Modding the Score is back! It’s weird to realize that it’s been three months since the last Modding the Score playlist. Coming off of the music preservation article, Game Music Hub would skip May entirely so that I could work on the two articles that were scheduled for June. One of them was another incredibly complex article, which is why I needed the time. But not even that was enough, because I couldn’t make its original June deadline (it was meant for the 14th). It’s still coming out, but it’s taking me unusually longer. The second article is what you’re about to read.
The Delicious Last Course is one of my most anticipated releases of the year. So much so that I’ve been replaying the original Cuphead to prepare for the goodness that’s to come.
Even more excited I am for Kris Maddigan’s return to the Cuphead world. The original score is one of my favorite game scores of its year, one that’s only increased in appreciation for me as the years have gone by, so I can’t wait to dip into the DLC the second it drops.
I’ve also long wanted to write about the original game here, but it’s been a struggle figuring out exactly what to focus on. Well, with the impending release of the DLC, why not a custom playlist to prepare you for the impending new music?
With that out of the way, I present to you, the latest installment of Modding the Score… Cuphead: An Appetizer Before The Last Course. First time I’ve actually come up with a name for a playlist of mine. Don’t expect that to become the new normal, though.
As usual, join me after the jump if you want to learn about my thought process behind this playlist.
TRACKLIST:
1. Don’t Deal with the Devil
2. High Seas Hi-Jinx
3. Threatenin’ Zeppelin
4. Carnival Kerfuffle
5. Inkwell Isle One
6. Coin-Op Bop
7. Pyramid Peril
8. Floral Fury
9. Honeycomb Herald
10. Die House
11. Inkwell Hell
12. Railroad Wrath
13. Admission to Perdition
14. Murine Corps
15. The Airship
Behind the Scenes
When thinking about how to approach this playlist, a thought kept coming to my mind– how would I introduce someone to Cuphead’s music if I only had 45-minutes’ worth of music to do so?
Well, that is a question that yields a multi-layered response. The simple answer is to take what are considered the most popular tracks and arrange them in some sort of pleasing fashion. That could be the way to do it, until you realize that most everyone’s favorite tracks are concentrated on World 1 and 2. There’s no way to just leave out half of the score out of the picture. So that can’t be it.
Cuphead’s score is more well-known for its boss tracks, but the music written for the run-and-gun levels, cutscenes, mausoleums and even the worlds themselves is just as crucial to the experience. So doing an all-boss-tracks playlist wasn’t going to work either.
One thing I have always found fascinating about Kris Maddigan’s music for this game is how much he stretches the score within the boundaries of the jazz umbrella, ranging from lounge to swing. In some tracks, he even reaches to the outside to sweeten the tracks with the flavor of other genres, like samba or flamenco. That variety, more than any other characteristic found in the score, felt the most compelling to explore with the playlist to me.
How about if, in 45 minutes, I take you through every possible musical genre that Cuphead touches? Well, for starters, you end up incredibly exhausted. The first version of the playlist jumps from swing to ragtime to samba to freeform to lounge to whatever else and ends up giving you so much whiplash that you get a headache by the end. And that’s not a nag on Maddigan’s terrific music, it’s just that it wasn’t meant to be listened to in that way.
But even understanding that that wasn’t quite the way, I still knew I was on to something. The second iteration needed to pull off that variety with a lot more finesse and subtlety. It wasn’t about the score showing off all its tricks, it was about it providing an experience that could lead you down these different corners with more naturality. It needed to feel like a journey. So, it needed a musical arc.
Normally, I approach these playlists from a narrative perspective, as many game scores already have that ingrained into them via themes and motifs. But Cuphead is the first score I tackle that doesn’t have any, even if there actually are a handful of phrases and voicings that are occassionally shared across tracks. So naturally, this meant that the approach needed to shift.
Instead of thinking of this playlist like a story unto itself, I conceived it as a concert. And how fortuitous that this year’s Game Music Festival did feature a concert dedicated to Cuphead!
Having now a firm grasp on what I wanted out of it, the playlist quickly started to take shape. I knew up front that I wanted to open it with the stunning Don’t Deal with the Devil for barbershop quartet; it very quickly grabs you and there’s no better way to make you understand what kind of music you’re in for.
What to follow with was a bit trickier. I knew it needed to lead with a bang, as opposed to building to a bang, which is what I usually like to do with the playlists. Concerts don’t start slow, they start with the stuff they know is going to hype you up. Floral Fury seemed like the obvious candidate for this, but even though it’s a strong-enough track to both open and close the playlist, I ended up finding a much better place for it elsewhere. In its place, High Seas Hi-Jinx blasts in with its killer main melody, insane sax runs, and those delicious solos.
The following two tracks, Threatenin’ Zeppelin and Carnival Kerfuffle, are our first showcases of the versatility of styles within the score. They are, at their core, still swing big band jazz, but wildly different from each other, what with the former’s use of vibraphone and clarinet, and the latter’s reliance on rhythmic piano writing and more relaxed pace.
Inkwell Isle One is another change of pace, and the first of two ‘palate cleansers’ built into the playlist as a way for listeners to breathe and reset in-between the more energetic music.
Afterwards was a real dilemma. I knew I wanted to showcase a run-and-gun track to follow Inkwell Isle One, since I was only ever going to have enough time for one. But at the same time, Coin-Op Bop is such a gloriously demented track that I was having a hard time not including it. This track is actually not found in the game, and was meant to score a level (presumably a run-and-gun) that was cut during development. Even with that… how could I not showcase that absolutely bonkers use of a fotoplayer, or at least what’s intended to sound like one, those delicious slide whistle accents and those percussion arrangements that definitely killed a musician? So yes, I chose to sacrifice all of the run-and-gun tracks to make room for Coin-Op Bop. Y’all can tell me whether that was worth it.
Because Coin-Op Bop can leave you gasping for air just by itself, I knew the next track needed to be a breather, but I didn’t want another palate cleanser immediately after. Enter Pyramid Peril. Compared to other more showy and tuneful boss tracks, Pyramid Peril relies a lot more on atmosphere, rhythm and texture. Its main musical hook is an arpeggiated figure instead of a catchy melody, while its rhythm section is more complex than the traditional swing rhythms of earlier tracks. I personally I find it very harmonically interesting, and its looser, almost freeform structure gives it an off-kilter feel that makes it stand out from the more predictable Chorus/Solo 1/Chorus/ Solo 2/Chorus structure that most other boss tracks have. Placed right after Coin-Op Bop, Pyramid Peril allows the listener a break without slowing down the pace that much.
It’s right after this that the one track everyone loves comes along. Not at the beginning, not at the end, instead right at the middle point. Floral Fury is probably the track that most overtly steers away from jazz and into different genres (Honeycomb Herald is another example, but even then it doesn’t compare). For Floral Fury, the shift is into Latino rhythms, specifically a fusion between samba and mambo.
Interestingly, while jazz, samba and mambo have very little to do with each other in terms of origin, all three genres come from black people. Samba originated from the descendants of black slaves in Brazil derived from capoeira and other local musical forms like lundú. Mambo, on the other hand, draws its origins from danzón, which itself was derived from contradanza, which itself was the French contredanse as interpreted by Afro-Cubans. While I trust that I don’t have to explain jazz’s origins to a largely English-speaking, Western readership, I will mention a special connection shared by jazz and mambo– contradanza became internationally well-known during the 19th century (a century before the creation of mambo), to the point that it reached the US and became popular there for a couple of decades while the precursors to jazz developed. Some historians even draw lines from contradanza all the way to jazz, as they share similar rhythmic languages (though that’s to be expected, given that both have deep roots in much older African music).
Cuban presence was also strong around the Mexican Gulf area, and it’s widely believed that many Cuban genres like danzón and mambo entered the country through Veracruz (being a major international port), which led to me and many other Mexicans growing up with all of this musical diversity.
Another interesting connection between the three genres is that, somehow, all three originated some time during the early 20th century. And you know, there’s a certain poetry in hearing a piece of music that fuses three genres created by black communities independent of each other, in different corners of the world, at roughly the same point in time.
Maybe it’s me seeing more meaning than there actually is in a thing, and it’s very likely that Kristofer Maddigan wasn’t thinking about any of this when he wrote this music, but there’s still something quite beautiful about it all.
So let’s get back on track, yeah?
The middle third of the playlist felt like the perfect time to stretch the music’s versatility to its fullest. That’s why Floral Fury needed to be here. Coin-Op Bop and Pyramid Peril wouldn’t have made sense anywhere else but here. And neither would Honeycomb Herald, which is the track that follows after this.
Honeycomb Herald is also an interesting diversion into a different genre, even while more overtly retaining its jazzy roots. Instead of latino roots, the track slightly resembles flamenco with its harmonic language and instrumental choices, such as maracas and acoustic guitar.
The duo of Die House and Inkwell Hell are our second palate cleanser before the final third of the playlist. Die House, with masterful vocals by Alana Bridgewater, was the perfect way to lead into the loungy goodness of Inkwell Hell in a way that didn’t feel like I was suddenly bringing the pace to a halt. The latter track is equally masterful; I’m a huge fan of lounge music, so any time that I can hear it outside the usual suspects is a great thing. And for the playlist, it massively benefitted the experience to have a nearly-three-minute break to relax, as the final four tracks are meant to bring the house down.
The first third was meant to show the score’s versatility within the jazz space, while the second third showed its versatility outside of it. The final third, however, was about ending on a high and, particularly, creating a frenzied rush to get there.
Railroad Wrath opens with a literal blast from the brass and doesn’t let up. The following track used to be One Hell of a Time rather than Admission to Perdition. While Cuphead is not a thematic score, Admission to Perdition is as close to thematic reprises as it gets, and I couldn’t pass up the chance to show some of the earlier material revisited. It also allows sorely missed tracks like Sugarland Shimmy, Clip Joint Calamity, Fiery Frolic and Dramatic Fanatic to not be completely absent.
Murine Corps and its rhythmic motif pick up immediately after and carry us to the finish line, where The Airship is waiting. The second of four unused tracks found on the album, The Airship was intended for a boss fight that was ultimately scrapped. Its dramatic brass writing, relentless pace and spectacular finish made it the perfect candidate to close out the playlist with a bang.
An argument could be made that the time occupied by The Airship would be better spent by music that’s actually in the game. You wouldn’t be wrong. But then again, I cannot deny that the playlist is much better with it in it. So even if it took space from other favorites, The Airship was the better choice for me.
So, how would I introduce someone to Cuphead’s music if I only had 45-minutes’ worth of music to do so? Apparently, the answer is… I wouldn’t, because the playlist runs for 10 more minutes than it was intended to. But that’s par for the course with Modding the Score.
But this is as best as I can make it. Hopefully it incentivizes people to check out the score if they haven’t, and for those of us already familiar, hopefully it provides a nice appetizer before The Delicious Last Course.
(ugh, I’m so sorry for that)
CUPHEAD
Music and lyrics by Kristofer Maddigan
Ensembles conducted by John Herberman
“Don’t Deal with the Devil” featuring vocals by ‘Shoptimus Prime:
Tom Mifflin
Michael Black
Michael La Scala
Joel La Scala
“Die House” featuring vocals by Alana Bridgewater
Game Music Hub 