The opening theme songs of Power Rangers are as synonymous with the franchise as the brightly coloured spandex and overly exaggerated kiais (the Japanese term for the martial arts shouts) that are uttered with every punch. Everyone knows the legendary ‘Go Go Power Rangers!’ leitmotif, even those who barely watched the show. It’s as memorable as something like ‘Ghostbusters’ or ‘Gonna Fly Now’. But what some uninitiated viewers may not know is that there were actually many entries in the Power Rangers franchise that followed the original Mighty Morphin‘ era (shocking, I know) and better yet, some of them had damn awesome theme songs too! While it’s debatable whether any of the seasons topped ‘MMPR’, lists are always fun— so here is my own, totally unbiased, opinionated ranking of every theme song in the Power Rangers franchise, from worst to best. Other lists may differ from mine, so feel free to let us know what your personal ranking is by contacting us on Twitter at https://twitter.com/underlevelled.
I’m no music expert, so I can’t really comment on the quality of the instrumentation or chords or anything like that. This is based purely on how much I enjoy the song itself. So without further ado, here is the not-so-definitive power ranking of the Power Rangers themes. I’ll throw in my favourite parts of each song too, because why not?
Beast Morphers
One thing I noticed whilst listening to these themes before writing this article was that as time went on, the songs became more and more simplified. Beast Morphers is a perfect example of that trend of condensing the songs down as much as possible. The ‘Go Go Power Rangers line’ from Mighty Morphin’ was embedded deep into the cultural zeitgeist, so it’s no surprise that the brand looped back to using it. It does get grating, however, when it’s been the main theme in pretty much all the opening themes for the past decade. Whilst I’m not a huge fan of its usage here, there is a faint glimmer of hope to be found in the brief with the ‘for justice we fight, with Beast Morphing light’ part, but that is cut short before it really has a chance to take off. Not the worst, but nowhere near the heights of the good ones either. Beast Morphers’ opening theme leaves much to be desired, because there’s not really much there at all. It sounds like three different songs mashed into one, then cut down to a hasty thirty seconds of nonsense with glimmers of a good song buried in there somewhere.
Favourite line: ‘For justice we fight, with Beast Morphing liiiight!’
Dino Fury
As of writing this list, Dino Fury is the newest entry in the franchise. It’s more of the same ‘Go Go Power Rangers’ which is, according to the executive producer, considered an essential part of the brand. So surprise, surprise, it crops up a lot amongst what I consider to be the bottom-tier of Power Rangers themes. Still, I guess this one is more fun than the Beast Morphers theme.
Favorite line: ‘Evolution revolution’ is pretty cool, I guess.
Ninja Steel
Argh, this song could have been good! It has certain parts which verge on potentially being decent, but then all goodwill is lost when it devolves jarringly straight back into the tired ‘Go Go Power Rangers’ usage. I don’t know if the powers that be decided that shorter, more cluttered openings were the way to go, but that’s what we ended up with.
Favorite line: Not gonna lie, there’s nothing memorable here, so I’ll skip this one.
RPM
Oh RPM, what a fantastic series that was. With its wonderfully self-referential humour, darker tone, and likeable cast, it had everything going for it except the theme song. It sounds like they were trying to go for something edgy and cool, because that’s what the kids liked, right? In doing so, what popped out of the exhaust was a bland, uninteresting rock track with boring, repetitive lyrics that didn’t really go anywhere. It’s not terrible, it’s just… Bland. Check out the unused demo theme if you want a much more fun (if tonally clashing) theme.
Favourite line: I’m going to cheat and say ‘This is the last stand for humanity! Power Rangers RPM let’s go!’ from the demo theme.
