Harmony of Heroes: Donkey Kong

You can download this massive album here. As it is fan work and therefore free, I have no problem recommending that you search the track names on YouTube if you can't download them.

Previous post: the Mario tracks

Continuing our dive into Nintendo fan music, the next section of Harmony of Heroes adapts the wonderful music of the Donkey Kong series -- mostly the Donkey Kong Country games -- with one glaring exception at the end.

12. Jungle Swing (Stephan Wells, featuring Camoshark)
If you know the Donkey Kong Country BGM at all, the opening to this track is filled with teasing anticipation. When the main theme finally hits, it feels fantastic.

A combination of live instruments (or at least a very convincing combination of live samples) and a broad assortment of sound effects make this an incredibly fun track, especially in the second half that includes a lot of free-styling guitar and brass.

13. Rhythm of the Kong (Sean Haeberman)
True to its title, this track is filled to bursting with percussion, mostly playing around with the Map theme (parts of which are also present in the previous track). Compared with Jungle Swing, there are a lot of deeper colours in the drums that give it a more masculine feel, despite the flighty melody.

14. A K.Rool Pub Crawl (Sebastian Mårtensson, featuring Christopher Woo)
Moving on to Donkey Kong Country 2, this is another program piece beginning with a pirate, probably K.Rool himself, walking into a bar (ouch!). The entertainment for the evening begins with a surprisingly warm rendition of Ship Deck 2.

I absolutely love folksy pirate songs so this one gets me pretty well. It even manages to make K.Rool's boss battle theme sound less menacing, and that's not a small task.

15. Rush of the Rainforest (Buoy)
Propulsive and adventurous, this track takes the hands-down best BGM from DKC2 (that would be Stickerbush Symphony) as its source. The track actually turns it into a sort of video game level of its own, complete with A B A structure, a little insert of the DKC theme when it hits it stride, and then some very welcome freestyling in the last third.

16. Kong Kollektive (Sebastian Mårtensson, featuring Harmony of Heroes)
...
Can't I just listen to some more of Rush of the Rainforest?
...
Oh, alright. This is a re-imagining of the DK Rap from Donkey Kong 64, and if I give them their dues, it could be a lot worse. The artists clearly love this track (honestly or ironically, it's up to you) so there's nothing that needs aggressive criticism. I'm just glad I don't have to listen to it again after this.


Well, the Donkey Kong tracks started wonderful and ended in a weird place. That's okay, because coming up next time is over an hour of The Legend of Zelda music. Yummy ...