Music Monday: Bubble Bobble

Not only do I find Taito’s cutesy 1986 platformer Bubble Bobble to be a timelessly brilliant and utterly delightful game, but the soundtrack has been lodged in my head since I first played the coin-op in a Brighton arcade as a fresh-faced, sticky-pawed 14-year-old some 28 years ago.

Tadashi Kimijima is the woman responsible for this ultimate ear-worm and, typically for a Japanese developer of the time, it’s tricky to find out exactly what other titles she’s worked on as part of the corporation’s ‘in-house band’ Zuntata.

However, I do believe if nothing else she probably wrote this fantastic piece for the three screens abreast scrolling slice-’em-up The Ninja Warriors, also from Taito.

So anyway, you’ve probably heard it before, but here it is again in all its sub one minute, joyful glory:

Well known British computer composers David Whittaker, Tim Follin and Peter Clarke adapted the music to various sound chips for Software Creations’ mostly superb home conversions.

Commodore 64 (Clarke):

Sinclair ZX Spectrum (Follin):

Commodore Amiga (Whittaker):

Now let’s close this week’s Music Monday with a burst of Bubble Bobble’s oh-so-brief yet quite life-affirming EXTEND tune, which kicks in whenever a player manages to snaffle all six lettered bubbles to earn a vital 1-up: