Persona 5 Original Soundtrack Selection for the Yamaha Electone Stagea ELS-02C. The best of two worlds for me!
Just let me go through the story for this. Pardon me.
A short while ago, I was sulking on the subway i.e. MRT, desperate for something to read on my phone.
Facebook. Away from Facebook. Back to Facebook … Sigh … Hey, hey! What was that? What was that?!?
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It was a FB notification from Yamaha Japan. One that looks like, like … a Persona 5 poster! Surfed over to the post right away and I nearly couldn’t believe what I read. A selection of Persona 5 songs have been arranged and released for the Electone Stagea!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
In case this baffles, the shock is because Yamaha seldom publishes scores and registrations for video game music. There are Mario and Zelda albums, of course. Some for Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, etc, too. But beyond these, there’s rarely anything for games over the decades. I’ve long stopped keeping a lookout for video game music arranged for the Electone.
And suddenly before me, an album for one of my favourite game series. With every song in it composed by my favourite video game music composer, Shoji Meguro.
I cancelled my plans for that day. I headed home right away and placed an order on Amazon Japan.
Electone Stagea Persona 5 Original Soundtrack Selection, Grade 6-5
For fellow Electone players, this is from the “let’s play it on the Electone” (STAGEA エレクトーンで弾く) series. It’s not a prolific series, and personally, I never encountered anything in it that I felt I must own. That’s why I would have missed this release had there not been that Facebook post.
As for the song list, it’s:
- Wake Up, Get Up, Get Out There
- Life Will Change
- 全ての人の魂の詩 (The Poem of Everyone’s Soul)
- Beneath the Mask (Instrumental Version)
- Last Surprise
- Blooming Villain
The Arrangements and Sound
Onto the actual juice of this album. The arrangements and accompanying registrations i.e. the sounds.
To be honest, when I first listened to the registrations, I went, “Hmm.” The drums are faithful. However, they don’t exactly follow the acid jazz feel of the original tracks. It’s closer to live rock. With stronger drums and snares.
The arrangements themselves are very faithful. Well, faithful enough, given the limitations from one person performing everything.
Of note, the Persona 5 Original Soundtrack Selection album heavily utilises the unique accompaniment and articulation features of the Stagea ELS-O2 series. This means that unfortunately, you really need a 2nd generation Stagea to get the best out of it. Those auto-basses, articulation effects also need some practice to get used to, in order for them not to go haywire.
Anyhow … allow me to present …
Update 2020: My Persona 5 Electone playlist.
By the way, I pre-scheduled this post. I actually wrote this on Nov 5. As at this moment, I’m on my way to … Tokyo. For a Persona 5 tourist holiday!
Check out my other Electone posts here!
