Editing Sonic the Hedgehog (1991) (section)

==Soundtrack==
{|class="wikitable" style="float: right; width: 35%"
|[[File:STH1 Green Hill Zone - Masa's Demo version.ogg|center]]
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|[[File:StH1 Green Hill Zone ~Mega Drive Version~.ogg|center]]
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|style="font-size:80%"|Comparison of Masato Nakamura's original composition for the [[Green Hill Zone (Sonic the Hedgehog)|Green Hill Zone]] track (top) and the in-game rearrangement (bottom).
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Having connections to the music industry, [[Sega]] director Fujio Minegishi suggested that his friend [[Wikipedia:Yūzō Kayama|Yūzō Kayama]] wrote the ''Sonic'' score. However, [[Sonic Team]] did not think Kayama's music would fit, and so commissioned [[Masato Nakamura]], bassist and songwriter of the [[Wikipedia:J-pop|J-pop]] band [[Dreams Come True]].<ref name="retro" /><ref>{{cite journal|url=https://retrocdn.net/index.php?title=File%3ASega_Magazine_JP_Issue_03_199701.pdf&page=11|title=ソニックチーム物語|journal=Sega Magazine|publisher=[[Wikipedia:SB Creative|SoftBank Creative]]|date=January 1997|pages=9–13|language=Japanese|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20191217211118/http://shmuplations.com/sonicteam/|archivedate=17 December 2019}}</ref> Nakamura said he was surprised, as he had just started with Dreams Come True, but accepted as he was inspired by the team's desire to outperform [[Nintendo]]. He also stated that the hardest part was working with the limited number of sounds that could play concurrently: being limited to four, he said that his lack of knowledge of music on computers made it "impossible". Regardless, he wrote the soundtrack concurrently with the Dreams Come True album ''Million Kisses''.<ref name="Zone1" /><ref name="SCentral">{{cite web|url=http://www.sega.com/sonic/globalsonic/post_sonicteam.php?article=nakamura|work=Sonic Central|publisher=[[Sega]]|title=Interview with Masato Nakamura|author=[[Sega|Sega of America]]|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20081223022942/http://www.sega.com/sonic/globalsonic/post_sonicteam.php?article=nakamura|archivedate=23 December 2008}}</ref> Nakamura would record his compositions on tape, taking into account the number of audio channels available, before sending them to Sega, where members of the company's sound team, Hiroshi Kubota and [[Yukifumi Makino]], would digitize the soundtrack for the Mega Drive hardware using an [[Wikipedia:Atari ST|Atari ST]] and the program Notator.<ref>{{Cite web|author=[[Masato Nakamura|Nakamura, Masato]]|date=17 February 2021|title="Emerald Hill Zone"! DREAMS COME TRUE|url=https://dreamscometrue.com/masablog/2021/02/17/27025|accessdate=24 May 2021|publisher=[[Dreams Come True]]}}</ref><ref name="strafefox">{{Cite web |author = strafefox |date = 23 September 2022 |title = The Making of Sonic the Hedgehog |url = https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69AOVtOUatY |work = YouTube |accessdate = 20 August 2023}}</ref> Makino did the final tweaking of the tracks with Nakamura, and would contribute by making the game's iconic jingles, like the one when an extra [[life]] is obtained and the infamous [[drowning]] countdown one.<ref name="strafefox" />

The main theme of the game, which would play, among others, on the title screen, would be reused in several subsequent games in the ''Sonic'' series and would remain as its hallmark. In addition, another popular song from the game would be the theme for [[Green Hill Zone (Sonic the Hedgehog)|Green Hill Zone]], which would be reused and remixed for several other games in the series.

[[File:Sonic1&2 soundtrack front.png|thumb|225px|right|The album cover for ''[[Sonic the Hedgehog 1&2 Soundtrack]]''.]]
In 2011, twenty years after the release of ''Sonic 1'', a three-disc compilation of music from the game and ''[[Sonic the Hedgehog 2]]'' was released in Japan as the album ''[[Sonic the Hedgehog 1&2 Soundtrack]]''. The first disc featured original tracks from both games, the second contained Nakamura's demo recordings before they were programmed into the Sega Mega Drive, and the third had songs by Dreams Come True and their associated [[Akon]] remixes.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://store.universal-music.co.jp/fs/artist/pocs21032|publisher=Universal Music Japan|title=中村正人 from DREAMS COME TRUE / ソニック・ザ・ヘッジホッグ1&2 サウンドトラック【CD】|language=Japanese|accessdate=20 February 2015}}</ref>