longest Kirby stage themes ever, followed eventually by those distorted guitar solos as the track builds in energy over the course of this miniboss rush stage. An all timer.

Sword of the Surviving Guardian (Yuuta Ogasawara - Kirby and the Forgotten Land)

As far as Cool Video Game Boss Fight Themes go, this is less out there than some of the other picks on this list, but I really like this one and wanted to give a shout out to the guy who seems poised to be the new lead composer for the series. Ogasawara did a lot of great work on Star Allies and Forgotten Land.

Anyway, this track is a really fun one that cleverly incorporates motifs from Super Star. And listen to that SAX!! I love the original Meta Knight boss theme from Super Star a ton and think it's perfect for the climactic time-limited duel it was written for, but I wouldn't complain if this new one stuck around as the new general-purpose Meta Knight boss theme.

Two Planets Approach the Roche Limit (Hirokazu Ando - Kirby and the Forgotten Land)

The final boss theme in Forgotten Land is fantastic, like every final boss theme by Ando has been throughout the modern Kirby era, but I mostly just wanted to highlight that it has one of the coolest track titles ever conceived. In the game it's also a dynamic track, with multiple potential transition points between the two phases of the song based on how fast you get the boss's health down.

Blue Blizzard Remix (Hirokazu Ando - Kirby's Return to Dream Land Deluxe)

Honestly, this remix from the new postgame mode in RTDL Deluxe was the thing that made me want to make this post. Listen to those Planet Robobot vibes. Listen to that SLAP BASS!!!!

In conclusion, the lesson to be learned here is that Jun Ishikawa and Hirokazu Ando are the GOATs and they don't get enough recognition as legendary composers in the video game world. They've been on the series since the first and second games, respectively, and even 30 years later they're still constantly finding new creative directions for the sound of the series and new ways to top themselves. They rule.