The Library of Congress has officially inducted its first video game soundtrack into the National Recording Registry. The Library of Congress is the largest library in the world, and exists to help preserve artefacts such as books, recordings, films or other media considered culturally or historically relevant.
The National Recording Registry specifically is the department of the Library of Congress that “preserves our history through recorded sound and reflects our nation’s diverse culture.”
Today, the Ground Theme from the original Super Mario Bros. video game was added to the National Recording Registry. It is the first piece of music produced for a video game to be inducted into the registry.
Below is an official statement from the National Recording Registry on the decision to induct the Super Mario Bros. Ground Theme:
Perhaps the most recogizable video game theme in history, Koji Kondo’s main motif for the 1985 Nintendo classic, Super Mario Bros., helped establish the game’s legendary status and proved that the five-channel Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) sound chip was capable of vast musical complexity and creativity.Inspired in part by the music of Japanese jazz fusion band, T-Square, the game’s main theme, or “Ground Theme,” is a jaunty, Latin-influenced melody that provides the perfect accompaniment to Mario and Luigi’s side scrolling hijinks. Kondo’s score laid the groundwork for an entire generation of chiptune musicians and has been performed by orchestras around the globe, befitting its status as one of the most beloved musical compositions of the last 40 years.
