Spotlight: Naoki Maeda

Decided to create a blog for the person who created one of the greatest games on Earth, Dance Dance Revolution. And as a tribute for his birthday last Wednesday..belated happy birthday Naoki-san!

Name: Naoki Maeda (前田 尚紀)
Born: April 28
Location: Tokyo, Japan

Naoki Maeda, or popularly known as NAOKI, is a Japanese musician and producer of the music simulation game, Dance Dance Revolution. He is the senior sound producer for Konami's music game division known as Bemani and the J-pop and J-rock groups TЁЯRA and BeForU which composes songs for the said game, as well as other Bemani games (Pop'nMusic, GuitarFreaks, DrumMania, and Beatmania IIDX).

As a main producer and artist in Dance Dance Revolution, he uses pseudonyms to songs which are either classified by genre or beat styles. Some of his well known pseudonyms are RevenG (tribal genre - Afronova, Exotic Ethnic), De-Sire (Trip Machine Series), 180/190/200 (numbers for Paranoia series) and many more.

Here are some songs (composed and produced by him) I notably like in the Bemani series of music simulation games:

* Brilliant 2U and its remixes
* B4U and its remixes
* Dynamite Rave and its remixes
* Kakumei (with dj Taka)
* Celebrate Nite (as N.M.R.)
* Dance Dance Revolution (DDR All Stars)
* almost all BeForU songs
* Zero (as TЁЯRA)
* Red Zone (with Tatsh)
* Deep Roar (with Tatsh)
* Will
* Max 300 (as Ω)
* Maxx Unlimited (as Z)
* The Legend of Max (as ZZ)
* Candy (as Luv Unlimited)
* A Geisha's Dream (with Smile.dk)
* resonance
* HIT THE GROUND (Alexa Remix)
* Gotta Dance