On September 13, 1985, a plumber in red overalls changed the sound of pop culture forever. When Nintendo released Super Mario Bros for the NES, it didn’t just redefine video games, it reshaped how entire generations understood the role of music and sound in storytelling.

Unlike the static beeps of its contemporaries, Mario’s world was alive with melody, a universe that Nintendo would continue to actively shape and amplify across platforms, campaigns, and cultural touchpoints for decades to come.

At its core was Koji Kondo, a young composer tasked with the challenge of making music that could loop endlessly without becoming annoying, while also expressing joy, tension, surprise and triumph through an extremely limited 8-bit sound chip. Leaning on his background in jazz fusion and childhood folk songs, Kondo crafted something deceptively simple yet profoundly sticky.