I'm Jen White. You're listening to the 1A podcast. Last month, as part of our Sounds of America

series, we started profiling some of the recordings that were recently added to the National

Recording Registry at the Library of Congress. All of them were selected for the registry

based on their historical, cultural, or aesthetic importance to American society. And the

collection includes all kinds of audio, from music and radio broadcasts to speeches,

audio books, and comedy performances. Today, we profile something different and new to the

registry, music composed for a video game. The game, the original Super Mario Brothers,

released by Nintendo in 1985 on their Home Game Console, the Nintendo Entertainment System.

To tell the story of the Super Mario Brothers theme music, we begin with the composer.

I saw a post in a recruitment fire while I was at university. I actually only took one employment

exam and that was for Nintendo. I liked games, I liked sound creation, and of course I liked making

music, so I thought this is the perfect location for me. Koji Kondo really is a giant among game

composers. Before him, composers did not dedicate their careers solely to music for games.

I'm Winifred Phillips, I'm a game composer. I'm also the author of the book, a composer's

guide to game music. Nintendo had been a game-making company for a very long time. They were making

playing cards in the 19th century, and by the time the 1970s got around, they moved to electronic

games. And so when the arcade craze happened, Nintendo followed Sue. Eventually, they found

great success with the game Donkey Kong in 1981.

I'm Jeff Ryan, the author of Super Mario, how Nintendo conquered America.

In the video game world, for about 10 years, the games were being made for arcades. As great as an

arcade game is, it's only something you can do at an arcade, but at home you can play for as long as you want.

So Nintendo made the Nintendo Entertainment System, or NES.

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