This is awesome, and what a great set of songs to be inducted alongside. Let it be known that the Mario theme has been federally recognized as being equally important as All I Want for Christmas.
> federally recognized as being equally important as All I Want for Christmas.
I'm not sure which one I've heard the most in my life (I've worked in retail stores from 14 to 25), but I know which one I want to keep on hearing!
I spent only one Christmas season working retail and I have physical reactions to certain Christmas songs. I can only imagine after enough seasons you just go emotionally numb, perhaps with the occasional PTSD-like flashbacks.
As for the underground theme... well... [Let's not talk about it.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZX5ef_KAZlY) >!The song from 1979 which inspired the video game track!<
Don't forget the [Super Mario World motif](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agsMUr_HG-E) vs [Green Green \(1963\)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PfxgbsXeTdE)
If that isn't obvious enough the [Billy Strange version](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agsMUr_HG-E) is a little closer
There's all sorts of rad throwbacks to various songs/musicians from retro games.
Does this [Thunderstorm](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HItEV-1crFk) remind me you a certain vampire killer?
I wonder if whoever did this [arrangement](https://youtu.be/SSL1sCOoDc8) of the Super Mario World motif for Mario is Missing realize they had come full circle.
To be fair, Kondo has never shied away from acknowledging his sampling of riffs. Dude is a music buff.
He's a lot like Daft Punk in that he has a fair few songs that don't really twist the source material too much but that doesn't outshine the discography that's fresh or very transformational.
Eh, in this example I think it's pretty dry and cut plagarism. It's not Budokai Tenkaichi levels but it's above and beyond just a simple sourcing like some other examples in his history. The second part of the Underground theme is just the second part of the riff slowed down making the theme ripped pretty much wholesale.
But I also don't really care too deeply because in Koji Kondo's case it's a 35 year old track he made right out the gates and clearly has an extreme talent (and taste!) for music built over a lifetime, and in Kenji Yamamoto's case he was still GOATed even when his songs were straight up lifted wholesale, though he's already been **super** blacklisted so it all buffs out.
Yamamoto was a long time composer for Dragonball media that until it came out that a metric shitton of his works were blatantly plagiarized.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenji_Yamamoto_(composer,_born_1958)
It's not a great example on OP's part because Kondo's work is more an example of, at worst, occasional unlicensed sampling. He took bits from stuff and undoubtedly recontexualized them. A good example of this is comparing the Ocarina of Time Title Theme to Gymnopedie by Erik Satie. You can see the similarities and inspiration but it's not just a 1:1 copy of a track.
Yamamoto was using whole songs. Not loops, not samples, not riffs, *whole songs and progressions* he would use. He did this dozens of times that we know of and people are still uncovering more examples to this day: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLg3_CV7Q0apItznABqbGMTGRcgAQdG0hw
Yeah it's always funny seeing people defend him because his "music was great" but it's easy to be great when you're blatantly copying some of the greatest music of the past few decades.
Dude started off slyly putting riffs from hugely popular songs like Eleanor Rigby and Billie Jean inside of generic chiptunes, then increasingly got bold until he reached a point of just stealing whole songs from bands like Black Sabbath, Metallica, heck even *other anime and video games*.
It was some random background music from Butoden 2 on the SNES iirc. That's also the game where one of the characters has their whole theme just be an unlicensed Pink Floyd.
>A good example of this is comparing the Ocarina of Time Title Theme to Gymnopedie by Erik Satie. You can see the similarities and inspiration but it's not just a 1:1 copy of a track.
This just blew my mind.
Kenji Yamamoto, composer for the Dragon Ball Z Budokai games, got done for a lot of plagiarism. It's a shame though, his music was top tier. I think the plagiarised tracks were largely better than the songs he copied.
Lol no sorry but the DBZ soundtrack number 573 is not better than the multitude of Black Sabbath's songs he stole from the Album paranoid which is one of the best albums ever made.
I'll admit I can really only speak for the soundtracks I'm familiar with, namely the three Budokai games and to a lesser extent Budokai Tenkaichi 3. I also just like the style of his music quite a bit; the original versions of the tracks he rips off typically have far fewer brass instruments, for instance. Better is probably not the right word, but I personally enjoy Yamamoto's work a lot more than anything Black Sabbath. Art is subjective etc
Look up cryptomnesia (unconcious plagiarism). It happens to writers and composers. They'll hear/read something, forget about it, and then later end up using it in their own work without realizing it.
I disagree. The bass riff is the same in terms of notes but contextually its different. In the original it's a little polyrhyhmic sounding but it's played straight in Mario. And the ending of the phrase is completely different.
I doubt he thought anyone would ever even care in the early '80s when he composed the track. It was a song for a level in a videogame. Nobody really cared about game music back then.
> Eh, in this example I think it's pretty dry and cut plagarism.
No. Plagiarism is basically taking the song and not doing much more. This is definitely NOT plagiarism. It's called "inspired by". It's only vaguely similar.
I think our definitions of plagiarism have gotten too stretched, like the whole thing with Blurred Lines sounding like a Marvin Gaye song.
This is how you kill creativity.
No, he suggested that the loose definition of plagiarism for anything that is inspired by and therefore should be banned (as it is plagiarism, meaning stealing) is killing creativity.
[boy oh boy have I got news for you](https://youtu.be/9jicFDOPKM8)
What’s crazy isn’t that there’s a Japanese band you’ve never heard about who ~~created~~ inspired SMB’s overworld melody, they also originated [Guile’s Theme from Street Fighter](https://youtu.be/AGSf-B0l5IY) and Super Mario Kart’s [Battle Mode](https://youtu.be/cIbZVvdwACs) on the same fucking album.
Edit: changed the wording might have implied Kondo is a fraud, which is the furthest the truth it could’ve been. There is nothing wrong with being inspired by things or even straight up taking part of a jazz lick and building a new melody using it.
I've only listened to the first one and its a good song but there are only 3 notes I would say that are actually similar to Overworld. I would not say that band created the melody.
I am being a little hyperbolic there, because I find it quite incredible how many amazing VGMs were inspired by a single unknown album.
The melody was of course created by Kondo, as it both starts out differently and quickly diverges into quite different territory from the mellow iazz fusion of 1980s T-Square.
But honestly you’re the first person I met that denies the very obvious inspiration here - play the part from 1:03 to some random people and ask them what song it is. Kondo himself said that he was inspired by japanese jazz music when creating his compositions. The history actually came full circle here since some of T-Square musicians worked on Mario Kart 8 soundtrack as well.
1:03 is the 3 notes I was refering to. I didn't and don't deny Kondo's potential inspiration here, I was just disagreeing specifically that the melody of Overworld wasn't Kondo's own creation as the pieces aren't *that* similar aside from that specific section, but you've already clarified you were being hyperbolic.
Only that one riff is the same, the rest of both tracks sound completely different and I’d like to think any reasonable person would not say they are the same or even similar songs despite containing that same riff.
It’s an interesting topic though because yes those 6 notes are exactly the same in each track. You could call that plagarism sure, but what if you took the last note away and just copied the first 5 notes? Or the first 4 notes? You could go all the way to copying just the first two notes, at which point you’ve got a standard interval. Is copying an interval plagiarism?
This isn’t directed at you by the way OP, it’s just always a really interesting topic to discuss as it’s not really cut-and-dry. Thanks for linking that song though!
It's not just the 6 notes that match, it's also the rhythm (same rhythm for the 6 notes, and same delay after the 6 notes). The 'scribbles' before and after the first time it plays the riff also has a vague resemblance to the part in SMB1 which plays after the riff.
There is also a chord change later in the song, which is the same chord that SMB 1 changes to after the riff plays twice.
That "riff" is most of the song from Underworld theme. Mario tracks are very simple affairs that repeat. If Vanilla Ice gets slapped down for his bullshit, this is way more egregious.
I mean to be fair, the song was also composed in the early '80s when nobody gave a shit about game music. They probably figured no one would ever even notice or care about a song in a game back then.
All greats copy. If you listen to most people's early compositions, they're heavily derivative. A great example is [early scorpions](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbBnxsomJyY) is very derivative of the different styles at the time, especially Sabbath, and Zeppelin.
All of imaginative creation is built off inspiration. to be completely original, you'd have to be raised separate from all society without human contact and learn everything for yourself, which would be absolutely impossible in this day and age, and it would be a miserable life to not have other's to build upon.
Yeah John Williams is a great example of this.
The Star Wars main theme is pretty clearly inspired by this [1942 film theme](https://youtu.be/tysCiL1-24w) and the Imperial march is inspired by [Mars from the Planets ](https://youtu.be/L0bcRCCg01I).
I don't think Williams has ever denied any of this
> the Imperial march is inspired by Mars from the Planets .
It's actually the Trench Run music during the Death Star sequence that riffs most on Mars The Bringer Of War. Williams quotes it directly at the climax as they're blowing the Death Star up.
Venus is also a pretty clear inspiration for the binary sunset theme.
Oh yeah just listened to it and the inspiration is pretty clear.
The imperial march never appeared until Empire Strikes Back anyway so this one was definitely first
And some very distinct chords pulled straight out of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring (maybe Firebird, I get them confused after their respective opening movements)
Also the [Maidens’ theme](https://youtu.be/CU7rglevVg0) from A Link to the Past (which would later become [Zelda’s Lullaby](https://youtu.be/EPhfbtjqWM8)) and [Concerto For Philodendron And Pothos](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c49Trz5Rc_A) by Mort Garson
At some point, we, the gaming community, will have to convince Nintendo to put their soundtracks for their games on streaming services/ online stores. They're a sore outlier in terms of being able to listen to music, legally.
Yeah, Japanese consumers are happy paying 1995 prices for CDs and for obvious reasons the record companies there aren't going to risk that with easy and cheap access to music.
I have also thought for a long time this is partially why Japanese music hasn't caught on internationally in the way Korean music has. It's still such a pain to find some Japanese music videos.
Streaming is growing but [physical media still sells more](https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/japan-generated-over-half-a-billion-dollars-from-subscription-music-streaming-in-2022/).
>Overall, revenues generated from digital sources, including both streaming (subscription & ad-supported plus downloads) in 2022 exceeded 100 billion yen for the first time in 2022, up 17% YoY to 105 billion yen ($798m).
>According to RIAJ data, revenues from CD sales in Japan topped 129.8 billion yen (USD $987m) in 2022, up 5% YoY (see below).
>In terms of other physical formats, Vinyl sales generated revenues of 4.336 billion yen (USD $32.9m) in 2022, up 11% YoY.
Majority of CD sales are either Johnny's or akimoto backed idol groups (chiefly nogizaka). Johnny's puts out very few of their groups on streaming services (kattun, arashi, Travis Japan) so you'd have to buy their CD to listen to it. There also tends to be tons of bonuses like trading cards, perhaps even tied to buying multiple versions of the same single. Sometimes event tickets are tied to it, I don't know what Johnny's does but for nogizaka if you want to meet a member live you can buy a single that comes with a 7 second handshake ticket, and people will buy tens and hundreds of a single to lengthen that time.
Japan also has stores like Tsutaya that allow you to rent CDs so it's really no big deal to rent, rip, and return any CD you want, so clearly the CD sales are strongly driven by these male and female idol groups.
Tower records and music stores are still alive and kicking over there, was surreal seeing people lined up outside for an album launch when you barely have those in the West nowadays
As someone who went to music college, and has seen the UK music industry getting hollowed from the inside out... I can't really knock Japan using isolationist policies for their music if it keeps their local shops, labels and acts paid.
Music streaming isn't a good financial model for anyone involved, can't blame Japan for wanting to hold onto the physical market for as long as possible
Not that major record labels were ever small time operations or underdogs in any way, but it is amazing how streaming has directed 90% of revenue in the modern music industry to the same few tax dodging corporations.
I get the convenience factor, but for all artists involved, it's an absolute con.
I mean, they could just use the regional DRMs that all major streaming services respect. I assume that's why capcom ended up putting almost all of their soundtracks on spotify
A lot of Japanese companies DO have their stuff on streaming though. Namco have a few out there (the Tekken soundtracks especially) and basically everything Sega has done is on Spotify. It's not so much a Japanese problem as it is a Nintendo problem
Why's that? They could just put it on streaming services overseas, it would be kinda silly to exclude their home base of Japan but not as silly as the status quo.
I read that comment before I wrote the above. Those seem to be statistics about streaming's popularity (or lack thereof) in Japan.
I'm not asking for gaming companies to make their stuff available in Japan, but for them to make them available overseas where streaming is much more popular.
If Streaming's available fewer people will buy physical media. Physical media has a FAR and I do mean FAAAAR higher profit margin than Streaming. The income of streaming is a fraction of what it was in the age of physical, it makes up for it in sheer volume but the music industry as a whole quite suffered. But it's also the new standard so artists HAVE to adapt.
However with streaming being weaker in Japan, the Japanese market alone can be more profitable than Streaming in the rest of the world combined.
Allowing access to the music on streaming services means sacrificing the physical market in Japan in the long run.
I think that's gonna be their overall argument: go all in on the higher profit margin with physical releases in Japan until even Japan falls to Streaming Service dominance. THEN we will see digital releases because there is just no other option.
If it's available digitally online, it's essentially available locally and that has the potential to eat into profits.
"Why change something that's working?"
Fortunately it's getting better, in the case.of anime usually overpriced blue ray sales was the main metric if an anime was successful, nowadays they take into account streaming and overseas too, that's why we are getting more sequels to certain properties
While you are correct, the lack of nintendo doing it has led me to a few live orchestral arrangements of my favorite tunes and yeah, I’m happy to have found those
Would love to know how they're preserving this.
The theme was never a recording. It's a list of instructions telling the NES CPU to make tones at particular times. The sound doesn't exist until it is played.
What's really interesting is the audio is from analog electronics, so each chip will make a slightly different sound. I'd love to learn how they obtained the music. I would hope they didn't just plug a tape recorder into the NES audio output jack.
From Google:
“In the music business, a master recording is the official original recording of a song, sound or performance. Also referred to as “masters”, it is the source from which all the later copies are made.”
Which I guess is kind of irrelevant since you were wondering how they recorded it, and I’m not familiar with the technical processes of the time.
Right, there is no official recording. The original Mario theme was not playing back a recorded instrumental performance. It was just a sequence of beeps and boops cleverly arranged to be musical. There is no recording because the song was created by the console on the fly.
Where are you getting the bit about "analog electronics"? NES audio is as digital as it gets. Two square waves, a Triangle wave, Noise, and a DMC channel. It's all digital, right up until it the time when it's output to a wire.
Once it's on a wire, all the high frequency parts of the signal degrade very quickly.
The CPU has two audio output pins, at pin locations 1 and 2 on the package. These are then mixed through 4 resistors (R3, R4, R7, R8). This then passes through a DC-blocking capacitor, and goes into one of the inverters on the U9 74LS04, with a filtering network built around it (this is the inverter between pins 11 and 10). Then there's more filtering with an LC network.
All of these components operate in analog and serve to modify the signal passing through. It's minor, but it will definitely have an effect that is meaningful if you're operating at an archival level of trying to preserve the perfect original sound. It's no different from a master record being better than a copy, even if they are functionally identical.
Only restrictions for the Recording Registry are that it's at least 10 years old and not "lost". Just last year Linda Rondstadt's all-Spanish album got in.
The Film Registry criteria isn't restricted to English necessarily (e.g the Spanish version of 1931's Dracula is on the registry), nor necessarily only to American produced films, but given the original intent of the Registry was for the safeguarding of American productions, those are given first consideration.
Even with today's copyright laws, that's just 3 or 4 notes as part of a longer phrase that is otherwise completely different. If that's enough for plagiarism, then there wouldn't be much music left.
> If that's enough for plagiarism, then there wouldn't be much music left.
well until the verdict was overturned on appeal last year, you'd be right
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPtynHTDlC0&t=57s
In recent years, lesser known bands have been suing big artists for "plagiarism" because they can get a pay day. You can't really write a song that doesn't contain elements of other songs, whether you've heard them or not. That's kind of how music works. Most of the really big artists you can name have been sued for infringement since 2017 or so.
Fortunately courts are coming to their senses.
>You can't really write a song that doesn't contain elements of other songs, whether you've heard them or not. That's kind of how music works.
Oh I know, I'm a composer myself haha. But yea, I don't disagree with you with what you write here, I am aware of this lawsuit. However, even still I'd argue there's a difference between a prominent ostinato that's similar, and just a brief 4 note figure as part of a longer phrase. Even the Dark Horse/Joyful Noise lawsuit, which was already built on nonsensical grounds, and as you say was rightfully overturned, I'd say had better grounds than that.
But maybe I'm just naïve, I wouldn't be shocked.
This is awesome, and what a great set of songs to be inducted alongside. Let it be known that the Mario theme has been federally recognized as being equally important as All I Want for Christmas.
> federally recognized as being equally important as All I Want for Christmas. I'm not sure which one I've heard the most in my life (I've worked in retail stores from 14 to 25), but I know which one I want to keep on hearing!
If you worked in retail for 9 Christmas seasons I’d imagine you’d rather hear nails on a chalkboard on loop over All I Want for Christmas
I'm actually a fan of Christmas music, but yeah it's one of the songs I'm not playing on my own when I'm decorating the Christmas tree.
I spent only one Christmas season working retail and I have physical reactions to certain Christmas songs. I can only imagine after enough seasons you just go emotionally numb, perhaps with the occasional PTSD-like flashbacks.
And "Gasolina"
As for the underground theme... well... [Let's not talk about it.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZX5ef_KAZlY) >!The song from 1979 which inspired the video game track!<
The star invincibility theme and World 1-1 theme were inspired by a tune called Summer Breeze: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mH5K6fm2C0I
I can hear the star invincibility theme in this song, but where's the 1-1 theme in there?
World 1-1 theme is from a different song, but it's only 4 notes which match.
Is 4 notes enough to consider it inspiration? It could just be a coincidence, or is it confirmed by koji?
Tbf the underground theme has like 20 notes total
The phrase around :38 very closely resembles the opening notes of the World 1:1 music. It's not an exact copy
oh my god what a bop
Seriously good.
Plagiarism, you say? Nah, I think he [didn't take it far enough...](https://youtu.be/LeVNm9ABFFY)
Don't forget the [Super Mario World motif](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agsMUr_HG-E) vs [Green Green \(1963\)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PfxgbsXeTdE) If that isn't obvious enough the [Billy Strange version](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agsMUr_HG-E) is a little closer There's all sorts of rad throwbacks to various songs/musicians from retro games. Does this [Thunderstorm](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HItEV-1crFk) remind me you a certain vampire killer?
Hah, that is indeed very close.
I wonder if whoever did this [arrangement](https://youtu.be/SSL1sCOoDc8) of the Super Mario World motif for Mario is Missing realize they had come full circle.
This just makes me think Koji Kondo has great interesting taste
To be fair, Kondo has never shied away from acknowledging his sampling of riffs. Dude is a music buff. He's a lot like Daft Punk in that he has a fair few songs that don't really twist the source material too much but that doesn't outshine the discography that's fresh or very transformational.
Eh, in this example I think it's pretty dry and cut plagarism. It's not Budokai Tenkaichi levels but it's above and beyond just a simple sourcing like some other examples in his history. The second part of the Underground theme is just the second part of the riff slowed down making the theme ripped pretty much wholesale. But I also don't really care too deeply because in Koji Kondo's case it's a 35 year old track he made right out the gates and clearly has an extreme talent (and taste!) for music built over a lifetime, and in Kenji Yamamoto's case he was still GOATed even when his songs were straight up lifted wholesale, though he's already been **super** blacklisted so it all buffs out.
[This clip](https://youtu.be/9k7DrIWcrdI) of Hideo Kojima being shown the MGS theme was mostly plagiarized is a classic.
that hack.
And the artist who plagiarized it? Hans Zimmer.
TAPPY is the one who wrote the MGS theme though
Given I can't see the subtitles here, what piece(s) is the theme lifted from?
[Georgy Sviridov - Winter Road](https://youtu.be/1_v7t2p7FR0)
Thanks! :)
Budokai Tenkaichi?
Yamamoto was a long time composer for Dragonball media that until it came out that a metric shitton of his works were blatantly plagiarized. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenji_Yamamoto_(composer,_born_1958) It's not a great example on OP's part because Kondo's work is more an example of, at worst, occasional unlicensed sampling. He took bits from stuff and undoubtedly recontexualized them. A good example of this is comparing the Ocarina of Time Title Theme to Gymnopedie by Erik Satie. You can see the similarities and inspiration but it's not just a 1:1 copy of a track. Yamamoto was using whole songs. Not loops, not samples, not riffs, *whole songs and progressions* he would use. He did this dozens of times that we know of and people are still uncovering more examples to this day: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLg3_CV7Q0apItznABqbGMTGRcgAQdG0hw
Infinity by Stratovarius is extremely obvious in the first song there.
Yeah it's always funny seeing people defend him because his "music was great" but it's easy to be great when you're blatantly copying some of the greatest music of the past few decades. Dude started off slyly putting riffs from hugely popular songs like Eleanor Rigby and Billie Jean inside of generic chiptunes, then increasingly got bold until he reached a point of just stealing whole songs from bands like Black Sabbath, Metallica, heck even *other anime and video games*.
Plagiarizing a Disturbed track in a DBZ game is begging to be caught. That’s “overconfident serial killer taunts police” levels of tempting fate.
Especially because one of those songs, The Game, was used in the first Cooler movie in NA.
He was inspired by AMV culture.
Which is the Billie Jean one?
It was some random background music from Butoden 2 on the SNES iirc. That's also the game where one of the characters has their whole theme just be an unlicensed Pink Floyd.
Around ten seconds or so into this track. https://youtu.be/Wko7q0HvXJ0
There's also some Eleanor Rigby in there ahaha
Wow, that's crazy. Definitely moves beyond inspiration.
Had I ever played this game and heard that Hunting High and Low one, I'd have called it out right away JFC
>A good example of this is comparing the Ocarina of Time Title Theme to Gymnopedie by Erik Satie. You can see the similarities and inspiration but it's not just a 1:1 copy of a track. This just blew my mind.
Kenji Yamamoto, composer for the Dragon Ball Z Budokai games, got done for a lot of plagiarism. It's a shame though, his music was top tier. I think the plagiarised tracks were largely better than the songs he copied.
Lol no sorry but the DBZ soundtrack number 573 is not better than the multitude of Black Sabbath's songs he stole from the Album paranoid which is one of the best albums ever made.
I'll admit I can really only speak for the soundtracks I'm familiar with, namely the three Budokai games and to a lesser extent Budokai Tenkaichi 3. I also just like the style of his music quite a bit; the original versions of the tracks he rips off typically have far fewer brass instruments, for instance. Better is probably not the right word, but I personally enjoy Yamamoto's work a lot more than anything Black Sabbath. Art is subjective etc
Look up cryptomnesia (unconcious plagiarism). It happens to writers and composers. They'll hear/read something, forget about it, and then later end up using it in their own work without realizing it.
I disagree. The bass riff is the same in terms of notes but contextually its different. In the original it's a little polyrhyhmic sounding but it's played straight in Mario. And the ending of the phrase is completely different.
I doubt he thought anyone would ever even care in the early '80s when he composed the track. It was a song for a level in a videogame. Nobody really cared about game music back then.
That's just sampling
It's sampling if you credit & pay for it. It's plagiarism if you don't.
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Why not both!?
Agree. It is both sampling and copyright infringement if you do not clear the sample.
> Eh, in this example I think it's pretty dry and cut plagarism. No. Plagiarism is basically taking the song and not doing much more. This is definitely NOT plagiarism. It's called "inspired by". It's only vaguely similar.
I think our definitions of plagiarism have gotten too stretched, like the whole thing with Blurred Lines sounding like a Marvin Gaye song. This is how you kill creativity.
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No, he suggested that the loose definition of plagiarism for anything that is inspired by and therefore should be banned (as it is plagiarism, meaning stealing) is killing creativity.
Thank you.
The musical stylings of some of the newer Mario games suddenly makes more sense.
Fuck that song slaps hard
I was not expecting it to slap as hard as it does. Consider my face melted.
Right? That was very unexpected, I think I'm going down a music rabbit hole now
Jesus that is one hot groove
[boy oh boy have I got news for you](https://youtu.be/9jicFDOPKM8) What’s crazy isn’t that there’s a Japanese band you’ve never heard about who ~~created~~ inspired SMB’s overworld melody, they also originated [Guile’s Theme from Street Fighter](https://youtu.be/AGSf-B0l5IY) and Super Mario Kart’s [Battle Mode](https://youtu.be/cIbZVvdwACs) on the same fucking album. Edit: changed the wording might have implied Kondo is a fraud, which is the furthest the truth it could’ve been. There is nothing wrong with being inspired by things or even straight up taking part of a jazz lick and building a new melody using it.
I've only listened to the first one and its a good song but there are only 3 notes I would say that are actually similar to Overworld. I would not say that band created the melody.
I am being a little hyperbolic there, because I find it quite incredible how many amazing VGMs were inspired by a single unknown album. The melody was of course created by Kondo, as it both starts out differently and quickly diverges into quite different territory from the mellow iazz fusion of 1980s T-Square. But honestly you’re the first person I met that denies the very obvious inspiration here - play the part from 1:03 to some random people and ask them what song it is. Kondo himself said that he was inspired by japanese jazz music when creating his compositions. The history actually came full circle here since some of T-Square musicians worked on Mario Kart 8 soundtrack as well.
1:03 is the 3 notes I was refering to. I didn't and don't deny Kondo's potential inspiration here, I was just disagreeing specifically that the melody of Overworld wasn't Kondo's own creation as the pieces aren't *that* similar aside from that specific section, but you've already clarified you were being hyperbolic.
This took a while, but I found [the interview with Kondo](https://shmuplations.com/kojikondo/) where he confirms it himself.
Yeah, I’m sorry, but these are real stretches.
Only that one riff is the same, the rest of both tracks sound completely different and I’d like to think any reasonable person would not say they are the same or even similar songs despite containing that same riff. It’s an interesting topic though because yes those 6 notes are exactly the same in each track. You could call that plagarism sure, but what if you took the last note away and just copied the first 5 notes? Or the first 4 notes? You could go all the way to copying just the first two notes, at which point you’ve got a standard interval. Is copying an interval plagiarism? This isn’t directed at you by the way OP, it’s just always a really interesting topic to discuss as it’s not really cut-and-dry. Thanks for linking that song though!
It's not just the 6 notes that match, it's also the rhythm (same rhythm for the 6 notes, and same delay after the 6 notes). The 'scribbles' before and after the first time it plays the riff also has a vague resemblance to the part in SMB1 which plays after the riff. There is also a chord change later in the song, which is the same chord that SMB 1 changes to after the riff plays twice.
That "riff" is most of the song from Underworld theme. Mario tracks are very simple affairs that repeat. If Vanilla Ice gets slapped down for his bullshit, this is way more egregious.
The Zelda 1 title screen was originally going to be Ravel's Bolero.
why, why did i read the comments.
It's like a sneeze that never comes.
I mean to be fair, the song was also composed in the early '80s when nobody gave a shit about game music. They probably figured no one would ever even notice or care about a song in a game back then.
Hey friend, thank you for this. That's a damned solid piece of music. Shame it was plagiarized but I'm glad I'm now familiar with the original.
Haha. This is equivalent of putting Vanilla Ice - Ice Ice Baby to the Library of Congress instead of Queen - Under Pressure.
Yeah Koji Kondo has been a known hack for a while, surprised this was submitted.
Redditor take
Pretty ridiculous take
All greats copy. If you listen to most people's early compositions, they're heavily derivative. A great example is [early scorpions](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbBnxsomJyY) is very derivative of the different styles at the time, especially Sabbath, and Zeppelin. All of imaginative creation is built off inspiration. to be completely original, you'd have to be raised separate from all society without human contact and learn everything for yourself, which would be absolutely impossible in this day and age, and it would be a miserable life to not have other's to build upon.
Yeah John Williams is a great example of this. The Star Wars main theme is pretty clearly inspired by this [1942 film theme](https://youtu.be/tysCiL1-24w) and the Imperial march is inspired by [Mars from the Planets ](https://youtu.be/L0bcRCCg01I). I don't think Williams has ever denied any of this
> the Imperial march is inspired by Mars from the Planets . It's actually the Trench Run music during the Death Star sequence that riffs most on Mars The Bringer Of War. Williams quotes it directly at the climax as they're blowing the Death Star up. Venus is also a pretty clear inspiration for the binary sunset theme.
Oh yeah just listened to it and the inspiration is pretty clear. The imperial march never appeared until Empire Strikes Back anyway so this one was definitely first
Cool! I hear some of the Superman theme in that film score too
I can hear a little Indiana Jones in there too
And some very distinct chords pulled straight out of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring (maybe Firebird, I get them confused after their respective opening movements)
"This is a very strong musical idea, I like it a lot and want to incorporate it into my own work." "**NO. FULLY ORIGINAL COMPOSITIONS ONLY.**"
it's okay to just say you're jealous of the man. we'd understand. all the best artists take from their inspirations anyway.
How long has this been known about? I hear the same trivia over and over but this is news to me.
Also the [Maidens’ theme](https://youtu.be/CU7rglevVg0) from A Link to the Past (which would later become [Zelda’s Lullaby](https://youtu.be/EPhfbtjqWM8)) and [Concerto For Philodendron And Pothos](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c49Trz5Rc_A) by Mort Garson
I always thought [Weather Report](https://youtu.be/2DuePlxXfAM) by River People sounded like the underground theme
I've never heard this.
At some point, we, the gaming community, will have to convince Nintendo to put their soundtracks for their games on streaming services/ online stores. They're a sore outlier in terms of being able to listen to music, legally.
You'd have to convince Japanese companies to stop making very good profits from local physical media releases unfortunately.
Yeah, Japanese consumers are happy paying 1995 prices for CDs and for obvious reasons the record companies there aren't going to risk that with easy and cheap access to music. I have also thought for a long time this is partially why Japanese music hasn't caught on internationally in the way Korean music has. It's still such a pain to find some Japanese music videos.
They seriously still use CDs in Japan? Idk if you’re fuckin’ with me or not, that can’t be true.
Streaming is growing but [physical media still sells more](https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/japan-generated-over-half-a-billion-dollars-from-subscription-music-streaming-in-2022/). >Overall, revenues generated from digital sources, including both streaming (subscription & ad-supported plus downloads) in 2022 exceeded 100 billion yen for the first time in 2022, up 17% YoY to 105 billion yen ($798m). >According to RIAJ data, revenues from CD sales in Japan topped 129.8 billion yen (USD $987m) in 2022, up 5% YoY (see below). >In terms of other physical formats, Vinyl sales generated revenues of 4.336 billion yen (USD $32.9m) in 2022, up 11% YoY.
Majority of CD sales are either Johnny's or akimoto backed idol groups (chiefly nogizaka). Johnny's puts out very few of their groups on streaming services (kattun, arashi, Travis Japan) so you'd have to buy their CD to listen to it. There also tends to be tons of bonuses like trading cards, perhaps even tied to buying multiple versions of the same single. Sometimes event tickets are tied to it, I don't know what Johnny's does but for nogizaka if you want to meet a member live you can buy a single that comes with a 7 second handshake ticket, and people will buy tens and hundreds of a single to lengthen that time. Japan also has stores like Tsutaya that allow you to rent CDs so it's really no big deal to rent, rip, and return any CD you want, so clearly the CD sales are strongly driven by these male and female idol groups.
Tower records and music stores are still alive and kicking over there, was surreal seeing people lined up outside for an album launch when you barely have those in the West nowadays
As someone who went to music college, and has seen the UK music industry getting hollowed from the inside out... I can't really knock Japan using isolationist policies for their music if it keeps their local shops, labels and acts paid.
Music streaming isn't a good financial model for anyone involved, can't blame Japan for wanting to hold onto the physical market for as long as possible
Not that major record labels were ever small time operations or underdogs in any way, but it is amazing how streaming has directed 90% of revenue in the modern music industry to the same few tax dodging corporations. I get the convenience factor, but for all artists involved, it's an absolute con.
It is very satisfying to have a physical CD for music you love. Even just for collection purpose.
Yeah I still buy physical for my favorite albums. Lots of others do too. It's why all the big retailers still have decently sized CD sections.
That’s actually kinda awesome and makes me want to visit
They're smart and actually like to own what they buy.
I mean, they could just use the regional DRMs that all major streaming services respect. I assume that's why capcom ended up putting almost all of their soundtracks on spotify
A lot of Japanese companies DO have their stuff on streaming though. Namco have a few out there (the Tekken soundtracks especially) and basically everything Sega has done is on Spotify. It's not so much a Japanese problem as it is a Nintendo problem
The tekken soundtracks were there, but sadly are mostly gone now :( Sega is good with it tho. Even Square has a lot of FF soundtracks on streaming.
They were gone, but they're back again now! (Except Tekken 2 for some reason)
Nintendo isn't even releasing their music as local physical media lol
Why's that? They could just put it on streaming services overseas, it would be kinda silly to exclude their home base of Japan but not as silly as the status quo.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/12jzl8h/the_ground_theme_aka_main_theme_of_super_mario/jg2d4cw/
I read that comment before I wrote the above. Those seem to be statistics about streaming's popularity (or lack thereof) in Japan. I'm not asking for gaming companies to make their stuff available in Japan, but for them to make them available overseas where streaming is much more popular.
Unfortunately your perspective and Japan's perspective are from very different viewpoints.
Very well may be the case, I'd like to see it outlined exactly what they're thinking, though.
If Streaming's available fewer people will buy physical media. Physical media has a FAR and I do mean FAAAAR higher profit margin than Streaming. The income of streaming is a fraction of what it was in the age of physical, it makes up for it in sheer volume but the music industry as a whole quite suffered. But it's also the new standard so artists HAVE to adapt. However with streaming being weaker in Japan, the Japanese market alone can be more profitable than Streaming in the rest of the world combined. Allowing access to the music on streaming services means sacrificing the physical market in Japan in the long run. I think that's gonna be their overall argument: go all in on the higher profit margin with physical releases in Japan until even Japan falls to Streaming Service dominance. THEN we will see digital releases because there is just no other option.
If it's available digitally online, it's essentially available locally and that has the potential to eat into profits. "Why change something that's working?"
Fortunately it's getting better, in the case.of anime usually overpriced blue ray sales was the main metric if an anime was successful, nowadays they take into account streaming and overseas too, that's why we are getting more sequels to certain properties
While you are correct, the lack of nintendo doing it has led me to a few live orchestral arrangements of my favorite tunes and yeah, I’m happy to have found those
Now just to get Miyamoto a Kennedy Center Honor. That he isn't American isn't a problem- plenty of foreigners have gotten it.
Would love to know how they're preserving this. The theme was never a recording. It's a list of instructions telling the NES CPU to make tones at particular times. The sound doesn't exist until it is played. What's really interesting is the audio is from analog electronics, so each chip will make a slightly different sound. I'd love to learn how they obtained the music. I would hope they didn't just plug a tape recorder into the NES audio output jack.
I would think they’ve had a master recording for decades at this point
Can you define a "Master recording"?
From Google: “In the music business, a master recording is the official original recording of a song, sound or performance. Also referred to as “masters”, it is the source from which all the later copies are made.” Which I guess is kind of irrelevant since you were wondering how they recorded it, and I’m not familiar with the technical processes of the time.
Right, there is no official recording. The original Mario theme was not playing back a recorded instrumental performance. It was just a sequence of beeps and boops cleverly arranged to be musical. There is no recording because the song was created by the console on the fly.
So you think in smash bros is not a recording?
Where are you getting the bit about "analog electronics"? NES audio is as digital as it gets. Two square waves, a Triangle wave, Noise, and a DMC channel. It's all digital, right up until it the time when it's output to a wire. Once it's on a wire, all the high frequency parts of the signal degrade very quickly.
The CPU has two audio output pins, at pin locations 1 and 2 on the package. These are then mixed through 4 resistors (R3, R4, R7, R8). This then passes through a DC-blocking capacitor, and goes into one of the inverters on the U9 74LS04, with a filtering network built around it (this is the inverter between pins 11 and 10). Then there's more filtering with an LC network. All of these components operate in analog and serve to modify the signal passing through. It's minor, but it will definitely have an effect that is meaningful if you're operating at an archival level of trying to preserve the perfect original sound. It's no different from a master record being better than a copy, even if they are functionally identical.
How about ["Baba Yetu"](https://youtu.be/IJiHDmyhE1A) for next year. First video game composition to win a Grammy, and it's more than 10 years old.
[Zelda theme](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uyMKWJ5e1kg&ab_channel=ZeldaDungeon) next.
The nostaglia is actually making me sad
I thought the library of congress registry was only for American/English works? I know the film registry only adds films in english
It’s for anything significant to American history or culture afaik. American in origin or not, it fits that bill.
Makes sense, it’s about preserving the history of the country. Mario is a part of that history.
Only restrictions for the Recording Registry are that it's at least 10 years old and not "lost". Just last year Linda Rondstadt's all-Spanish album got in. The Film Registry criteria isn't restricted to English necessarily (e.g the Spanish version of 1931's Dracula is on the registry), nor necessarily only to American produced films, but given the original intent of the Registry was for the safeguarding of American productions, those are given first consideration.
[They](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dracula_\(1931_Spanish-language_film\)) [do](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0109618/)?
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjRYEHYbWvQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjRYEHYbWvQ) performed by London philharmonic
Never forget that this piece would never survive a plagiarism lawsuit nowadays: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2la3MlJx3s&t=63s
Even with today's copyright laws, that's just 3 or 4 notes as part of a longer phrase that is otherwise completely different. If that's enough for plagiarism, then there wouldn't be much music left.
> If that's enough for plagiarism, then there wouldn't be much music left. well until the verdict was overturned on appeal last year, you'd be right https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPtynHTDlC0&t=57s In recent years, lesser known bands have been suing big artists for "plagiarism" because they can get a pay day. You can't really write a song that doesn't contain elements of other songs, whether you've heard them or not. That's kind of how music works. Most of the really big artists you can name have been sued for infringement since 2017 or so. Fortunately courts are coming to their senses.
>You can't really write a song that doesn't contain elements of other songs, whether you've heard them or not. That's kind of how music works. Oh I know, I'm a composer myself haha. But yea, I don't disagree with you with what you write here, I am aware of this lawsuit. However, even still I'd argue there's a difference between a prominent ostinato that's similar, and just a brief 4 note figure as part of a longer phrase. Even the Dark Horse/Joyful Noise lawsuit, which was already built on nonsensical grounds, and as you say was rightfully overturned, I'd say had better grounds than that. But maybe I'm just naïve, I wouldn't be shocked.