Today, the Library of Congress unveiled the 2023 class of music getting added to the National Recording Registry. This year’s class includes 25 recordings from some of music’s biggest artists such as Madonna, Mariah Carey, Queen Latifah, Daddy Yankee, Jimmy Buffet, Eurythmics, John Lennon, John Denver, The Police, Led Zeppelin, and more including the first sounds of a video game to join the registry, the Super Mario Bros. theme. the latest selections span from 1908 to 2012 and bring the total number of titles on the registry to 625.
“The National Recording Registry preserves our history through recorded sound and reflects our nation’s diverse culture,” Hayden said. “The national library is proud to help ensure these recordings are preserved for generations to come, and we welcome the public’s input on what songs, speeches, podcasts or recorded sounds we should preserve next. We received more than 1,100 public nominations this year for recordings to add to the registry.”
Koji Kondo, the composer of the music of the Super Mario Bros. video games in the 80s and who still makes music for video games today spoke about working on the “Ground theme,” the jaunty, Latin-influenced melody that’s instantly recognizable around the world today.
“The amount of data that we could use for music and sound effects was extremely small, so I really had to be very innovative and make full use of the musical and programming ingenuity that we had at the time,” he said through an interpreter in a recent interview. “I used all sorts of genres that matched what was happening on screen. We had jingles to encourage players to try again after getting a ‘game over,’ fanfares to congratulate them for reaching goals, and pieces that sped up when the time remaining grew short.”
Kondo is currently 61 years old and still works at Nintendo. Over the years, he’s seen his “Mario” music used in films and played by orchestras. He says he had a feeling that the theme would be something special when he was working on it back then. “I also had a feeling that this game might be something that could turn into a series and continue for a long time. Having this music preserved alongside so many other classic songs is such a great honor. It’s actually a little bit difficult to believe.”