Nintendo continues to flesh out the library of classic soundtracks available on the Nintendo Music app, and the latest addition is one of the most important (and fun) suites of music Nintendo ever released. Rejoice: It’s 1991’s Super Mario World!
Composed by the great Koji Kondo, Super Mario World’s soundtrack was the first to make use of the SNES’ more powerful sound hardware, and Kondo delighted in moving beyond the NES’ chiptune stylings to simulate instruments across eight channels at once. (There’s some great commentary about this from Kondo himself in an old edition of Iwata Asks.) The chirpy title music gets right to it, contrasting a piping piccolo melody with rich organ chords and something that sounds a bit like a vibraphone.
Like so much of Kondo’s work, the Super Mario World soundtrack is full of playfulness and humor, and a love of folk and bluegrass music. The classic “Ground BGM” has a steel drum melody over what sounds like a banjo rhythm and tuba bassline. “Athletic BGM” is honky-tonk played at blinding speed, as if the player piano in an Old West saloon had gone haywire. “Vanilla Dome” is atmospheric trip-hop, and “Valley of Bowser” is taut, mechanical funk. It’s such fun stuff, although if you go in expecting to hear variations on the classic themes from the Super Mario Bros. series, you’ll be disappointed; at the time, it was an all-new sound for Mario.
If you haven’t been keeping up with Nintendo Music, there have been plenty of other classic soundtracks added recently, including the original Super Mario Kart and The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. Access is included with a Nintendo Switch Online subscription, available only via the Nintendo Music apps on Android and iOS.
