Inside The Score - Super Mario All-Stars - Underground (SMB)

Obscure influences

The environment where the Mario brothers thrive and where we first encountered them both having fights with turtles; the reason why we even have pipes in the first place. This is the underworld, which is meant to be a juxtaposition with the colorful world above in all senses including sound.

It is the polar opposite to the bouncy overworld. How does an ambient, almost Avant-Garde piece becomes one of the most iconic video game tracks? First by belonging to one of the most iconic games of all time (almost all cues and sound effects that came from here are a classic except arguably the Castle Theme which for some reason has not returned as much). And second by being catchy in its own right even though weird rhythms, lack of accompaniment and weird melodic choices abound. it has bee reused to death and in creative ways in almost every single subsequent Mario. It is the only Super Mario All-Stars cue reused as is for every game of the original run. The fact that each tune from the original is distinct is what makes its short soundtrack very memorable. With limited instrumentation Kondo managed to create four different soundscapes.

The track is all about differentiation within the soundtrack and, just like the Ground Theme took its first few notes from the song Sister Marian (Sister Mario) by Japanese band T-Square (wave) and then went its own way, the particular beginning of this cue was taken from the song “Let’s Not Talk About It” by the group Friendship, another jazz fusion favorite from Kondo.

The entire head melody is taken from its bassline and the tail is its own thing. A pretty underground band. Although Miles Davis did it even earlier with his track “Calypso Frelimo”

From that track comes the iconic 3/4 sequence. Only the new version from Super Mario All-Stars restores its place as a cool bass line within a groove now played with slap Seinfield style, a more aggressive way of playing the bass guitar by attacking the strings in a percussive way.

Musical Analysis

The theme feels awkward, both dissonant in rhythm and melody and, since it is in the Underground, the focus is on low notes that reverberate in a cavern, as if the melody is just 6 note phrases that then rebound and echo. It feels claustrophobic. It is the antithesis to the main theme in all respects. The head melody is just that bass line that could fit a Dorian profile, still somewhat darker than the Ionian profile above and then it stumbles into dissonance as if Mario just fell down the rocks. The tail has lots of tritones and the makings of a diminished profile. It is a rather atonal piece of music, like the poor lighted spaces where this plays it is also difficult to find your way musically. Still, it is based around the C note like the rest of the score.

The rhythms at the end get progressively crazier. The uneven triplets are included.

The head melody is also just octaves and then doubled with the square wave.

Like within a cavern there is a lot of awkward silences, with more spaces between any notes and there are no chords. It feels hollow. It is the cousin to the Bowser’s Castle theme just like the Underwater is the cousing to the Overworld. A balanced soundtrack.

For Super Mario Bros. 3 Kondo added a percussion track that can mimic more movement of rocks and stuff. This arrangement is the one used as the basis for the SNES version by arranger Soyo Oka of Mario Kart fame which brings back this beat alongside a bassline with a delayed note that allows for a natural echo in this hollow cavern. There is no replacement for the square wave, ending up as a pure bass line.

Is it better with the beat or with the silence that the lack of percussion brings?