Liner Notes:
“One of the things that makes great artists great is the seemingly inexhaustible nature of their work; no matter how much you think you know, there is always something new available for those who care enough to dig deep. In the case of Michael Salvatori, who’s best known these days as one of the soundtrack composers for classic Bungie games like Myth, Halo, and Destiny, there’s a whole world of ad jingles and obscure prog-rock music in his personal archives. There was also a brief period in the early 21st century during which he worked with a small group of former Bungie employees who returned to their scrappy startup roots at a new studio called Wideload Games. Unfortunately, Wideload didn’t last long enough to make the kind of popular impact that Bungie did — but they did ship three titles featuring the musical stylings of Michael Salvatori in a rare solo capacity. I have always thought it unfortunate that Mike’s work for Wideload was largely overlooked. Now, thanks to the efforts of music enthusiast Owen Spence, fans of Michael’s more famous tracks can hear and appreciate some of these tunes they may have missed out on the first time around.
The game that would eventually make its way to market under the title “Hail to the Chimp” was originally pitched as “Happy Happy Super Animal Fun Time Party” or something along those lines. At that point the game did not have either the election-race theme or the cable-news framing device; those would come much later. What did exist even in that rudimentary stage was the concept of a chaotic fracas between adorable cartoon animals teaming up against one another in ever-shifting alliances until only one was left standing. Ten different playable animals, each with different abilities when they teamed up with others; each of those various team-ups would require a loopable theme tune. Not to mention the distinct “home level” for each animal with its own theme music. Or the music for various cutscenes, fake ads, etc. It was a lot to handle.
Mike and I had collaborated on the barbershop quartet songs in Wideload’s previous game, Stubbs the Zombie in “Rebel Without a Pulse.” These turned out far better than they had any right to, which may be why he thought it would be a good idea for me to be around for some of the other music-scoring tasks on HttC. I was happy to oblige. Not only is it fun to watch a master at work, but occasionally I’d get to make my own (extremely minor) contributions. Anyway, that’s how I was able to make the observations below.
Floyd the Walrus, having suffered a traumatic brain injury from a passing boat propeller, believed the voices emanating from the classic-rock station on his transistor radio were spirits telling him the secrets of the universe. Who WOULDN’T vote for a guy like that? We thought the Count Five’s “Psychotic Reaction,” with the jarring tempo shift in its B section, made a good starting point — though obviously Mike souped things up with the organ and wah-wah guitar. That’s me on ham-fisted harmonica. If it sounds like I know what I’m doing at points, that is only because Mike managed to comp together a bunch of different takes until he had a few phrases that worked.
If you’ve made it to the end of this jumbled assortment of anecdotes and foggy notions, I thank you. If not, that’s okay too. The music is the important part.”
Matt Soell
Formerly of Wideload Games
June 24, 2023
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Composed by Michael Salvatori.
This piece is from the 2008 party game Hail to the Chimp. This video has been posted for historical and archival purposes. I am not affiliated with Wideload Games. This video was rendered using a source-quality audio source.
This video is not monetized and I do not accept any form of compensation for any archival work that I do. I also do not offer downloads of music I do not own the rights to.
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