Crush 40

Unlike some of their peers, Crush 40 prioritize "peace and love" over "sex and drugs" in the rock and roll philosophy.

Crush 40 are a cheesy-yet-endearing rock band who put their musical talents together for work on Sega's Sonic the Hedgehog video game series. Hailing from the Gamers' Republic of Japan, their objective was to conquer rock radio by singing about hedgehogs "following their rainbows" and "hanging on the edge of tomorrow."

History

Originally named Sons of Angels, the band formed in 1998 as a composition of two artists: Sonic the Hedgehog composer Jun Senoue and former glam singer Johnny Gioeli. Their musical style was a unique blend of pop rock, ska, skater punk, hair metal, '80s cockrock, and '90s buttrock. Their first song was featured in the game Sonic Adventure (1998) where they created both the title theme, "Open Your Heart", and Sonic's theme, "It Doesn't Matter". They then went on to do the music for another Sega game, NASCAR Racing (2000). In the Sonic Adventure sequel Sonic Adventure 2 (2001), they made the theme song called "Live and Learn", a reference to a previous Sonic game, Sonic's Schoolhouse. In the fourth game the band worked for, Sonic Heroes (2003), they wrote and performed the new hit single, "What I'm Made Of..."

In the next game they worked on, a spinoff of Sonic known as Shadow the Hedgehog (2005), Crush 40 released such existential emo-flavored songs as "I Am (None of Me)", "Always Turn Back", "Open Your Head", "Does It Matter?", "What Am I Made of?", "What I'm Afraid Of...", "Watch Me Die", and "Die and Forget". The band then made music for the next disaster game, Sonic '06 (2006), where they performed "All Hail Shadow (Crush 40 Version)", which plays after Shadow and friends battle a replica of Shadow named Mephiles the Dark, who is actually just a black man without a mouth. "All Hail Shadow" was originally performed by Magna-Fi, but they were too wasted to perform it again. Crush 40's Jun Senoue also did a remix of Lee Brotherton's "Dreams of an Absolute New Destruction", which was the theme for Silver, a whiny psychic replica of Raiden Sonic who wears all-white.

In 2017, Crush 40 returned when they performed "Live and Burn", the theme song to the game Sonic Pyro-Mania. The last game Crush 40 worked on was 2018's Team Sonic Racing, where they performed the theme song, "Creepy Green Light Ride" to commemorate the band's 20th anniversary. Since their work on TSR, Jun has perfected his Engrish speaking technique, and Johnny has disappeared after a final showdown with arch-villain Metal Sonic where Gioeli suffered another near-fatal core meltdown. Currently, there have been rumors of a full album of theirs being published, but nothing has been confirmed due to a lack of interest by any record companies to sign them or record shops to sell them whatsoever.

Members

Crush 40 is composed of two artists (and the occasional session drummer or bassist):

• Jun Senoue – Plays the band's one and only guitar. He was the first to sell his soul to Sega in exchange for a plate of sushi and a clean pillow. He is also Japanese, so has difficulty pronouncing his Ls, thus leading to the unfortunately mispronounced song "Rive and Rearn". As the Japanese man, Jun's role is to appeal to Western weeaboo audiences. He is kept in check by being fed enormous amounts of cheese, which sadly affects his songwriting.
• Johnny Gioeli – Sings. After his old '80s band Hardline got blown up due to a fatal core meltdown at their final concert (thought to be because the speakers were turned up to eleven), he wandered from America to Japan where he was picked up by a local tourist, mistaking him for the latest robot craze. When it turned out Johnny could not spin his hands around while dancing, he was sold to Sega. While it is not unheard-of for an American to become the singer in a Japanese rock band, it is still highly unusual and thus he is thought by some to be under Jun's control. He didn't sell his soul nevertheless, as he is American and never had one in the first place. Johnny is physically incapable of turning 40 and drinking Orange Crush, regardless of what the other wiki says.