Pac-Man Fever (album)

Pac-Man Fever
Studio album by Buckner & Garcia
Released	1982
Recorded	1981
Genre	Rock
Length	32:53
Label	Columbia/CBS Records (1982) RC 37941 Buckner & Garcia Productions (1999) K-tel Entertainment (2002 version)
Producer	Buckner & Garcia
Buckner & Garcia chronology
Pac-Man Fever (1982) Now & Then (1999)

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
Allmusic	[1]

Pac-Man Fever is a 1982 concept album recorded by Buckner & Garcia. It is also the name of the first song on that album. Each song on the album is about a different classic arcade game, and uses sound effects from that game. The album was released as an LP, a cassette, an 8-track tape, and later completely re-recorded for CD release in 1999, and 2002. The title itself is a parody of “Cat Scratch Fever” by Ted Nugent.^[2]

The title song, "Pac-Man Fever", was released as a single in December 1981 and became a top-ten hit, peaking at #9 in March 1982 on the Billboard Hot 100^[3] and earning Gold certification by the RIAA for selling over a million records.^[4] "Do the Donkey Kong" was the second single released from the album, but it failed to chart except on Billboard's Bubbling Under Hot 100 Singles at #103. Like the title song, the Pac-Man Fever album itself went on to receive a Gold certification from the RIAA, with over 500,000 records sold.^[5] The duo performed both of these singles on American Bandstand on March 20, 1982,^[6] as well as appearing later that day on Solid Gold,^[7] singing "Pac-Man Fever."

Track listing

1. "Pac-Man Fever" (Pac-Man)
2. "Froggy's Lament" (Frogger)
3. "Ode to a Centipede" (Centipede)
4. "Do the Donkey Kong" (Donkey Kong)
5. "Hyperspace" (Asteroids)
6. "The Defender" (Defender)
7. "Mousetrap" (Mouse Trap)
8. "Goin' Berzerk" (Berzerk)

Froggy's Lament also pays tribute to Smilin' Ed McConnell and Froggy the Gremlin from Andy's Gang with its lyrics "Hiya, kids" and "Plunk your magic twanger, Froggy!"

Re-release

In 1998 the duo was asked to record an unplugged version of the song exclusively for the syndicated radio show Retro Rewind. In 1999, a re-recorded version of the album was released independently by Buckner and Garcia, which was released commercially through K-Tel in 2002. The re-release was anxiously awaited by fans of the original album. However, Buckner and Garcia could not obtain the original master recordings from Sony Music Entertainment, so the duo was forced to record new performances of the songs and recreate a lot of the sound effects either digitally or musically. The result led to disappointment on the part of many fans and began a widespread search for the original vinyl, now hard to find (although MP3s of the original songs are, perhaps ironically, easier to find than the remakes). Some of the changes that occurred between the original and the re-recorded version were as follows:

• The introduction to the 1982 LP version of Pac-Man Fever uses a clip of the game being played at a delicatessen, and the sound of a man ordering a pastrami sandwich is faintly audible; this clip was replaced.^[8]
• The guitarist who interpolated the guitar solo in "Ode to a Centipede" could not keep up with the pace of the original guitarist and subsequently bailed out of the solo toward the end until it became easier to play.
• In the original recording of "Hyperspace," the sound that followed singing of the word "hyperspace" was a sample of the player shooting taken directly from an Asteroids machine. In the re-release, the sample was replaced with a guitarist sliding his fingers down the neck of the guitar to simulate the sound, and it is not quite as on key with the rest of the song as the original sample was.
• The original recording of "Mousetrap" contained samples from the Mouse Trap arcade game. No working machine of the game could be found in time for the re-recording, so recordings of actual cat, dog, and pigeon noises were used in place of the game samples.

Rock Band Network

On December 13th 2010, it was announced by Ozone Entertainment that the full Pac-Man Fever album would come to the Rock Band Network in early 2011. The first half of the album came in June, and the last half of the album came in November. It is available for Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Sony's Playstation 3.^[9][10]

References

1. ^ Allmusic review
2. ^ Mark Bould. The Routledge Companion to Science Fiction. Routledge. p. 400. ""Pac-Man Fever" (1982), a spoof of Ted Nugent's 1977 "Cat Scratch Fever,"" 
3. ^ "Pac-Man Fever". Time Magazine. April 5, 1982. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,921174,00.html. Retrieved October 15, 2009. "Columbia/CBS Records' Pac-Man Fever...was No. 9 on the Billboard Hot 100 last week." 
4. ^ "Popular Computing". McGraw-Hill. 1982: Volume 2. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,921174,00.html. Retrieved August 14, 2010. "Pac-Man Fever went gold almost instantly with 1 million records sold." 
5. ^ RIAA Gold & Platinum Searchable Database - Pac-Man Fever. RIAA.com. Retrieved 2009-11-01.
6. ^ "American Bandstand Season 25 Episode Guide". TV.com. March 20, 1982. http://www.tv.com/solid-gold/show/2476/episode.html?tag=ep_guide;paginator;2&season=2. Retrieved August 14, 2010. 
7. ^ "Solid Gold Season 2 Episode Guide". TV.com. March 20, 1982. http://www.tv.com/solid-gold/show/2476/episode.html?tag=ep_guide;paginator;2&season=2. Retrieved August 14, 2010. 
8. ^ Imberi, Jonathan. "Pac-Man's Notes - Pac-Man Fever CD" (in English). Archived from the original on 2007-03-09. http://web.archive.org/web/20070309012740/http://arcadegamer.googlepages.com/pac-manfevercd. Retrieved 2007-01-07. 
9. ^ "Buckner & Garcia Set to Bring The Fever to Rock Band" (in English). http://ozoneent.com/news/121310_PacManFever.html. Retrieved 2010-12-16. 
10. ^ Hatfield, Daemon. "'Do the Donkey Kong' On Your Xbox" (in English). http://xboxlive.ign.com/articles/114/1140240p1.html. Retrieved 2010-12-16. 

External links

• Buckner & Garcia
• Pac-Man Fever - Lyrics
• Namco Games