We’ve all seen it. ‘Like, repost, and follow to win this, that, or the other thing!’ Most of the time, I just scroll right on by every single one, but not this time. On October 23rd, 2020, Nintendo of America sent out a Tweet that they were going to be giving away a limited edition vinyl record soundtrack selection from <inhale> Cadence of Hyrule: Crypt of the NecroDancer Featuring The Legend of Zelda. Did I retweet? Yes, yes I did. But, just like everyone else on the planet, I never win anything 99.9% of the time. This, however, happened to be the 0.1% time in my life that lightning struck.
I’m not the biggest social media junkie, so after I retweeted the post, I essentially forgot about the whole thing. On November 5th, though, I was surprised to see that I had received a direct message in my inbox. Now, I never get DMs so I honestly figured this was some kind of spam. Color me surprised when I see a message from Nintendo of America saying, ‘Congratulations! You have been selected as a winner for the Cadence of Hyrule Vinyl Sweepstakes.’ After I picked my jaw up off of the floor, I kindly responded with all of the required info and they let me know that I would receive the vinyl within 1-2 weeks.
Sure enough, 1-2 weeks later, a fairly nondescript package arrived at my home. I was a bit surprised that it wasn’t a little more protected considering what was inside, but after opening everything up, there was no real damage to the record itself and the sleeve only had a slightly crumpled corner. As expected, the front of the cover looked exactly as advertised with the purple checkered background and the entire cast of characters in a bright, colorful illustration. The back of the cover continues the purple checker pattern and has the game logo along with a Zelda font ‘A’ and ‘B’ with the eight tracks included.
The record itself is stock black with a simple label in the center of either side. The Triforce is set as the background with the game logo in front and the ‘A’ and ‘B’ on each side along with 33 1/3 RPM in yellow font at the bottom to indicate the record speed. The only other difference is the four tracks listed in small font underneath the Triforce.
Here’s the set list for side A:
- Field Music
- Field Music (Peaceful)
- Gerudo Desert
- Title Screen
And let’s hear it for B-sides:
- Bass Guitaromas Knights
- Lost Woods
- Windmill
- Temple of Storms (Peaceful)
Truth be told, I’m not the biggest record collector. Okay, full transparency, this is the ONLY record that I currently own. But, I’m old enough to appreciate the age of vinyl and all of the phenomenal album art that graced music stores around the world. I even understand that the analog sound that records produce is warmer, richer, and better than any digital music that we have these days. I will now step off of my soap box.
What I can say is that this record is in a frame on my wall that showcases the awesome cover art and the record itself.
All right, now we come to the part of my Treasures articles where I usually break down how much an item originally cost and how much it might be to get one now…there’s a slight problem, though. Apparently, these were only given to certain media outlets and the 25 winners of the contest, so it’s really hard to set a value on what these might be worth. There’s only been one recorded sale that I could find and it went for $490. But, for most of us that collect Zelda merchandise, we usually don’t care how much it’s worth as it’s the memories and nostalgia that we value.
Anywho, that’s my once in a lifetime win that I get. It seems the gods of RNG decided that I would win a Zelda soundtrack instead of the lottery…go figure. On that note, we can’t talk about Cadence of Hyrule and not end with at least one track to rock you to sleep tonight.
