It was 20 years ago today (roughly), Professor Oak taught us all to play. Believe it or not, it’s been two decades since that little RPG game for Nintendo’s Game Boy about finding, catching, training, and fighting monsters you keep in a ball in your pocket (still sounds weird) debuted and started a global phenomenon. But in the years since Pokémon Red and Blue came out, with all the innovations and Poké upgrades and dozens upon dozens more monsters, the desire for those original 151 and those halcyon gym battles remains strong. And the music! You guys, the music.
This is why it’s so very cool that Moonshake Records has produced a limited-edition vinyl album of the original soundtrack to Pokémon Red and Blue for the collector who only likes their digital music via their refurbished Victrola. Perhaps the coolest thing about the album, besides it being colored like a Pokéball, is that the sleeve for it is a specially designed riff on the Beatles’ classic album cover for Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, featuring Pikachu, Squirtle, Charmeleon, and Bulbasaur as the Fab Four and the rest of the original Pokémon in the collage behind. Even Mario and Toad show up on there!
Only 500 such albums have been pressed, so you’ll need to act fast, making this thing as rare as finding a Red Gyrados in the wild. You can grab your own from Turntable Lab, for $49.99. This isn’t a thing for the casual fan, truly, but since Moonshake Records has already done vinyl soundtracks for classic games like The Legend of Zelda and Mega Man, we know the quality is high.
Will you be catching one of these albums? Do you feel super old like I do that Pokémon is 20 years old? Let’s have a group therapy session in the comments below!
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HT: Polygon
Image: Nintendo/Moonshake Records
Kyle Anderson is the weekend editor and a film and TV critic for Nerdist.com. Follow him on Twitter!
