Super Mario

April 5, 2019 1:04 PM

As if it was a plagiarism
posted by avi111 (36 comments total)

What Super Mario Bros. song is this supposed to sound like? I'm afraid I'm not hearing it.
posted by demiurge at 1:20 PM on April 5, 2019 [1 favorite]

It bares some similarity to the main tune from Super Mario Brothers.
posted by jmauro at 1:21 PM on April 5, 2019 [1 favorite]

I could hear this during Adventure Island or Super Adventure Island.
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 1:21 PM on April 5, 2019

Sounds a bit like SMB2
posted by jozxyqk at 1:28 PM on April 5, 2019 [6 favorites]

Same same.. but different
posted by sacrifix at 1:30 PM on April 5, 2019

Yes, that's it, the first mario reskin.
posted by anthill at 1:31 PM on April 5, 2019 [2 favorites]

If you play it at 33 rpm, it sounds like Wario Land.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 1:33 PM on April 5, 2019 [4 favorites]

And if you play it backwards it summons R.O.B. and it starts shooting lasers out of its eyes at anything that moves.
posted by loquacious at 1:37 PM on April 5, 2019 [3 favorites]

A little. Same chords in a lot of cases, in the same key. But it's not, like... the same. I'm not really convinced.
posted by Caduceus at 1:38 PM on April 5, 2019 [4 favorites]

Also not really seeing the plagiarism beyond a passing resemblance. These riffs are pretty common in Baltic/Balkan folk music all over the region.

This is kind of like accusing pop, rock or country for stealing from fiddle tunes, folk music and blues. Yep, it's technically true but music is generally itself evolution of musical language and repetition of tropes and symbols.

There's really only so many chords and progressions you can play on a guitar or any given fretted, stringed instrument.

And, well, it's obvious that Nintendo begged and borrowed from a lot of folk and world music over the years with the Mario related games. Didn't Yoshi's Island have a bunch of classical and stuff, or one of the in-universe games?
posted by loquacious at 1:42 PM on April 5, 2019 [5 favorites]

Seems a little like accusing SquareSoft of plagerising Dragon Quest with Final Fantasy.
posted by Caduceus at 1:42 PM on April 5, 2019

I mean, this is the exact sort of jazzy music that Koji Kondo was aiming for with the early Mario soundtracks, but I don't think it's an example of plagiarism any more than the Gunsmith Cats opening versus the Cowboy Bebop opening. They are similar not because one was ripping off the other, but because they were both aiming at the same target.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 1:52 PM on April 5, 2019 [4 favorites]

Yeah, not plagiarism. This is interesting in terms of the influences that drove the music for the series, but otherwise this is big nothingburger.
posted by grumpybear69 at 2:03 PM on April 5, 2019 [1 favorite]

demiurge: "What Super Mario Bros. song is this supposed to sound like? I'm afraid I'm not hearing it."

Super Mario Bros 2! Definitely not the main theme.
posted by capricorn at 2:04 PM on April 5, 2019

No kidding. I was in New Orleans once with my lady, who is both very French and very big on early Nintendo,* and we got into an argument about whether a street band was playing a jazzed up cover of a Mario song or if it was a proper jazz standard. And I'm the one with the jazz background. Now I feel dumb. She'll be delighted.
*I didn't mean this sentence to be a flex when I started it, but part way thru I realized that I've kinda lead a charmed life
posted by es_de_bah at 2:22 PM on April 5, 2019 [2 favorites]

There's a whole series on YouTube identifying things like this, and while it's definitely overinclusive, both of stuff that's really not that close and things that are extremely clearly making a musical reference to a very well known piece of scene-setting music like the Mission Impossible theme or the soundtrack to The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, some of the hits are very close, although I would say the worst offenders are by no means the Mario soundtracks (DOOM and Sonic are way worse about this stuff).

Anyway, they singled out the invincibilty star music for sounding like a bit of chanting from Jesus Christ Superstar, and the underground theme for sounding like a track from a band called Friendship. I'm not sure either is a direct copy, but it's interesting to hear the similarities.
posted by Copronymus at 2:28 PM on April 5, 2019 [5 favorites]

On a substantive note, there's a lot of music that sounds like other music, but this is CLEARLY a pastiche. Not an homage. Certainly not a coincidence. Do you know how much foresight and work it took a programmer to wring something like this out of 90s era 8 bit? I think it's wonderful and (in the tradition of jazz) it adds, preforms, adapts and curates. Analogous to the original Doom midi soundtrack cribbing from metal songs. But they were definitely aping this song.
posted by es_de_bah at 2:37 PM on April 5, 2019 [3 favorites]

"and we got into an argument about whether a street band was playing a jazzed up cover of a Mario song or if it was a proper jazz standard"

Gimme some more Django Reinhardt please
posted by avi111 at 3:11 PM on April 5, 2019 [2 favorites]

but I don't think it's an example of plagiarism any more than the Gunsmith Cats opening versus the Cowboy Bebop opening. They are similar not because one was ripping off the other, but because they were both aiming at the same target.

The opening for Archer, on the other hand, pretty blatantly plagiarizes this aesthetic.
posted by dephlogisticated at 3:34 PM on April 5, 2019

Plagarism or not, This is an excellent discovery! *commences searching Discogs*
posted by TheCoug at 3:36 PM on April 5, 2019 [2 favorites]

But they were definitely aping this song.
No, that would be Donkey Kong.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 5:03 PM on April 5, 2019 [4 favorites]

One of the charms of those old songs can be the degraded album art, but just in case you like something a little nicer I retouched it here.
posted by M-x shell at 5:56 PM on April 5, 2019 [1 favorite]

It sounds more like Les Paul outtakes to me.
posted by ardgedee at 6:38 PM on April 5, 2019 [1 favorite]

anachronistic similarities abound
posted by not_on_display at 10:10 PM on April 5, 2019

This is a cover of Les Paul's version of Whispering from 9 years earlier...
posted by acroyear at 10:36 PM on April 5, 2019 [5 favorites]

Wow, that Friendship song "Let's Not Talk About It" with the Mario Underground bass riff is one heck of a jam, and the rest of the album is pretty great too.

Thanks, Copronymus!
posted by straight at 10:45 PM on April 5, 2019

This style of music is very close to hot jazz in the Django vein, and that's close to the ragtime school that SMB2 took inspiration from for some of the soundtrack. Then the electric guitar sound with egregious compression was the standard way to create the square waveform that the RP2A03 APU later led people to use for the two melody voices in NES games.

I'm just so thrilled that this exists -- what gorgeous recordings! Korbar is my new favorite musician to dive into. I'm a quarter Croat by blood, too! Not that it matters -- getting a sense of identity through group affiliation is a pretty impoverished way to live, despite its current popularity.
posted by phenylphenol at 4:23 AM on April 6, 2019 [2 favorites]

A notice in the post that this is a link to a video would be a nice courtesy.
posted by Kwine at 6:07 AM on April 6, 2019

Yeah, it sounds markedly less Marioesque if you manage to play it at the right speed.

RIP John Peel; you will only truly have left the airwaves when there are none here who can't check the speed on a record before dropping the needle.
posted by howfar at 7:22 AM on April 6, 2019 [6 favorites]

A notice in the post that this is a link to a video would be a nice courtesy.

A partial workaround for slips like this (if you browse logged in, at least) is to go to your settings and toggle "YouTube & Vimeo video inline?" on. This doesn't load videos inline like Twitter or Facebook; instead it just gives you a button to load the video in a pop-up window. I never really use the inline video buttons, but they do give me warning of the most common sources of autoplaying video.
posted by howfar at 7:34 AM on April 6, 2019 [2 favorites]

This possibly represents a reference point for Koji Kondo's overworld theme, but to my ears they take very different approaches to syncopation. The main hook of the Super Mario Overworld theme is defined by a signature rest at the end of the 8th measure (or 12th, if you count the lead in.) I think this is what makes the theme such a genius work of composition--the rest at the end turns the notes that precede it into a rushed sounding triplet. It creates a sense of reaching and scrambling that neatly conveys the feel of the gameplay experience.
posted by Morpeth at 7:46 AM on April 6, 2019

It's not plagiarism, but damn that's totally where the Mario 2 theme came from. Thanks for this!
posted by East14thTaco at 8:16 AM on April 6, 2019

it sounds markedly less Marioesque if you manage to play it at the right speed.


I'm also wondering if the record was actually mastered at any "right speed". My absolute pitch is basically nonexistent, but neither version sounds like concert pitch to me, which is weird. I mean, if you're going to the trouble of (even basic) tape manipulation aren't you also going to tune your instruments accordingly? The maths to work it out are obvious. Which makes me wonder if it just got mastered and released at the wrong speed by accident...

Am I talking nonsense? I find it so hard to tell these days.
posted by howfar at 8:42 AM on April 6, 2019 [1 favorite]

In this case, it's pretty clear that this was designed and designated to be played at 45 rpm -- it's right on the jacket. This was the same era that gave birth to Alvin and the Chipmunks!
posted by phenylphenol at 10:32 AM on April 6, 2019

phenylphenol, I was just about to say something about how the first song has two pulse oscillators in dynamically compressed electric guitar form, a triangle oscillator electric bass, and percussion that’s super noisy—just like the NES!
posted by infinitewindow at 11:11 AM on April 6, 2019 [2 favorites]

Is it this bit? I guess it is vaguely Marioesque.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 10:05 AM on April 8, 2019