Once upon a time there was a man named Spencer Nilsen. He composed ambient and atmospheric music for a SEGA game called Ecco the Dolphin. SEGA liked his stuff, and asked him to create a special soundtrack for the North American release of a game called "Sonic CD".

Some people liked the result. Others preferred the game's original Japanese soundtrack, which was also included in the game's European release. To this day, people who have played the game will debate over which soundtrack is better.

Amusingly, only the music for the Present, Good Future, and Bad Future versions of the zones were changed; the tracks for the Past versions of the zones remained the same in both the North American and Japanese/European soundtracks due to hardware limitations. When I played the North American version of Sonic CD, I took quite a liking to the Past melody for Metallic Madness, and later discovered the rest of the variations on its theme in the Japanese/European soundtrack.

Metallic Madness is the final level of Sonic CD and its theme is extremely intense and active. The Good Future version of it is probably my favorite song on the entire soundtrack thanks to its incongruous and mind-boggling mix of extremely intense, anxious orchestra hits with a very happy and cheerful melody.

This is the only song I would characterize as "violently optimistic". It DEMANDS you be happy. It will point a gun at your face and threaten to shoot if you are not happy after listening to it. It will kill off your family members in front of you one-by-one until you finally admit that yes, you are in a good mood now, and you would like to bob your head along to its beat like it was Haddaway's "What Is Love". DAH dah dah, DAHdahdah! DAH dah dah, DAHdahdah!