I want you to close your eyes for just a second.
I'm going to try to trigger a very specific dormant
memory in your brain right now. Uh -oh. That's
a good one. Picture this. You are sitting on
the carpet, maybe it's Saturday morning in the
mid -90s, and you've got a massive bowl of sugary
cereal in your lap. Oh, yeah. I know where this
is going. And suddenly... you hear a pick slide
down a guitar string. That iconic scratching
sound, followed by one of the most aggressive
high -speed riffs in television history. And
then, just four words, go. Go Power Rangers.
It is instantaneous. I mean, it's basically a
Pavlovian response for anyone born between, say,
1980 and the year 2000. You hear that riff, and
your heart rate actually goes up. It really does.
It triggers this fight or flight response, but,
you know, in a fun way. Exactly. It is a massive
cultural touchstone. But here is the thing, and
this is the entire reason we are doing a deep
dive into this today. Most people completely
dismiss it. Yeah, they do. We think of it as
just a cheesy, disposable jingle from a kid's
show about teenagers in spandex fighting rubber
monsters. Which, to be fair, is exactly what
the show was. Right. True. But when you actually
look at the Wikipedia page for Go Go Power Rangers,
which is our source material today, you start
unpacking the production history, the music theory
behind it. and the absolute insanity of the people
who ended up performing it later on. It's wild.
It really is a fascinating case study in musical
evolution. It is not just a jingle. It really
isn't. We are talking about a track that premiered
in the U .S. on December 2, 1994 under Sabin
Records. and the UK release followed closely
on December 14th. Right. And on the surface,
yes, it's a children's theme. But if you strip
away the visuals of Megazord and just look at
the audio, it is a technical marvel. It's essentially
a speed metal anthem that somehow tricked the
entire world into thinking it was a full, sweating,
thrashing rock band. And that trick is exactly
where I want to start. Because looking at the
notes you pulled together from the source, this
might be the biggest fake out in 90s music history.
Oh, absolutely. We assume we are listening to
a band. We hear drums, we hear bass, we hear
a screaming guitar solo. But that is not what
was happening in the studio, was it? Not even
close. And this is the central aha moment of
this whole deep dive. The architect of the sound
is a composer named Ron Wasserman. OK. And just
a quick side note, in the liner notes, he sometimes
used the alias Aaron Waters dash the mighty raw.
The mighty raw. That sounds like he should be
one of the Power Rangers or maybe a pro wrestler.
I love it. It is a phenomenal 90s alias. But
here is the reality. That original 1994 track,
the one that ran for the first three seasons
and completely defined the show, it was a one
-man job. Just him. Just him. And I don't mean
he played all the instruments one by one and
layered them like Prince or Dave Grohl might
do. I mean, he didn't play the instruments at
all. Wait, clarify that for me because I'm listening
to the track in my head right now. I hear a drummer
heating cymbals. I hear guitar feedback. I hear
shredding. You are hearing a keyboard entirely.
Ron Wasserman does not play the guitar. He does
not play the drums. He sat down at a keyboard
that was preloaded with high quality guitar and
drum sounds and he played the entire band on
the keys. That is actually difficult to wrap
my head around. Because usually when you hear
synthesized rock from the early 90s, think about
video game music from that era. Yeah, the classic
bit -crushed sound. Right. It sounds like a bad
MIDI file. It sounds sterile. But this track
has grit. has human error, or at least it feels
like it does. That is the genius of Wasserman's
composition. He wasn't just hitting notes, he
was playing the personality of the instruments.
He understood what a rock drummer does, where
the kick drum hits, how the snare snaps. He knew
the groove. Exactly. He understood that a guitar
solo needs to scream and sustain. He programmed
that rock energy into the track, key by key.
So the anthem that convinced millions of kids
they liked heavy metal was essentially a digital
illusion. It was the ultimate fake it till you
make it. He needed a stadium rock sound. He didn't
have a band. And he was under a super tight TV
deadline. So he built a virtual band inside his
workstation. That is incredible. The full track
clocks in at four minutes and 43 seconds. And
it carries this frenetic martial arts energy.
But it was born on a circuit board, not in a
garage. That context actually changes how I hear
it now. It's almost more impressive that he pulled
that off with 1994 technology. But this brings
up the genre debate. You mentioned speed metal
earlier. Yeah. I feel like if you ask a serious
metalhead, they might get pretty offended if
you call the Power Rangers theme metal. Oh, it
is a massive point of contention. If you go on
to music forums or Reddit threads, you will find
people arguing about this for pages. Is it heavy
metal? Is it power metal? Is it just hard rock?
It's definitely heavier than standard pop. It's
got the distortion. It's got the tempo. It's
aggressive. Exactly. And Wasserman himself actually
weighed in on this in a 2023 interview, which
I think settles the debate, or at least complicates
it in a really fun way. He describes it as speed
metal, sort of. sort of is doing a lot of heavy
lifting there. It really is. But he makes a very
technical distinction that I think is brilliant.
He says it's not exactly heavy metal or pop metal
because of the vocals. OK, how so? Well, in traditional
heavy metal or thrash, you usually have a certain
vocal texture, guttural, deep, maybe a bit grungy
or screaming chord voices. Right, the Cookie
Monster vocals or just that gravelly. James Hetfield
sound. Exactly. Wasserman didn't do that. He
kept the vocals clean. He wanted the melody to
be accessible to kids. He didn't want to scare
them. He wanted to energize them. That makes
total sense. So he calls it speed metal, sort
of, because the music is thrashing, but the singing
is pop. So the instrumentation is doing one thing.
being aggressive and fast, and the vocals are
doing another, being melodic and catchy. It's
a hybrid. Precisely. And here is where it gets
really interesting. Wasserman actually made a
comparison in that interview that I love, and
it might shock you. He compared the track to
Metallica's album, Hardwired to Self -Destruct.
Wow. OK. That is a bold claim, comparing a children's
TV theme to Metallica. I could hear the metal
fans typing angry comments already. But look
at why he made the comparison. He wasn't comparing
the darkness or the lyrical themes. He was comparing
the velocity. The speed. Yes. He said, wow, they're
hitting that speed. He loved that Metallica album
because it was flying at such a fast pace. And
that is the secret sauce of go -go Power Rangers.
Velocity. That tracks. The show is about martial
arts, backflips, giant robots fighting aliens.
You cannot have a mid -tempo ballad for that.
You need music that feels like it is sprinting.
And that combination thrash metal speed with
pop sensibility vocals is why it works so perfectly.
It had the speed of metal to feel cool and dangerous
to a six -year -old, but the accessibility to
get past the sensors and the parents, it was
basically the perfect gateway drug to rock music.
So we have the 1994 TV version. The keyboard
speed metal track. That is the one we all know.
But then we hit 1995. The franchise completely
explodes. They decide to make a feature film.
Mighty Morphin Power Rangers the movie. A cinematic
masterpiece. Truly. And suddenly, the budget
isn't just guy with a keyboard anymore. This
is the pivotal moment for the song's credibility.
They decide to re -record the theme for the movie
soundtrack, and they didn't just hire some session
guys off the street, they formed what was essentially
a supergroup. I was looking at this list in the
notes earlier and I actually had to double check
that this was real. We were talking about legitimate
rock royalty playing on a song for a kids movie.
We are. They called it the Power Rangers Orchestra.
Which is a very classy name for a group that
includes some serious heavy hitters. Walk us
through this lineup. Who is actually playing
on this? Okay, let's start with the rhythm section.
On drums you have Matt Sorum. Wait, Matt Sorum?
As in the drummer for Guns N' Roses during the
Use Your Illusion era? The very same. At the
height of his career, midway through the 90s,
he is laying down the drum track for Power Rangers.
That is insane. Then on vocals, you have Eric
Martin. The Mr. Big Guy. The voice behind To
Be With You. Yes. A premier rock vocalist with
an incredible range. Yes. Then you have Tim Pierce
on guitar, John Pierce formerly of Pablo Cruz
on bass, and Kim Bullard on keys. What a lineup.
And they went into RUMBO recorders in Los Angeles
to do it. RUMBO recorders? Why do I know that
name? Because it's a legendary studio. Guns N'
Roses recorded Appetite for Destruction there.
Tom Petty recorded there. This wasn't a bedroom
project anymore. They went to the Cathedral of
Rock and Roll to cut this track for real. So
this validates the composition, doesn't it? Because
you cannot hide behind a keyboard anymore. You
have Matt Sorum hitting actual drums. If the
song was fundamentally bad, it would sound ridiculous,
played by a real band. That is exactly the point.
The movie version proves that Wasserman didn't
just write a catchy jingle. He wrote a legitimate
rock composition. When you put Eric Martin's
vocals on it and let Tim Pierce shred on a real
guitar, it doesn't sound like a cartoon theme.
It sounds like an epic power ballad. It really
does. It's a five -minute and three -second rock
anthem. It's funny because usually the movie
version of a TV theme is worse. They try to overproduce
it or make it edgy for the cinema, but in this
case it felt like the song finally got the physical
body it deserved. It's like seeing a pencil sketch
turned into a giant oil painting. It fulfilled
the promise of the original track. The original
was the blueprint, and the movie version was
the skyscraper. But the story doesn't stop in
the 90s. And this is what surprises me. Usually
these things fade away. We get nostalgic. Maybe
we listen to it on YouTube for a laugh. But Ron
Wasserman came back to it almost 20 years later.
He did. In 2012, he released a digital album
called Power Rangers Redux. And his reasoning
for this was really interesting. He admitted
that back in the 90s, the original recordings
were a bit of a rush job. Well, TV schedules
are brutal. I imagine he had to churn that music
out weekly. Exactly. He was composing scores
for episodes sometimes in a matter of days. So
even though the theme was iconic, he always felt,
technically speaking, he could do better. He
wanted to use modern technology and his extra
20 years of production experience to punch up
the track. Sounds like a director's cut. He wanted
to polish the mix. He wanted the energy to match
modern sound standards. Think about how rock
music sounded in 2012 compared to 1994. Everything
became louder, punchier, more compressed. Right,
the loudness wars. Yeah. He didn't want the Power
Rangers theme to sound retro or thin compared
to modern rock. He wanted it to hit just as hard.
That shows a lot of pride in the work. He didn't
just cash the royalty checks and move on. He
cared about the sonic quality of the legacy.
But speaking of legacy, the show itself kept
changing, and the song had to survive those changes.
This brings us to what we might call the adaptable
era of the song. Starting in 2011 with Power
Rangers Samurai, the show brought in a new performer,
Noam Kanyal, to handle the theme. And this is
where we see just how flexible that core hook
really is. Right, because the show changes themes
every year or two. You have samurais, then you
have dinosaurs, then you have space ninjas. It
is a lot to keep up with. And the song shapeshifts
to fit them. Kanyel's version was used for Samurai
and Super Samurai. Then for Power Rangers Megaforce
in 2013, they rearranged it again. They changed
the lyrics to fit the specific plot of that season.
Even earlier than that, the notes mentioned Alien
Rangers had minor lyric changes too. Good catch,
yes. It's a branding exercise at that point.
You can swap Mighty Morphin for Megaforce, but
you cannot lose that go. Exactly. Even when the
show eventually moved on to entirely new compositions
for seasons like Dino Charge or Ninja Steel or
Beast Morphers and Dino Fury, they still forced
that Titular refrain go go Power Rangers into
the melody. It's the DNA of the franchise You
can change the suits you can change the actors,
but you can't lose that sequence of notes It
is the sonic logo. It's like the McDonald's whistle
or the intel chime But what I find even more
fascinating is how this sonic logo escaped the
show entirely We have to talk about the covers
because looking at this list from the source
material Calling it eclectic is an understatement
It is unhinged. Unhinged is definitely the correct
word. The list of covers shows that this song
crossed boundaries that shouldn't exist. It wasn't
just covered by pop singers, it was fully adopted
by the metal community. Let's run to the highlights.
You have a new metal version from 2003. Released
by Buena Vista Records, which makes total sense.
It was the era of baggy pants, wallet chains,
and backward caps. New metal is huge, so Power
Rangers went new metal. That's standard marketing.
But then we completely go off the rails. Tell
me about the Goblins. Oh, man. Yes. There is
a band called Necro -Goblicon. Necro -Goblicon.
That sounds like something you would fight in
the Dungeons and Dragons campaign. They are a
melodic death metal band, that. Well, their whole
gimmick is Goblins. They released a track called
the Goblin Rangers theme. It is a full on evil
parody of the song with Goblin theme lyrics.
That is incredible. Taking a song about pure
-hearted teen heroes and turning it into a goblin
anthem. That is high art right there. And it
gets heavier. There is an underground death metal
act called Vile Inscription. Oh, wow. They covered
the song, but they used video clips from the
Power Rangers video game. It's guttural. It's
aggressive. It's literally death metal Power
Rangers. I bet Ron Wasserman did not see that
coming when he was programming that keyboard
in 1994. Probably not. But it proves the riff
works. You can play it clean or you can play
it with maximum distortion and double kick drums.
And it still sounds structurally good. Leo Maracchioli,
the Norwegian metal singer who is huge on YouTube,
did a version two. It just translates to every
shade of heavy music. And then on the complete
opposite end of the spectrum, you have an official
remix from 2019 featuring DJ White Shadow released
by Hasbro. So now it is in the club. Exactly.
From Norwegian metal to the dance floor. So.
What is the ultimate takeaway here? We have a
song that started as a rush job by one guy pretending
to be a band. It evolved into a supergroup performance
with Guns N' Roses members. It's been turned
into death metal, new metal, and club remixes.
Why does this song survive? Why are we still
talking about it 30 years later? I think it speaks
to the power of a truly great hook. We often
dismiss children's music or TV themes as disposable
or merely functional. We think, oh, it's just
there to sell toys. Right, it's just a commercial.
Exactly. But Wasserman created something that
was musically sophisticated. It adhered to the
rules of rock and metal so well that it earned
the genuine respect of actual metal musicians.
It transcended its medium. It stopped being a
cartoon song and became just a great song. It
became a piece of shared language. If you are
in a bar in Los Angeles or a metal club in Norway
or a convention in Tokyo and you play that riff,
everyone knows what it is. It connects generations.
You have the original fans who are now in their
thirties and forties and their kids who know
the newer versions. It is also a massive testament
to constraints. Wasserman didn't have a budget.
He didn't have a band. He had a tight deadline
and a keyboard. And he created something more
memorable than most of the real rock songs released
in 1994. It is the ultimate proof that creativity
thrives when you have limits. If he had hired
a generic session band that day, maybe it would
have just been a standard, forgettable rock track.
But because he had to program it, he gave it
that superhuman speed and precision that made
it iconic. Well, that brings us to the end of
our deep dive into the surprisingly complex world
of Go Go Power Rangers. It has been a wild ride.
But before we go, I want to leave you with a
final thought to mull over. We spent a lot of
time talking about how the original song was
a digital illusion. Fake drums, fake guitar,
but real energy. We live in a world now where
AI and digital production are taking over everything.
People are constantly debating what is real music.
But if a song that millions of kids bang their
heads to was technically fake, but the feeling
it gave them was completely real, does the authenticity
of the instrument actually matter? Or is the
emotional energy the only thing that really counts?
That is the big question. Something for you to
think about the next time you hear that guitar
riff explode in your head. Thanks for exploring
this with us and we will catch you on the next
deep dive.