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Pokémon Discussion

Lavender Town Theme - Page 1

Lavender Town Theme

Posted by: Don Watermeleon
Date: 2012-12-22 00:17:02
This has intrigued me for a good while now, so I thought I'd solicit the 2 cents out of our genuine Pokemon Professors here at GCL for you guys know far more than I.

It's a known fact that for some undisclosed reason the Lavender Town theme was changed from the original Japanese Pokemon Red and Green games to the later releases of Pokemon Red and Blue in the US and Pokemon Blue in Japan. However, I can't find any sort of consensus or official release of why a change was made, or exactly what was altered. Naturally, as with anything semi-arcane in the history of the Pokemon series (think Missingno), this tiny edit has given birth to cavalcade of myths and fantasies about the sinister nature of the original Lavender Town theme. The fact that the song is clearly intended to be somewhat unnerving only fuels the fire. A common story I've read is that the composer added certain extremely high frequencies to the original theme to make it extra frightening for kids playing, but entirely undetectable to older gamers. However, according to this tale, his unholy abomination of a song led to a mass of suicides amongst little kids in Japan. The police couldn't find any sort of wrongdoing because they were incapable of hearing these mindraping frequencies, but regardless Game Freak removed them from the song for all future versions and never spoke of this monstrosity again.

http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/lavender-town-syndrome-creepypasta

Obviously all of that is complete bs, however stories like this have sprung up for a legitimate reason. The Lavender Town theme is the only song changed between the Japanese R/G to the US R/B, and it's very curious what made them do this. I've been listening to both versions of the song on loop and maybe I'm getting too old for this, but they sound the same to me. Both equally terrifying, but I can't see why they felt the need to change their original song.

Anyone here know exactly why Game Freak changed the Lavender Town theme, and what part is different? At 00:31 of the Japanese version the song gets a little fuzzy so perhaps that's where the ultra high frequencies are, but it's probably just my ears playing tricks on me and trying to hear something that's not there. GCL's never let me down, though, so I figure someone here can shed some light on this. And Merry Christmas!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ly_M-laKN3c - Lavender Town Red/Green [Original]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_411G29lfy4 - Lavender Town Red/Blue
 

Re: Lavender Town Theme

Posted by: Missing? NO!
Date: 2012-12-22 03:31:27
-insert depressing story-

And Merry Christmas!


But, in all seriousness, I actually did hear some higher frequencies when I listened to it a few years ago. However, the music didn't really do anything to me emotionally at that point, besides giving me a headache, which is physical.

I think that could be the main reason why it was changed. The high frequencies probably gave kids headaches and they complained, so they changed it. I don't believe any of the stuff about suicide, however.

Re: Lavender Town Theme

Posted by: Vuroja5
Date: 2012-12-22 04:58:59

It's a known fact that for some undisclosed reason the Lavender Town theme was changed from the original Japanese Pokemon Red and Green games to the later releases of Pokemon Red and Blue in the US and Pokemon Blue in Japan.


I would dispute that this is a 'known fact'. Like you I was interested in this story and after doing a little digging found that the first 'serious' reference to edited music (outside of creepypasta that is) came from this video on 08/05/10 from a user called 'Bhalspawn'. It was the same user that first added this 'fact' to Bulbapedia articles. Due to Bulbapedia's reputation as an accurate site this clearly gave Bhalspawn's opinion some perceived legitimacy and the rumour has continued to spread until its creepypasta origin has been forgotten and many take it as a fact.

Obviously all of that is complete bs, however stories like this have sprung up for a legitimate reason.

The reason being that the music and Lavender Town themselves are scary for young children. Someone created a 'ghost story' based on the location (iirc a programmer, Chiro Miura, adding suicide tones into the music), and then others such as Bhalspawn changed the story from suicide tones to 'high frequencies', which is believable but unfounded in fact.

but it's probably just my ears playing tricks on me and trying to hear something that's not there.

Yes exactly, it's a confirmation bias/placebo effect. Someone on tcrf compared the supposedly different versions and found them to be identical: here (I take this as empirical since they used software to confirm it, unlike the people that spread the rumour). Torchickens has since had references to altered music removed from Bulbapedia's Lavender Town page.

Re: Lavender Town Theme

Posted by: SCared_Fir3
Date: 2012-12-22 13:28:05

I think that could be the main reason why it was changed. The high frequencies probably gave kids headaches and they complained, so they changed it. I don't believe any of the stuff about suicide, however.

^ This.
Around 2:53 in the original video you can hear high pitched buzzing in the background too.
I wish the 2nd video didn't have that echo effect so you could ACTUALLY listen to it and hear the differences… whatever.

Re: Lavender Town Theme

Posted by: Don Watermeleon
Date: 2012-12-23 15:36:53


It's a known fact that for some undisclosed reason the Lavender Town theme was changed from the original Japanese Pokemon Red and Green games to the later releases of Pokemon Red and Blue in the US and Pokemon Blue in Japan.


I would dispute that this is a 'known fact'. Like you I was interested in this story and after doing a little digging found that the first 'serious' reference to edited music (outside of creepypasta that is) came from this video on 08/05/10 from a user called 'Bhalspawn'. It was the same user that first added this 'fact' to Bulbapedia articles. Due to Bulbapedia's reputation as an accurate site this clearly gave Bhalspawn's opinion some perceived legitimacy and the rumour has continued to spread until its creepypasta origin has been forgotten and many take it as a fact.

Obviously all of that is complete bs, however stories like this have sprung up for a legitimate reason.

The reason being that the music and Lavender Town themselves are scary for young children. Someone created a 'ghost story' based on the location (iirc a programmer, Chiro Miura, adding suicide tones into the music), and then others such as Bhalspawn changed the story from suicide tones to 'high frequencies', which is believable but unfounded in fact.

but it's probably just my ears playing tricks on me and trying to hear something that's not there.

Yes exactly, it's a confirmation bias/placebo effect. Someone on tcrf compared the supposedly different versions and found them to be identical: here (I take this as empirical since they used software to confirm it, unlike the people that spread the rumour). Torchickens has since had references to altered music removed from Bulbapedia's Lavender Town page.


Excellent points Vuroja. I guess I got a bit ahead of myself declaring the Lavender Town music edit a "known fact". It just seemed so widespread from the bit of searching I had done that I figured there was some basis for the story, but the way rumors proliferate on the Internet you can't always count on that.

Still, sometime in the near future I'm going to have to find a young cousin or someone to test this out on and we can close the book on this myth once and for all. I'll post back with results.

Re: Lavender Town Theme

Posted by: Raven Freak
Date: 2012-12-23 20:51:42
Another factor I heard about them changing the theme is that the original theme put a strain on the Gameboy's speaker. I've seen many videos of the theme on YT, but none of them effected me (though being 22 means that my ears are fully developed of course) which is probably why I didn't experience anything.