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Congress Has Decided the Super Mario Bros. Theme Song is Super Important

Congress Has Decided the Super Mario Bros. Theme Song is Super Important

Super Mario Bros. is having a blast  right now.

The iconic video game is breaking records at the box office, and now, the Library Congress has decided the game’s theme song is important enough to be preserved forever in the National Recording Registry.

On April 12, Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden announced 25 new songs will be added to the registry this year. The registry collects “audio treasures worthy of preservation for all time based on their cultural, historical or aesthetic importance in the nation’s recorded sound heritage.”

The Super Mario Bros. theme song, created in 1985, is the first audio from a video game to receive the honor. The iconic theme song — “perhaps the most recognizable video game theme in history,” per the Library of Congress — has been an integral part of the Mario-verse since its inception and has become a cultural touchstone for gamers around the world. But it’s not just catchy; the theme also showed “the musical complexity and creativity possible “with the Nintendo Entertainment System sound chip, which “laid the groundwork for an entire generation of chiptune musicians.”

But the video game isn’t the only beloved song to make this year’ registry. Mariah Carey’s “All I Want For Christmas Is You,” Daddy Yankee’s “Gasolina” and Jimmy Buffett’s “Margaritaville” were also among the honorees.

Check out the full list of this year’s new additions to the National Recording Registry below:

1. “The Very First Mariachi Recordings” — Cuarteto Coculense (1908-1909)
2. “St. Louis Blues” — Handy’s Memphis Blues Band (1922)
3. “Sugar Foot Stomp” — Fletcher Henderson (1926)
4. Dorothy Thompson: Commentary and Analysis of the European Situation for NBC Radio
(Aug. 23-Sept. 6, 1939)
5. “Don’t Let Nobody Turn You Around” — The Fairfield Four (1947)
6. “What the World Needs Now is Love” — Jackie DeShannon (1965)
7. “Wang Dang Doodle” — Koko Taylor (1966)
8. “Sherry” — The Four Seasons (1962)
9. “Ode to Billie Joe” — Bobbie Gentry (1967)
10. “Déjà Vu” — Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young (1970)
11. “Imagine” — John Lennon (1971)
12. “Stairway to Heaven” — Led Zeppelin (1971)
13. “Take Me Home, Country Roads” — John Denver (1971)
14. “Margaritaville” — Jimmy Buffett (1977)
15. “Flashdance…What a Feeling” — Irene Cara (1983)
16. “Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)“ — Eurythmics (1983)
17. “Synchronicity” — The Police (1983)
18. “Black Codes (From the Underground)“ — Wynton Marsalis (1985)
19. Super Mario Bros. theme — Koji Kondo, composer (1986)
20. “Like a Virgin” — Madonna (1984)
21. “All Hail the Queen” — Queen Latifah (1989)
22. “All I Want for Christmas is You” — Mariah Carey (1994)
23. “Pale Blue Dot” — Carl Sagan (1994)
24. “Gasolina” — Daddy Yankee (2004)
25. “Concerto for Clarinet and Chamber Orchestra— Northwest Chamber Orchestra, Ellen Taaffe Zwilich, composer (2012)

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