As Pokémon Go infiltrates all aspects of everyday life, here's a brief history of how the pocket monsters' influence on dance music

 

Grime

JME is probably music's most famous Pokémon fan. His 2015 track "The Very Best" samples the original anime show's theme tune and sees the Wood Green rapper waxing lyrical about training Pokémon, collecting cards and taking on the Elite Four. He even talks about his goal of one day having a bunch of shiny Charizard's framed in his house, a dream he has recently accomplished.

 

Jersey Club

Jersey Club artists Bubbly Bulbasaur and Dope Diglett emerged around the same time Cashmere Cat and Trippy Turtle started getting some attention online. While both artists take their name from popular Pokémon, only Bulbasaur uses sample from the game in his music. Tracks "Drank" and "How Many?" have gathered an impressive amount of plays on SoundCloud, there Pokémon producers come highly recommended.

 

Future RnB

FACT Magazine's 2013 song of the year, Mssingno is a London producer who fuses ghostly RnB samples with futuristic production. His tracks don't actually incorporate any Pokémon samples, but any trainer will know he takes his name from the glitch Pokémon, pivotal in catching the illusive Mew.

 

Future Bass

Two Poké-based bangers here from NΣΣT and GRIMECRAFT. Both take minimal samples direct from the game and and the anime and fuse them with big, airy bass to create two slowpoke stompers.

 

Chiptune

Chiptune is dance music made using Gameboy sound cards, so it's no surprise that there's a wealth of Pokémon samples cropping up across the genre. Sabrepulse's "Arcanine" is but the tip of the iceberg.

 

Trap

 

Electro

Spanish producer, Ramstar, smashes the forgettable Route 24 from Cerulean City into a air-keytar monster that could've been the Millennial "Final Countdown" if only it got a major release.

 

Dubstep

Put simply, there are about as many Dubstep remixes of the Pokémon soundtrack on the Internet as there are videos of teacup pigs, above is a mix of six or seven, but you can find literally hundreds more.

 

Happy Hardcore

Back in 2005/6 somebody released a happy hardcore remix of the Pokémon anime theme tune and it got played at nearly every pre-drinks I ever went to as the "I need to get people out of my house, the taxi is here" track. Unfortunately I couldn't find it anywhere, so here's a happy hardcore remix of the battle theme tune instead.

 

And Finally...

Next time your at our club, don't forget to pick up some Pokéballs.

 

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