I'm a long-time fan of Nobuo Uematsu's compositional work. I'm also a big fan of Deep Purple. Recently, I've noticed a couple of points that seem to link the Japanese composer to the British hard rock band.
Piece of Evidence the First - Uematsu was the music composer for Blue Dragon, Mistwalker's first JRPG on the 360. That game's boss battle theme features former Deep Purple singer Ian Gillan as vocal contributor:
Piece of Evidence the Second - Final Fantasy VIII's soundtrack features a piece titled 'Maybe I'm A Lion':
Deep Purple's 1972 album Machine Head features a track titled 'Maybe I'm A Leo':
There aren't any obvious musical similarities, beyond the fact that Uematsu's composition is obviously influenced by the school of music that Deep Purple belong to (even if it is MIDI, I can still make out what are supposed to be electric guitars and rock organs). But even so, the names of those two tracks...
I know a lot of Uematsu's work is rooted in hard rock and heavy metal, from The Black Mages to Lost Odyssey's World Map music, and I'm sure that Deep Purple have at least played a bit part in that. I'm just curious to know if there's a deeper connection there or not. Maybe I'm just reading too much into this. I'm sure all of this could be explained away as coincidence, but I'm curious to know if anybody could confirm this for sure. Is Uematsu a die-hard Deep Purple fan?
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