A new music streaming app has entered the market.
It’s called Nintendo Music — and on it, you can listen to dozens of hours of music from games like Mario, Zelda and Donkey Kong.
The app has had more than a million downloads since it launched on Oct. 30.
The early success, and the enthusiasm it’s received from fans, speaks to the unique history and appeal of Nintendo’s music.
Nintendo: a melodic history
Ben Kidd analyzes video game music on his YouTube channel, 8-bit Music Theory, with videos like “Why Animal Crossing Music Sounds Nostalgic” and “Why Does Mario Music Sound ‘Fun’?“
Kidd says the popularity of his videos speaks to how much people care about video game music. But he says there’s also a number of things about Nintendo music specifically that resonates with people.
“I think the strength of Nintendo’s music really has to do with the strength of their early composers,” he says.
Composers like Koji Kondo, who helped pioneer video game music and crafted the ear-worming melodies you find in games like Super Mario Bros. or The Legend of Zelda.
Over the years, these same melodies have been remixed and re-interpreted across new games, creating a sense of nostalgia for players.
“It’s a bit of a chicken and egg situation,” Kidd says. “The melodies are so strong, that they’re easy to reuse, and very effective to reuse. And the more you reuse them across games, the stronger they get.”
Kidd also says that throughout the years, Nintendo has positioned its new, young composers to work alongside veterans of the industry. He points to composer Toru Minegishi, who contributed tracks to The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask alongside Koji Kondo in 2000, and then served as lead composer for The Legend Of Zelda: Twilight Princess in 2006.
The broad appeal of video game music
The Nintendo Music app owes its early success to more than just Nintendo music itself.
For years, people have been listening to video game music on other platforms, like YouTube. Playlists are all over the site, often organized around different tasks or feelings, like sleeping or studying.
“Video game music is often designed to fill a background space without taking too much of the listener’s attention away,” says Harvey Jones, a musician who makes music inspired by video games under the moniker Pizza Hotline.
Jones is also part of the community on YouTube that shares and archives video game music.
“Around 2022, I began digging deep into ’90s and naughties video game soundtracks from consoles like the N64, the GameCube, the PS1 and the Dreamcast, and I found so many hidden bangers,” he says.
Video game playlists like this can garner millions of views. Jones says he sees Nintendo responding to this kind of demand.
“They’ve legitimized the video game music listening experience with this app,” he says.
Still, the app has garnered some criticisms. Kidd says one is that composers are not credited.
“It would be nicer for them, I think, if people associated these soundtracks they love with the people who wrote them, rather than just the company they work for,” he says.
It’s the kind of information that he argues would also be useful for users of the app. In the same way a jazz fan might recognize the stylistic differences between John Coltrane or Hank Mobley, Kidd argues close listeners could draw their own observations about various Nintendo composers.
NPR reached out to Nintendo for comment about whether this feature would make its way onto the app, and has not yet received a response.
The company has already added additional music to the app since its launch, including songs from the Donkey Kong Country 2 soundtrack.