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Da, Da, Da. Da Dada Da. Dada dada dada da dadada. While that may sound like nonsense, if I told you it’s my best attempt to spell out the Super Mario Bros. tune, it becomes immediately recognizable. If you were born after 1970, chances are you can hum the theme from the first board of that game (and probably the underground second board) like it’s the most natural thing in the world. In fact, even novice gamers can probably hum the tunes from all the major Mario titles of the last twenty years, thanks to that franchise’s enduring popularity. And you might be surprised to find out that every major Mario game (with the exception of Super Mario Bros. 2, the black sheep of the family thanks to it not really being a Mario game*) was scored by the same man – the inexhaustible Koji Kondo.
Who?
Koji Kondo (born 1960) was just your average Japanese composer when he stumbled into a gig at a playing card company called Nintendo in 1984. The company, in business since 1889, had decided to venture into the emerging world of videogames. These games needed music and Kondo was the man who would give it to them. While there he composed a ton of music for a ton of games, but it was his work on a strange game featuring a plumber trapped in a fungus kingdom ruled by an evil dragon (and you thought Tamagotchis were weird) that really solidified his legacy. Speaking to Wired about the game’s music, he said, “I wanted to create something that had never been heard before, something not like game music at all.”
Style and Restrictions
To any composer, working in the videogame world was restrictive at best. Instead of commanding a symphony, Kondo had to work with only four tracks. Not only that, he had to turn those four tracks into tunes that were enjoyable on first listen but also on second, on third, on fourth … on three hundred and forty-fourth listen. A thorough Wikipedia page cites his three main influences as Latin, Jazz and Classical—but to me at least, his music transcends categorization and instead becomes the template for what videogame music should sound like. Of course, as technology advanced so did the instruments at Kondo’s hands. Anyone who has played Super Mario Galaxy on the Wii will testify that the score is at least comparable to any John Williams tune out there.
Trends/Popularity
It’s hard to put an exact number on how many people have listened to Kondo’s music, but if you add up the sales of all the major Mario games he scored you get a figure around 100 million. So, at a minimum, 100 million people have listened to Kondo’s music. That’s 1/3 of the American population—and that’s the bare minimum. It’s also the 3rd most popular ringtone right now. Not bad for a song more than twenty years old.
For comparison’s sake, Google Trends shows Beethoven to be only 40% as popular as Super Mario. Google also shows Mario beating Bach by about 132,000,000 results. Like it or not, Mario is as much a part of our collective culture as the classical greats. And if Google numbers don’t convince you that Kondo should be considered one of the great composers of our time, Paul and Linda McCartney apparently knew the tune by heart and hummed it to Kondo when the three met. I mean, he’s a Knight of the Realm, you have to listen to him.
Tributes
The original Mario song has been re-recorded on just about every instrument you can imagine.
We’ve heard it on steel drums…
…on flute…
…on a ridiculous bass guitar…
…on a ridiculous double-guitar…
…on, oddly, drums…
…on the various instruments of the Notre Dame marching band…
…and on the power of human voice alone. It’s even been covered live by Phish.
But what if you didn’t like Super Mario Bros.? Why would you care about Kondo’s music if you hate the game? Well, when I was a wee lad there were two kinds of people: people who like Mario and people who liked Zelda. Good news, Zelda fans, Kondo did the score for that, too.
*Super Mario Bros. 2 started life as a game called Doki Doki Panic, released for Japanese audiences. Looking for a quick way to capitalize on the success of Super Mario Bros., Nintendo inserted the Mario characters into the game and released it in the US as Super Mario Bros. 2.
Streeter Seidell is the front page editor of CollegeHumor.com and a mental_floss contributor.
Comments (17)
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thanks for the post!
my boyfriend and i have been playing mario obsessively for the past couple of months, and often find ourselves humming the music, me on the melody and him on the bass line. it’s infectious!
posted by weeble warble on 11-6-2008 at 6:38 pm
Awesome! I play all three Mario Brothers Games on a Nintendo emulator (Nestopia), so this entry was a lot of fun for me. How about an entry on the theme from Tetris?
posted by Jaclyn McKewan on 11-6-2008 at 7:07 pm
Thanks, now it’s going to be stuck in my head for the rest of the day!
great post though! I never knew it was an actual composer that wrote the theme.
posted by Gayle on 11-6-2008 at 7:13 pm
I thought myself how to play the Mario Bros. theme on the concertina. It’s a fun trick to pull out when people stop by…
posted by Jason! on 11-6-2008 at 7:22 pm
I taught my phone how to play the Mario Bros. theme. hahaha.
http://www.entertonement.com/clips/14692/Super-Mario-Bros/Mario/video-games/Mario-Overworld-Theme
posted by capnmariam on 11-6-2008 at 10:12 pm
Good article. It’s like the Mario Bros. theme is becoming a new ’standard’ that music students can use for demonstrating proficiency on their instrument.
Oh, you missed my favorite rendition: Mario Bros. performed on twin Tesla coils!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1O2jcfOylU
posted by Timo on 11-7-2008 at 7:38 am
Well when I read the title, I was gonna be a total music snob and say, “How dare you….” but when I stopped to think about it, I guess it’s true. He could be considered a “great” composer. We are living in a high tech world. His simplistic melody and harmonies in the 4 track Mario tune is catchy and many people know it by heart (reminds me of Beethoven’s simple thematic material for a few of his symphonies, like the 5th and 9th). Although I have not heard the Mario galaxy tune (as you have compared it to a John Williams soundtrack), I’m imagining it must be quite decent. I would think that Kondo differs from Beethoven in the fact that Beethoven’s music was about power- his orchestras were big and demanded a lot of voices. Does anyone know where I could listen to the Super Mario Galaxy theme? A link perhaps?
posted by lizhot on 11-7-2008 at 9:37 am
Just because there have been 100 million sold doesn’t mean 100 million people have bought them. If I bought SMB1, 2, 3, and Galaxy, that’s four sales, but just one person. Of course, if one game was played by two people…
Still, it’s a slight misuse of statistics.
posted by Ears Whitworth on 11-7-2008 at 10:07 am
Check this guy out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXgZhPjMQLQ
posted by Mungo on 11-7-2008 at 10:56 am
You have got to see one of the greatest (at least the most time-comsuming) rendition of the Mario Theme.
http://www.todaysbigthing.com/2008/04/17
posted by Jon on 11-7-2008 at 12:32 pm
Sorry as a gamer myself I thought something needed clarification/correction.
“*Super Mario Bros. 2 started life as a game called Doki Doki Panic, released for Japanese audiences. Looking for a quick way to capitalize on the success of Super Mario Bros., Nintendo inserted the Mario characters into the game and released it in the US as Super Mario Bros. 2.”
Actually Super Mario Bros. 2 in Japan exists and looks very similar to the original game. However, it is much more difficult. The Japanese version includes mushrooms that kill you and random gusts of wind that can make precision jumping largely frustrating. The game was deemed to difficult for American tastes and thus Doki Doki Panic was reskinned and repackaged.
posted by Blank Blix on 11-7-2008 at 12:52 pm
17 years ago, while i was pregnant, my husband & i passed the time playing Mario Brothers. The theme music got stuck in my head & i actually had a dream where the music correlated to the stages of labor! So, when I finally did go into labor, all I could think of was those darn themes! Surprisingly enough,it helped!!! (so,yeah,I had a girl & no, we didn’t name her Maria!!)
posted by nancy on 11-7-2008 at 1:39 pm
I love, LOVE, the Super Mario theme. To this day, you can gauge my level of frustration at work by the mario that I’m singing (bad days are denoted by the underground levels). One of my old co-workers can’t even play the game without thinking of me.
Captcha: Every imported
posted by Leeshka on 11-7-2008 at 3:26 pm
I’m proud to say I’m both a Mario and Zelda fan. And I love the music from both games. Koji Kondo really is amazing!
posted by Kelly on 11-8-2008 at 1:00 pm
I was in that marching band video! (Trombone) It was so much fun to put together and the stadium loved it!
posted by Joe on 11-9-2008 at 1:14 am
There is an orchestra version of the Mario theme which I found on YouTube. That was very impressive.
posted by Mathew on 11-9-2008 at 10:50 pm
Another correction: Koji Kondo did, in fact, compose the music for Doki Doki Panic/SMB2 USA.
posted by Mike on 11-27-2008 at 11:53 pm