That one hardcore track from Ridge Racer
Is Bandai Namco planning something for Ridge Racer's *checks notes* 33rd anniversary? Probably not, but the re-release of the original Ridge Racer last year, and the imminent re-release of Rave Racer on consoles via Arcade Archives 2 is pretty damn auspicious.
And today is even better as Bandai Namco released most of the Ridge Racer series' missing soundtracks to streaming platforms. This also, finally, includes the best Ridge game ever: R4 -Ridge Racer Type4- and its absolutely gorgeous main theme with vocals by Kimara Lovelace:
Next to R4, I've listened to the soundtracks to Ridge Racer and Ridge Racer Revolution way too many times. For those two games, that started after I discovered I could just stick the PlayStation game discs in a normal CD player. I eventually ripped them to a single disc so I could play them on the move in a Discman.
And that makes me feel old.
As it should.
Which is all good and all, but…! One of the more out-there tracks in the original games was (and still is): Rotterdam Nation.
(Am I the only Dutchie that hears "door, rij door, rij door…" at the 0:28 mark?)
As a Dutch person though, the inclusion of this track is still absolutely wild to me. Not only does the name reference the Dutch city, it's also a track that can be lumped in with the rather local gabber / hardcore house movement of the 1990's, which originated in that same city.
Gabber was a pretty big cultural thing in the Netherlands and its music was regarded as aggressive and harsh, while the people that were into it often shaved their heads (back when that was basically shorthand for being a neo-Nazi, which they were not) and were seen as being high on all kinds of substances all the time. It was big, but it was also, let's say, misunderstood. That this oddly specific music style popped up in a Japanese arcade racing game is downright bonkers.
I assume it was something of a happy accident. Japan really got into Eurodance around that time as well (partially due to acts like the Belgian/Dutch 2 Unlimited) and they liked it so much that, in typical Japanese fashion, they eventually made it their own.
Apart from maybe the main theme, Ridge Racer contains a lot of Eurodance-style tracks. So, with gabber being a kind of off-shoot of that style, I can see Namco's sound team being like "well, this is a new and happening style of Eurodance, maybe we should include it?" It's been a classic track for the series ever since its first appearance and I guess it's probably been the first encounter with gabber for most of its players.
There's also one other thing that I keep thinking about whenever I hear the track… Going out on a limb here, but Rotterdam is also part of the Randstad metropolitan area of the Netherlands. And you technically could translate Randstad as… "Ridge City", which you know… is where Ridge Racer takes place.
Did the music inspire the name? Did the name inspire the music? Who knows! But it's a fun little conundrum to think about.