DJs have been taking Nintendo’s eight-bit classics and turning them into thriving dance beats since the beginning of electronic music.

Tell me you can’t hum, whistle, sing — maybe even dance to — the theme from “Super Mario Brothers” and I will call you a liar.

The contribution of video games to the world of music has been growing incredibly fast — and yet, it feels like a sneaky, rather discreet influence, under-analyzed (if not undetected).

Whether it is games like “Maximum Carnage” (with a complete soundtrack by Green Jelly) and “Mortal Kombat” or the movie “Mortal Kombat” getting some early techno onto the top 20 charts in the America, it’s all lava under the rickety bridge at the end of “Super Mario Bros.”

There actually are many Nintendo cover bands out there. They have taken the archaic eight-bit soundtrack to Nintendo’s greatest game and turned them into pulsating acoustic ballads.

Bands like Start Select, the Minibosses, and the well-known Advantage (they played last year at the Onopa Brewery) have been jamming out classics from the eight-bit Nintendo line-up for years now.

Shows and CDs are filled with themes from “Contra,” “Castlevania” and “Goonies 2.” Each song is indistinctively noticeable from the beginning of the tune.
One of the best things about these cover bands are the rush of memories that a person feels when hearing these re-mastered soundtracks. Fond memoirs of childhood come creeping back to listeners’ minds, causing an extreme internal desire to dig up an old Nintendo and start mashing away — trying to recapture some lost magic.

DJs have been taking Nintendo’s eight-bit classics and turning them into thriving dance beats since the beginning of electronic music. The theme from “Tetris” has been remixed so many times it would be hard to name all the DJ who have done it.

After all, electronic music is what all early and some current video games soundtracks consist of — wonderfully mixed electronic sounds that are simple to create but hard to master.

Nintendo has also inspired bands like Totally Radd to create more than just cover music inspired by video games. Songs like “Mike Tyson Punch” are hilariously fun, and with an amazing video, they are instant classics. Totally Radd’s song “Master of Diagrams” is a tribute to video games, dealing with the band’s idea for their own game.

There even are some underground hip-hop songs about Mario and “Super Off Road.” A common thread, subtly creeping into our childhoods and unconsciously getting ingrained to our notion of “fun,” video games have reached almost every corner of music.

In a way the soundtracks to video games have grown into childhood noise. Now artists and bands are capturing those sounds and replaying them in slightly more grown-up forms.

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