In a First, Super Mario Bros. Theme Song Is Preserved by Library of Congress

pcmag.com:

The Super Mario Bros. theme is the first video game recording selected by the US Library of Congress for inclusion in the National Recording Registry.

The jaunty tune—officially known as the "Ground Theme" or "Overworld Theme"—was originally heard in the first stage of the 1985 Nintendo Entertainment System video game Super Mario Bros.

One of six themes composed for the soundtrack by Nintendo sound designer Koji Kondo, it went on to become the main motif for the popular series, and was reused and remixed in other Nintendo games like Tetris DS, Nintendogs, WarioWare, Inc., and every Super Smash Bros. entry.

"Few musicians have had their work become so internationally recognized for decades yet remain so relatively unknown as Koji Kondo," the Library of Congress says(Opens in a new window).

Twenty-five "audio treasures worthy of preservation" were inducted into the National Recording Registry, including music from Madonna, Mariah Carey, Queen Latifah, and Daddy Yankee.

While Kondo may not be a household name, his syncopated cartoon riffs are recognizable the world over. Born and raised in Japan, he was a college senior in Osaka when he answered a Nintendo recruitment ad and eventually created the unmistakable melody(Opens in a new window).

"The amount of data that we could use for music and sound effects [when making Super Mario Bros. in the mid-1980s] was extremely small, so I really had to be very innovative and make full use of the musical and programming ingenuity that we had at the time," Kondo said in a recent interview, as quoted by the Library of Congress.

"I used all sorts of genres that matched what was happening on screen," he continued. "We had jingles to encourage players to try again after getting a 'game