In Belgium, The Mortal Kombat Theme Is A Whole Music Genre

Most people know the quaint nation of Belgium for its beer monks, waffles, and people's inability to point at it on a map even with a gun to their heads. But for a few years in the late '80s, this nation of soft-spoken bureaucrats had another claim to fame: going hard. Real hard.

Those three gentlemen, posing as random goons in every '80s arcade game, are Rhythm Device. And they're performing their song Acid Rock, so named because it could only be described as a rock by someone on day three of an LSD bender. Rhythm Device was one of several groups from Antwerp, Belgium that pioneered New Beat, a genre that would lead to the greatest European musical contribution since the 16-hour German opera: really bad rave music.

New Beat already had everything the future of rave would need: six-second beat loops, whistles, no shirts, weird suspenders, and the sweet moves that you can do under a bridge with twenty of your closest transhumanist pals. But Americans may recognize this musical-style better under the category of "Finish Him!" -- as Acid Rock bears a great resemblance to the Mortal Kombat theme.

As unlikely as it seems, the music that would provide the backbone of the greatest video game, movie, and song of all time was perfected in the basements of Diet Coke Switzerland. And if you're wondering what happens to a nation's psyche after years of exposing its mild-mannered citizens to the kind of techno that makes you fear that some dude with four arms will jump out and rip your spine clean from their body, it goes some ways to explaining Belgium's current coke problem.

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