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Retro turns down former Rare composer Grant Kirkhope
News reported by 
(Editor)
June 29, 2012, 08:05
 
An interesting bit of news here from NWR:

Nintendo World Report said:
While looking for work, Grant Kirkhope, a former composer for Rare, was turned down by Retro Studios.

In response to someone trying to aid his job search on Twitter Kirkhope said "I already tried Retro .... They're full up!"

PLEASE. For the love of god. Someone at Nintendo. Nab him up. I don't care if you have nothing for him to work on yet. JUST DO IT NOW.





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06/29/12, 08:05   Edited:  06/29/12, 08:08
 
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He makes awesome music. I find it sad that he hasn't found a job yet

Posted by 
 on: 06/29/12, 09:16
I wish they'd had a space for him. He's a brilliant composer.

Posted by 
 on: 06/29/12, 12:02
Well, those soundtracks are ok, nothing about them really makes me go OMG, plus they are like 14 years old. I would rather hear what the guy has composed recently.

You can't blame a company if they already have enough members on their team. Just like any field, you just have to keep plugging away until you find an opening somewhere.

Posted by 
 on: 06/29/12, 12:15
Oh fuck.

I always wonder what happened to the Rare composers. I was just thinking about it like 2 days ago, in fact!!

Though this guy is great, he didn't do the music for DKC, right?

And what of the Blast Corps composer? Rare had so many amazing composers....not to mention how amazing that studio was in general...
Their output was ridiculous. Quality and quantity wise...

.........



........

Edit: It was only recently when I really discovered how underrated the music was in Goldeneye. I Listen to it on my iPhone all the time, though I sorta had it mainly for novelty's sake. Then one day I really payed attention to Bunker 2, Surface 2, Control (which I used to hate til this recent epiphany), and realized how awesome the music was. Though I always loved Aztec, Frigate, etc.

:( It still hurts to talk about Rare...

Posted by 
 on: 06/29/12, 13:29   Edited:  06/29/12, 13:34
@gamewizard65

Who cares how old they are. I'd hire them in a second if I had a company. A painter doesn't become less valuable just because someone likes their older stuff. It's an example of their talent, and hell, this guy has talent. Perhaps you never got hooked into these OSTs GW but man, the Rare games that were the prime of rare were so in significant part to their soundtracks as well as their gameplay. The BK soundtrack in particular is a gaming classic.

Posted by 
 on: 06/29/12, 13:52
Worked for Rare and Big Huge Games. You would think pleaces would be begging him to work foor them!

Posted by 
 on: 06/29/12, 14:47
I'll hire him. Grants gotta stick together.

Posted by 
 on: 06/29/12, 16:03
Do you know for certain that he did the music for both of those titles? If so, he is amazing. You should have the satellite station music (exterior). That was the most memorable theme from the whole game, as far as I'm concerned.

Posted by 
 on: 06/29/12, 16:42   Edited:  06/29/12, 16:43
He absolutely did the music for both of those games, although I actually may be wrong about him doing those specific tracks (though I believe he did).

His latest games include Banjo=Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts and Kingdoms of Amular (with someone else). I haven't heard any music from KoA, but this is pretty sweet, even if it's just remixed:





Man, just put him on Smash Bros. detail or something.

Posted by 
 on: 06/29/12, 17:46
I always thought the music in Banjo-Kazooie, like the rest of the game, was mediocre at best. Who did the music for Donkey Kong Country?

Posted by 
 on: 06/29/12, 18:04
@Jargon

Really? I freaking love the music in that game. It's infectious and fun, and I love the chord changes, even if they do get very samey at times.

Dave Wise did the DKC games. According to Wikipedia his last credits are "War World" on XBox 360 and a Viva Pinata game on DS.

Posted by 
 on: 06/29/12, 18:08
Sad, if true. The music was the only good thing about the Rare DKCs!

GameDadGrant said:
I'll hire him. Grants gotta stick together.
Haha.

Posted by 
 on: 06/29/12, 18:09
Banjo-Kazooie has one of the best soundtracks ever.

Posted by 
 on: 06/29/12, 22:27
You'd think they'd find a place for him at Retro given his past work. He'll find work somewhere.

Posted by 
 on: 06/29/12, 22:29
@Anand I think if there was any DKC where Kirkhope had a major impact on, it may have been the third game, but I think that game was primarily composed be a female, while he had some sort of contribution. The first two games were primarily composed by Dave Wise.

Posted by 
 on: 06/29/12, 22:35
The first thing I think of when I think of Rare is their musical prowess. Well, the first thing I really think of is Nintendo, then GoldenEye, then music. So, to learn of a failed chance to have one of the Rare music greats under Nintendo's second party wing is indeed a truly saddening fact to behold. I used to play through their games just to listen to the credit sequences - especially Perfect Dark's, which is a game this guy appears to have worked on. Hopefully Nintendo will scoop him up in time, though I know they won't. And while they're at it (though not really at it), maybe they can woo the Rare talent away from wherever that worked on one of the most amazing sounding games of all time, Jet Force Gemini. Ah... Rare. How amazing was your sound.

Posted by 
 on: 06/30/12, 00:41
@PogueSquadron
Oh, that's right. I'm a dumbass.

Regardless, I pretty much always liked the music in classic Rare games.

Posted by 
 on: 06/30/12, 01:56
Eveline Fischer (or now, Eveline Novakovic) did a good number of the songs in the first DKC, and almost all of the main music in DKC3. David Wise's only solo effort with the DKC trilogy was the second game. Also Robin Beanland did at least one song for the first DKC; the Funky's Flights music.

Posted by 
 on: 06/30/12, 05:03
@carlosrox I concur! Blast Corp had some of the most kickass music in gaming. Rare itself easily had some of the absolute best.

Posted by 
 on: 06/30/12, 05:27
Why is this news? Tons of big-name composers get turned down all the time. Studios either have someone on-staff and would only contract out small bits of stuff here and there or they solely contract out music--meaning a LOT of people get turned down because they only pick a few at max.

Posted by 
 on: 06/30/12, 05:38
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