Mario's modern music years! (Mario music post part 2!)

        Hey there, friends! I hope you're all doing well as always, and as always, I'm here to talk to you about something that I think is pretty interesting, and I'll do my best to explain why you should too! I started talking about Mario's many different themes and music throughout his long platforming career last week, and I hope to finish it up today. We still have a lot of games to get through, so I'll start soon, but first I have to make an important clarification. In the New Super Mario Bros. games, I'm only going to cover the first one, as the music for all of those games is pretty similar, even down to the gimmick of singers coming in and saying, "la, la" and making the world react to it. I'll explain that when we get to those games, but I'll go ahead and start this post with a game that is divisive even to this day!

Not quite the vacation that Mario wanted...

    Mario's first adventure on the Gamecube came out in 2002 in the form of Super Mario Sunshine. This game was weird, after the first 3D Mario to come out, Super Mario 64, people assumed that the next game in the series would simply refine the controls of that game and upgrade the graphics a bit more than what the Nintendo 64 was able to do. This game took a hard left on this approach by adding a water jetpack and many other mechanics that propelled (no pun intended) the gameplay to crazy new heights. The Flash Liquidizer Ultra Dousing Device, or F.L.U.D.D. for short, created a whole bunch of new moves that Mario was able to pull off, such as hovering, doing a super jump with the rocket nozzle which allows you to soar over Isle Delfino with ease, and my personal favorite, the turbo nozzle which allowed Mario to move at the speed of Sonic by shooting out water behind him, though he couldn't stop as long as the pump was going. It made for some interesting gameplay, but let's talk about the locale of Isle Delfino for a moment. This entire game world was a tropical island paradise, and the music definitely added to the overall aesthetic of that game, many of the instruments used in this game were deliberately chosen to sound like you're listening to a performance at a tropical resort out by the pool, and though all of them fit the theme of "tropical island music," all of the themes stand out and do a good job of evoking what the area is supposed to be. Pinna Park is a theme park (which you know I love just on principle), so it has upbeat music trying to convince the park-goers to have a good time even though there are turtles with electric shells right next to the merry-go-round attacking the innocent bystanders. Ricco Harbor is a functioning port for ships to unload cargo, so the music is loud and bombastic, mimicing the blowing of a foghorn, Sirena Beach has a tranquil, almost creepy tune to it ("Sirena," as in siren song perhaps?) which makes sense, because you find out that the Hotel Delfino, the main attraction of this area, is super haunted. Not only by the enormous slimy ghost manta rays that you encounter at the beginning of the level, but King Boo himself has actually taken up residence in the casino. All of the music is extremely evocative of the overall theme, in a way that is almost unprecedented in this series, though with the next mainline game in the series, the music would take another serious step forward.

This game's soundtrack puts me over the moon!

    Super Mario Galaxy was the first mainline Mario game on the Wii, and along with the space theme of this fantastic game came a major addition to the soundtrack: actual orchestral arrangements. For the first time in the series, the music was recorded by an actual orchestra instead of just being put together in a computer program, and wow is it good! It isn't quite as immersive to the game's theme as Sunshine, but there is something to be said about going to space and hearing these larger than life scores as you land on planetoid after planetoid chasing after Bowser. The themes from this game are so good that I would say that they can actually lead you to getting emotional from time to time. The Comet Observatory, the main hub of this game, has such a beautiful waltz-like theme that I dare you to tell me that you didn't feel something as you run around the area. In addition to just being beautiful, this song gains steam as you go through the game. As you collect more and more power stars, the ship continues to power up more and more elements and instruments are added to the orchestration of this piece. It's such a cool effect and it gives you even more incentive to keep pushing forward than the obvious, "I've gotta save Princess Peach" angle that is in almost every Mario game. Rosalina was introduced in this game with an actual tragic backstory, which is almost unheard of in a Mario game, she was given a theme while telling her backstory and wow is it sad. I can't overstate how beautiful the music in this game is, I still go back and listen to the soundtrack sometimes when I'm working out or writing something, it's just inspirational. Gusty Gardens Galaxy's theme is so good, that they basically just used it as huge inspiration for Super Mario Galaxy 2 when it was time to release that! I won't say too much about Galaxy 2, just because a lot of the musical cues come from the original's release, but the music is just as phenomenal as the first game. Some returning themes in this game make me incredibly happy though. For the entirety of Galaxy 2, you're flying around in the Starship Mario, a space ship made to look like Mario's head that runs on Star Energy, but at the very end of the game, Rosalina flies by in the Comet Observatory and it begins playing the Comet Observatory theme again, which I always love, of course! In addition to this, Super Mario Galaxy 2 has a level based on Super Mario 64's Whomp's Fortress level complete with an orchestrated version of the theme that that game used for Bob-Omb Battlefield and Whomp's Fortress, and it's a wonderful rendition of that iconic theme for sure. This game also brought back Yoshi, and has the same effect of adding bongos to the music while you're riding him, which comes from Super Mario World! Leading on from this series, we have a bit of division that I need to dive into for a little bit.

Back to the Basics

    In 2006, 3D Mario games were the flavor of the day and the two most recent games in the series, Super Mario 64 and Super Mario Sunshine took full advantage of all of the possibilities that the Z-axis could lend. To many, however, this was far too overwhelming and they longed for the days where Mario and friends could just run left and right. Thus the idea of New Super Mario Bros. was born. This game was a launch title for the new Nintendo DS Lite which boasted brighter colors, more options for backlight than the original model of DS, and the fact that it was less bulky than that original model. New Super Mario Bros. was a great hit, seen as a rare return to form from the company that always seemed to keep pushing ahead. With the return to this more classic style of game, although with better graphics and new power ups, in addition to giving Mario the move set that he had learned from his newer 3D games, the music also became more similar to the classic tracks. There were fewer songs, though there were themes for each different style of level in the same way that the classic games did. The grassland world had a different theme from the water world and the lava world, and of course the castle themes and water themes are the same no matter where the levels take place. There isn't much to talk about with the music other than just to say that the tunes are all extremely catchy, even if they aren't quite as iconic as the older games in the series (though this could entirely be attributed to me never playing as much of this game as I did, say, Super Mario Bros. 3). The game as a whole was pretty fun, but the series quickly went off the rails. A few years later in 2009, New Super Mario Bros. Wii came out, then New Super Mario Bros. 2 for 3DS came out in 2012 alongside New Super Mario Bros. U. These games came out and were all very successful, but iterated on basically the same themes. The titles for Wii and Wii U were cool for the sole reason that they were the first real Mario games to feature co-op, which was a fun feature that got irritating fast. New Super Mario Bros 2 did at least add a strange reliance on coins just being everywhere, but that was far from the fun mechanics and new creativity that the series needed. These games were fine for sure, but none of the music really stands out the way that older titles did, like I said.

How do you make a game like Galaxy? Add 3D!

    The 3DS was a wild console. The first handheld to feature glasses-free stereoscopic 3D (forget the Virtual Boy, that's not real) broke out onto the market to not much acclaim. For the first few months, there weren't really any serious smash hit titles to make people take notice, especially at the $250 price tag that it started its life out with. Super Mario 3D Land was one of the first titles that took advantage of the awesome 3D specs of this console, being a 3D Mario game that captured the charm of 2D Mario as well. Mario was able to use power ups more like how the 2D games operated, and instead of having a life bar, Mario would get small if he got hit until he got a mushroom again. It was a cool style of game, and along with it and the 3D elements that made it so cool to play it with the 3D effects of the system turned on, the music was really great as well. 3D Land began as an attempt to make a game like Galaxy and put it on a mobile console, because of that, a lot of the graphics and movements of the game are similar, and the music follows that trend too. The sweeping orchestral scores of Galaxy had to be tuned down a bit to fit on the 3DS's less powerful hardware, so we get simpler themes that many times sound like re-imaginings of Super Mario Bros. 3 music, interestingly enough. The main theme of the game especially sounds very similar to the map screen from the first world or from the overworld theme from those first few levels. It's kind of cool how the similarities spring up in that way, including that this game saw the return of the Raccoon Suit which was a staple in that earlier title! A few years after this game came out however, Wii U received its first 3D Mario Game, Super Mario 3D World. Posed as a sequel to 3D Land, people were pretty confused and skeptical about this one. Why is it called 3D World when there is no Stereoscopic 3D effect on this console? No idea. The idea behind this one was to make the game similar in terms of gameplay, but add co-op and many more ideas than had been done before. The music of this game was also very different to how most of the other games sounded, bringing in a big swing band vibe, which made for some of the most smooth tracks in Mario's entire history. It's like you're sitting in a jazz club and say, "Hey Paulie, strike up the band, I wanna play some Mario," and then the band goes wild as you go. The credits theme for this game could legitimately play in a jazz club and no one would be able to tell anything was different about the set list, and that's an incredible feat to me. There is also Captain Toad's big minigame introduction, which later would get a game to himself, Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker. It's a cute and simple theme, but it is undeniably catchy. The most recent game from this long series is something a good bit different from this game, following Mario on an Odyssey through many different kingdoms with fitting tunes!

Let's do the Odyssey!

    This is the most recent game in the main series, and so this is our final stop on this musical journey. This game is a work of art in terms of style as well as gameplay, and that goes double for the soundtrack. Super Mario Odyssey came out in 2017, relatively soon after the release of the Nintendo Switch, and is all about Mario going across the world to chase down Bowser and save Peach. You start out in a creepy kingdom that is inhabited by little hat ghosts, and as such, the music is extremely creepy and mysterious, like some of Danny Elfman's best scores. Next, you head to the dinosaur-infested Cascade Kingdom, where the music is just beautiful and uplifting, pushing you up to the top of the mountain and making you want to explore every nook and cranny that you can here. There are so many amazing tracks here that I don't even know where to begin, but because I can't sit here all day and just talk about this game, I have to tell you about the best musical moment maybe in any video game that I can remember in quite some time. In New Donk City, or the Metro Kingdom, there's a festival that you have to help set up for, and once you do, you have to track down the band for Mayor Pauline's big performance (Yes, Pauline from Donkey Kong is the mayor of this city, and this is apparently the city from that original game, hence "New Donk City"). The festival sequence has to be my absolute favorite moment of this wonderful game because Mario is running around and dodging obstacles while Pauline sings the first ever song from a Mario game with actual lyrics and a big band. As she is the girl that you continually had to save in the original Donkey Kong arcade game, this song has quite a few sound effects to that game, and this sequence has one pretty major visual reference to that game. Just take my word for it, this sequence had me smiling like crazy and was the most amazing part of what was already an outstanding game. On top of this amazing performance, the worlds all have really unique themes that help to differentiate themselves from one another, with some of my favorites being the Bowser Kingdom, the Forest Kingdom, and the (spoiler) kingdom, which has some amazing bits of fan service that I can't tell you about here. You'll thank me later if you play it, trust me.

    There we have it, friends. This has been a quick trek through Mario's history of songs, and I hope you've enjoyed reading a little bit about all of these different games. Like the last post that I did, I'll post some links down below to different songs that I would suggest.

Super Mario Sunshine: Delfino Plaza
Super Mario Galaxy: Gusty Gardens Galaxy or Comet Observatory
Super Mario Galaxy 2: Main Theme or Throwback Galaxy (Whomp's Fortress)
New Super Mario Bros. Series: Overworld Theme (from DS) or Overworld Theme (from Wii U, just to show how similar they are)
Super Mario 3D Land: Overworld Theme (Compare this to the theme from Super Mario Bros 3, it's wild!)
Super Mario 3D World: Credits Roll or Captain Toad Theme!
Super Mario Odyssey: Cascade Kingdom or Jump Up, Super Star!

    Once again, I own none of the rights to this music, but it's so good I just have to share some of it with you all, it would really be doing a disservice to just describe all of this to you. I hope you've enjoyed reading this little series as much as I've enjoyed writing about it, and I hope to do one with Legend of Zelda music sometime in the future. That is another incredible series, and another one which started with music from the legendary Koji Kondo! I hope you'll look forward to that in the future as well! Thank you so much for all of your support, I really appreciate it, and I hope you're all having a good week! As always, I'm Jonathan, your Self-Proclaimed Music Enthusiast, and I'll talk to you soon!