Video: Exploring The Funky Inspiration for the Super Mario Bros. Underground Theme

I love how he keeps playing as the guy with the record keeps talking.

That's blown my mind.

Slow news day, huh?

EDIT: Wait, so just because two songs share the same three notes being played in a row, that means one is "inspired" of the other. A lot of tracks must be "inspired" off one another then.

Chris Stark was right! We are running out of music!

Take the rest off the week off if there's not much news, guys 😜

I read about this years ago.I had a wee search there to check how long I've known for and found this from 2006.

https://www.destructoid.com/did-nintendo-steal-the-super-mario-bros-underworld-theme--25655.phtml

And we also know Nintendo stole 25M (donkey kong) from a John Lennon song.

Could just be a coincidence but if this did inspire the original Super Mario underground theme, that's a neat find. I've never heard of that group.

https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2015/01/weirdness_legendary_composer_koji_kondo_drew_inspiration_from_70s_rock_bands
I posted this similar article a while back. Koji Kondo was part of a 70's rock cover band for awhile and said that inspired his compositions.

Pretty interesting stuff!

That Mario gameplay... sped up PAL music!

Heard this before and it's quite clear he was inspired by this and others. Thanks to the trusty commenters for filling out the other references. No one should freak out. Not only was he masterful in fleshing these basic tunes out he matched them to the feel of the gameplay. People didn't do this back then and making music for video games was cutting edge and everything anyone tried was basically new from year to year. Cool stuff.

The elaborations easily challenge any charge of plagiarism

@Meowpheel Really? Or are you being facetious.

That's it, Koji Kondo is a fraud, a plagiarist, and he should receive maximum jail time.

@EXP it's a joke, but the song is identical to the bassline for "The Ballad of John and Yoko".

Didn't Led Zeppelin just prove in court that this can only be coincidence?

"Good artists copy, great artists steal." ~Pablo Picasso

I believe it. Koji Kondo talked about taking inspiration from both kalypso, funk, jazz and other places when making the iconic Mario tunes.

This sorta similarity happens all the time in the music biz. No big whoop.

Cool find!

Lol: The player needed 45 minutes to get through the first level!

Hmm... I mean yes, that segment is the same but it's just three notes with their respective octaves - which is pretty par for the course in any bassline to add a little more range and 'bounce' to it.

What gives the underground tune its character is the mainly transposition, and partly that little cascade at the end.

If the transposition had featured in the song, the two would have sounded remarkably (perhaps suspiciously) similar, but as it stands, I'd actually be surprised if there weren't MORE songs out there with those three notes at the heart of their basslines.

There's an unmistakable similarity, but the rest of the World 1-2 theme is so different I don't think it's really cause for concern.

It's a pity the same can't be said for Tappy's Metal Gear Solid theme and Sviridov's Winter Road...

There's lots of influences (or lifting) of a lot of game music. Earthbound and Elecman come to mind at first.

I tried once to tell people on miiverse that the stage start music from Donkey Kong was from an old old song called "cuando cuando cuando" which was used in 1970s tv commercials in Japan and was quite popular at the time. But nobody would listen to me!

There is a video of Cat scared of Mario Jump sound. Funny enough, it took a place on Mario Underground. Happy watching. XD
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbUGwA_woCE

I created a blog that collects such occurences, old and new ones. Maybe drop by if you have time!
https://www.destructoid.com/blogs/PhilsPhindings/