May Madness 2020: all remakes revealed!

Hey Patrons, it's time to take a look at all of the remakes coming for this year's May Madness event!

There were so many highly voted songs to choose from this year. As I said in the May Madness discussion post, I didn't necessarily go with only the top voted, but both the Patron vote and public vote did have a strong influence on my selection process.

Before I get started, I should make a quick note for those who missed it or perhaps weren't yet Patrons when it was announced, but the first official May Madness 2020 reveal came last month: the Main Theme from Super Smash Bros. Brawl will be a part of this year's line-up. :D

So without further ado, let's get to it!

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First up, the honorary medley extension pick: King Bowser (Super Mario Bros. 3). Or if you prefer, you could also call it Fight Against Koopa from Super Mario RPG, but they're practically the same song.

This is probably the only song that I haven't had any plans to do for any May Madness, past or present, but it did surprisingly well in this year's votes. For the medley spot, it came down to this song and The Moon from Ducktales. The Moon barely beat out King Bowser by only 1 vote in the Patreon discussion post (The Moon tying with 2 others for the #3 spot, and King Bowser with 2 others for the #4 spot). 

With such a close count, I turned to the public vote, and was surprised to see King Bowser also did extremely well, as the #1 highest medley song voted and #6 overall. The Moon, on the other hand, did terribly on the public vote in comparison, with 9 votes to Bowser's 28. Not surprising considering The Moon is an old NES song, but with 3x the votes, it was enough to confirm my decision for King Bowser. Also I like Bowser so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Another interesting thing to point out: the public form put another medley song into contention. Battle! Champion Blue came very close to Bowser, behind by only 2 votes and placing #7 overall. However, I don't believe it received any votes in the Patreon discussion. So yeah, sorry Blue.

Next up: Pokey Means Business from Earthbound! This song was tied for the #3 spot in the Patreon discussion post, and also placed #3 in the public vote. PMB was one of the songs that barely missed the cut last year, so taking that into consideration with a solidly strong showing in both votes, this was an easy choice for this year's May Madness.

Sandopolis Zone (Sonic & Knuckles), like Pokey Means Business, was a song I was considering for last year that didn't make the cut. Results from both forms had me deciding between Sandopolis, which didn't do too hot in the Patreon discussion but did alright in the public vote at #11 overall, and Emerald Hill Zone, which placed #2 overall in the Patreon discussion form but somewhere around #14 in the public form.

Since this was a 'didn't-make-the-cut' song from last year, I decided to go with Sandopolis. Maybe next time, Emerald Hill!

Silver Surfer is headed back to GaMetal with a remake of the Level 1 Theme from the NES game! 

This is a hype as hell song, and I've been wanting to remake it for the past couple of years but it kept ending up in the 'maybe next time' pile. It had a strong showing in the Patreon discussion post, tying for the #4 spot, and did alright in the public vote tied with a few others at #13, but the strong Patron showing was enough for me to decide that enough is enough and it's time to bring this song back for the remake treatment it deserves.

Bloody Tears is yet another song I wanted to do last year that barely missed the cut. It had a strong showing in the public vote, easily taking the #2 spot, and a decent showing in the Patreon discussion tied at #5 with 5 others. I really hate my old mix on this song, but like the arrangement, so I'm really looking forward to rerecording this one.

Get Up!! The Fight Theme from Punch-Out! is getting yet another GaMetal makeover. I'm starting to sound like a broken record, but this is yet ANOTHER song I was considering the past couple of years that hasn't been making the cut.

It had an equally strong showing in both votes, tied with 2 others for the #4 spot in the Patreon Discussion, and also a solid #4 spot in the public vote. So I decided, eh, why not?

This will be the 3rd time doing this song: the first, crappy version I made 10 years ago in 2010, and the second, slightly better version back in 2014, making it one of the few 3+ appearance GaMetal songs. Watch out Zero Two.

Last, but not least, the #1 song from both the Patreon discussion post and the public vote: Battle! Deoxys from Pokemon Emerald/FireRed/LeafGreen. This is the last time I have to say this, I swear, but this was another song that missed the cut last year. Actually, it was the last song that missed the cut. I don't remember the counts off hand, but it had a strong showing in last years public vote, and a good showing in last year's Patreon discussion if I recall correctly. It was just barely, BARELY edged out by other choices.

Not this time!

And of course, as mentioned last month and at the top of this post:

The return of the Smash Bros Brawl Main Theme!

That makes... EIGHT remakes coming this year!

On top of these 8 remakes, I will still be trying to squeeze in a couple of new tracks from the to-do list as well. If all goes according to plan, we could have a 10 song month in May!

Part of the reason I did the May Madness vote early was because I wanted to get started on working on these songs as early as I could, to see how many I think I could feasibly get done. I also wanted the start of this decade to feature our biggest May Madness yet, and with the way things are going, it's looking like that's going to happen! As you can hear from the preview video, I have a lot done on all of these remake tracks, and with the progress I've made they should all be easy to wrap up soon enough.

Also, I should go ahead and start mentioning this now: with a huge song count month ahead, please be sure your Patreon Pledge Limits are set accordingly! As I always say: I'm more than happy for everything you contribute, but I'm not looking to break your bank either. I don't expect everyone to pay for more than 1-4 songs a month (especially those in higher tiers), so please only pledge for an amount that you both want to and are most comfortable with. :)

That concludes this's May Madness song reveal post. What remake are you looking forward to most?

Thank you all for being amazing, and I'll see you in the next post! :)

TL;DR: Eight confirmed May Madness remakes: King Bowser (Super Mario Bros. 3), Pokey Means Business (Earthbound), Sandopolis Zone (Sonic & Knuckles), Level 1 (Silver Surfer NES), Bloody Tears (Castlevania II), Fight Theme (Punch-Out!), Battle! Deoxys (Pokémon Emerald/FireRed/LeafGreen), Main Theme (Super Smash Bros. Brawl). Thank you for being awesome!