ReMix: Super Mario Bros. 'The Life and Death of the Mario Brothers'
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- Game: Super Mario Bros. (Nintendo, 1985, NES)
- ReMixer(s): Mattias Häggström Gerdt
- Composer(s): Koji Kondo
- Song(s): 'Game Over', 'Overworld BGM'
- Posted: 2010-07-03, evaluated by djpretzel
Hey there, howsabout a Super Mario Bros. Overworld BGM ReMix?
Yeah, I know, you've heard a million. Or at least a dozen... But if there's one thing OCR has proven over the years, it's that you can't keep a great theme down, and if there's another thing (of equal if not greater importance), it's that music is almost infinitely malleable. Case in point: Mattias Häggström Gerdt, aka Another Soundscape, delivers on the promise of his pseudonym and does in fact deliver yet another soundscape, this time taking the aforementioned classic and tweaking out the synths to the extreme. He writes:
"This was supposed to be the duel with Mustin for the Bad Dudes vs. OCR project before I realized he had already challenged McVaffe. Ah well, that meant I had a pretty decent start of a song to do something of. I whipped this up in Reason 4 during the last six hours of a tuesday, got Mr. Magfest to send me some Super Mario Bros. sound effects and voila, le ReMix.
I must admit I'm pretty happy with this. It's full of synths, wank and more odd stuff than you can shake a stick at. I especially fancy the way you first go "..wait, what?" but then when the beat drops there's an "aha!" moment. Doing the theme in both major and minor is always fun and to be completely honest with you, every musician should've tackled this iconic theme at least once in their lifetime. I do hope you guys enjoy it but even if you don't I most certainly enjoyed making it!"
It shows - quite playful, especially with the sick synth stylings, but also a really strong arrangement that makes the theme work both ways. I suppose 1-1 *is* something of a rite of passage, and it was certainly interesting to see what someone like AnSo would do with it, given the large existing body of work. It's a tougher theme to "make your own" than most, but he's done exactly that, coloring outside the lines of even his own diverse methodologies. I walked into this mix with a certain set of expectations, thinking that I'd like it well enough, but not necessarily love it. I'm really glad that Mattias surprised me, and I dig the originality and fresh approach he's taken - relative to existing mixes of this source, but also his own mixes of other sources. Basically, I have to congratulate AnSo, because this is not only an enjoyable mix, but also what I consider a great accomplishment.
Discussion: Latest 15 comments/reviews; view the - One-Winged Angle on September 14, 2012
- Crulex on September 5, 2012
- SuperiorX on January 3, 2012
Definately enjoy listening to this one, and the sound effects starting around 1'17 just put this song on a whole new awesome plane. :)
- Skinner3D on November 12, 2010
The synths in this are incredibly sexy.
- Holy Land on September 16, 2010
Truly emotional piece.
- DarkSim on August 10, 2010
A generic Genesis FM-style opening gives us the signature that Mario fans know and love with some bell-ish synths. Then we're launched into a groovy electro funk major/minor session with some really funny lead sounds that are found in a vocal-less auto-tuned song or a West Coast rap rather than in electro funk. I especially like the bits after 1:50 where the two leads play off each other. The breakdown with the glockens is cool, just could use an extra instrument, but it sounds okay. Perhaps the sound effects in that section were supposed to lead us into the "death" of Mario or Luigi...I'll have to listen to it a few more times.
On a side note, you could have ripped high quality sound effects from [URL="http://2a03.free.fr/?p=pub&type=ftm&pg=4"]Tony Thai's fakegame.ftm file[/URL] and did some editing in FamiTracker. Plus you could mess around with them too to make something really quirky and novel. Fami's a fairly easy program to use if you haven't done so, and since this was done effeciently, it won't hurt your time constraints.
9/10
And now, since I have no real great conclusion for a song based on awesome-ness, I shall quote the chipper passionate voice of Charles Martinet in my head as he says "Thank you so much for a playing my song."
- A-RoN on July 22, 2010
Personally, I can't say I'm too hot on the synths. On the one hand, they have kind of on an awesome sound to them, but on the other hand, they are just one step shy of making me say "ohgodmyears" on turn it off.
Which is a shame, because the arrangement is great, the other instruments are well chosen, and the sound effects from the game are incorporated rather well IMO.
I'm really torn on this one.
- Martin Penwald on July 20, 2010
I didn't even mind the SFX. Nice work, Sir Swede. :-)
- OA on July 15, 2010
What's with five seconds of silence at the end!?? Bahs, minor quip.
Yeah... What's with the need for samples? Granted, you work them in nicely, ie. the pipe sound effect, the coin hits, and even the death sound at the end. It's all very well executed from a technical, and even creative standpoint. But.... With how well done the rest of the track is, the samples seem to cheapen the mix as a whole for me. The nostalgia factor is high enough with this being such a well referenced song, something that exists in our collective gamer concience. Did you really have to toss in the samples?
With such a fun, breezy overhaul of the theme I would have expected that if anything, there would be an update to the jumping sounds, coin hits, etc. They wouldn't have stood out so much, to the point where they almost distract from an otherwise excellent take on a very worn, tired theme.
- Master_Yoshi on July 12, 2010
Hope you got some extra lives hanging around.
- Level 99 on July 9, 2010
I had a laugh that just as I was listening to the pipe sound at 0.55 the file finished downloading.
- Nearly on July 5, 2010
- PROTO·DOME on July 4, 2010
- Swann on July 4, 2010
