Michael R. Beck - Web 2.0's Average Joe: Collin's Blog Post Idea: Super Mario Brothers Music!

While browsing the Internet tonight, my 4-year-old son, Collin, came in to sit on my lap. While he was with me, I loaded up this blog to take a look at some of the comments I've been left recently. My son noticed it was his daddy's picture at the top of the page and started asking questions about the site.

Thankfully Collin was satisfied with the overly simplified answer that this blog is a place where, "daddy writes about all kinds of stuff." I went on to show him where I've written about Super Mario Brothers 3 coming out for the Nintendo Wii, and about music from Super Mario Brothers.

So Collin asks me, "what about Super Mario Brothers 2?" Smart kid. Yes, what about Super Mario Brothers 2?

The music from Super Mario Brothers 2 is just as catchy as Super Mario Brothers 1 and 3, but never gets the same "air time". This is probably due to the fact that Super Mario Brothers 2 was a departure from the previous formula, and was never played as much as the others. Super Mario Brothers 2 had no level time limits, the bonus game took mastering to earn extra lives, you could select different players between levels, and to beat enemies you had to throw things at them instead of jumping on their heads. Seemed more like Megaman than a Super Mario Brothers game.

Everyone played the original Super Mario Brothers because it came packaged with the Nintendo Entertainment System. Everyone played Super Mario Brothers 3 because it was so widely anticipated and packed full of surprises and fun features. Super Mario Brothers 2 never got the same play, period.

Collin helped me do a little Super Mario Brothers 2 research on YouTube, and we came across this little gem posted by ceedjay. Here's a couple of guys, having fun playing one of the beloved tunes from Super Mario Brothers, but they did something very interesting with it. They combined piano with guitar, and the result is absolutely amazing. The fact that it only has 319 views (as of this posting) tells you that Super Mario Brothers 2 just wasn't as well received as the rest of the series. The performance these two guys give deserves many, many more views than that.

With no further ado, Collin and I present to you the sound of Super Mario Brothers 2.

If you like what you heard, swing over and give them a Digg, will ya?

Labels: collin, music, nintendo, super mario brothers 2, video games

3 Comments:

At May 14, 2008 2:28 AM , Justin said...: Great post! And that's a fantastic video of the Super Mario Bros. 2! After watching the video, I think you are absolutely right, the song needs to get more air time. It's not as catchy as Super Mario Bros. 1, but it's a great song! In fact, I just blogged about the original Super Mario Bros. theme song earlier today, and I ran across your post. Here's the link, just in case you would like to give it a read =) They really need to come up with music sheets for these compositions.
At May 14, 2008 9:32 PM , Justin said...: Hi Michael, thanks for the comments at my blog! Look forward to your posts!
At May 16, 2008 12:39 AM , Michael Beck said...: I am glad to see that these guys picked up 100 more views since I posted this. They're slowly starting to get their due!