In my long history of working with Pokémon music, one of the most frustrating obstacles I’ve run into is not a lack of source material, but a lack of commercial availability. For every song that is available on CD or as a digital download, it seems like there is another not available for purchase. Between movies 4-6 and 8-12 (you may recall that “This Side of Paradise” from movie 7 actually is available on the 4Kids music collection, and is therefore ineligible for this list), as well as the TV show and games such as Pokémon Channel, there is enough music for roughly two to three albums.

Now, I’m not naïve-knowing what I do about the music industry, there are very likely financial, legal, and possibly even technical hurdles to releasing some of these songs, so I’m not trying to blame or vilify The Pokémon Company International (or anyone else in particular). Instead, I’m making a list (a wish list, perhaps) of the ten songs I’d like to see up for consideration the next time a US Pokémon album is being made. To be fair, this was a really hard list to make, and I had to pull from the list of songs I was familiar with and could review easily, so some songs you might have expected (like that one from “Do I Hear a Ralts?” everyone keeps talking about) might be missing from this list: more…

Ask someone what the rarest piece of Pokémon music is, and they’ll probably say the soundtrack to Pokémon Live. While that’s definitely one of the rarer ones (I think you need to give up a major organ or something to get a copy, seeing as how I don’t have one), there are definitely rarer ones, such as the double LP set of remixes for Donna Summer’s “The Power of One” from the second movie.

Before I go on, I should probably explain something. LP is short for “long playing”, and refers to type of vinyl record (your parents can fill you in on what a record is) that is 12 inches in diameter and spins at 33 1/3 revolutions per minute (as opposed to 45 or 78). Even during the dead vinyl era (from the early 1990’s to a few years ago), it was common for dance and urban music to be pressed onto vinyl and distributed to club DJs and radio stations. This format was often used because many DJs felt the sound produced by records was better suited to this type of music. more…