Pokemon Theme Song Gets a Metal Cover Sung By Original Vocalist

The Pokemon theme song just got a little more hardcore.

Musician Jonathan Young recently released a new video promoting his new “Pokemon Metal” album. The video shows Young playing a metal cover of the original Pokemon theme song. Young starts off the video on his own, but original theme song performer Jason Paige jumps in and joins Young about a minute into the song.

Paige and Young spend the rest of the video singing the Pokemon theme song as a metal power ballad…which admittedly sounds a lot like the original theme. At one point, Young even pulls out a keytar and plays the Pokemon theme song as Paige dons a Pikachu onesie.

Paige’s powerful voice is ingrained into the collective memory of millions, even though most don’t know his name. Paige originally recorded the Pokemon theme song in 1998, although he admittedly didn’t know much about the Pokemon franchise at the time. When Pokemon exploded in popularity in the US, Paige accepted a large one-time payment in lieu of receiving any lasting royalties or residuals.

Although Paige has a long and impressive musical career, he always seems to return to the Pokemon theme song. Paige has recorded several parodies and remixes of the song, and even performed the song live back in 2016 during the height of the Pokemon Go craze. Unfortunately, the Pokemon Company has never turned to Paige to re-record the theme song, even though it has referenced the original anime in recent movies.

You’ve probably also seen or heard of Young’s other work. Young has a popular YouTube channel in which he performs various songs as metal covers. Other songs covered by Young include the Skyrim theme, the theme songs to My Hero Academia and One Punch Man, and the themes to several other seasons of the Pokemon anime.

You can listen to the theme song up above and check out Young’s other work on his YouTube channel. Young has also released an entire album of his Pokemon covers, which can be purchased on iTunes.