And Finally Artist News Releases

Katy Perry, J Balvin and more to contribute to Pokémon 25th anniversary compilation

By Andy Malt | Published on Monday 1 March 2021

Following Post Malone’s virtual concert to celebrate the 25th birthday of Pokémon on Saturday, it has now been announced that a whole load of other Universal-signed artists will contribute to a new album also marking said anniversary. Artists creating new tracks for the release include Katy Perry, J Balvin, with more to be announced in the coming months.

“Ah, now”, you’re probably thinking, “I know that as well as playing that special show this weekend, Post Malone also released a new single to mark the big Pokémon anniversary”. And yes, aren’t you just right on top of everything? He did.

He released a cover of Hootie And The Blowfish’s ‘Only Wanna Be With You’. The significance of that song wasn’t really clear when Malone’s cover was announced. While it was out when Pokémon launched in 1996, it had been around for a while already and rather than riding high in the charts at the time of the gaming franchise’s first release, it was actually on its way out.

But if everyone on this compilation is going to cover songs that were new (or newish) 25 years ago, then that choice would kinda make sense. So, it’s good news for people who don’t like it when things kinda make sense, because – while Post Malone’s cover will be on the album – everyone else will be recording new songs for the record that are somehow “inspired by” Pokémon.

Maybe Katy Perry will record a song in the style of lead character Pikachu – whose entire language consists only of the word “pikachu” said in different ways. That might seem like an odd suggestion, but she does have form in this area. Back in 2008, she recorded a version of her song ‘Hot N Cold’ in ‘The Sims’ video game’s nonsense language Simlish. Although, this video from back in January suggests that if she does release a single-word song, that word will actually be “electric”.

For now, we can only speculate, because very limited information about this project has been released so far. Perry didn’t even contribute a quote for the announcement. That was left up to J Balvin.

“Pokémon is pulling out all the stops for P25 Music, and I’m THRILLED to join the programme as one of its premiere collaborators”, he says. “I’m looking forward to adding my own unique flavour to this huge Pokémon party and adding more good vibes to the celebration”.

P25 Music is the name given to Pokémon’s entire music activity around its 25th anniversary, by the way. The album will be called ‘Pokémon 25: The Album’ and is set to be released through Universal at some point in the autumn. If you’re worried you’re going to forget, you can pre-save it on Spotify now.

You can’t hear any more music from the album yet, but you can watch Post Malone’s Pokémon concert here, in which he (or at least a CGI representation of him) performs his Hootie And The Blowfish cover remixed with the ‘Ecruteak City’ theme from ‘Pokémon Gold And Silver’. You know, if that’s the sort of thing you’d like to watch.