"Supermarioland" is a song by Ambassadors of Funk, a musical project managed by British musician

Simon Harris Simon Harris (born 17 October 1986) is an Irish Fine Gael politician serving as Tánaiste, Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade and Minister for Defence since January 2025, having previously served as Taoiseach from 2024 to 2025. He has ...

. Vocals on the song are provided by British rapper Einstein (also known as Colin Case), who performed under the name MC Mario for the track. The song is heavily based on the music and sound effects from the 1989

platform video game A platformer (also called a platform game, and sometimes a jump 'n' run game) is a subgenre of action game in which the core objective is to move the player character between points in an environment. Platform games are characterized by levels wi ...

Super Mario Land is a 1989 platform game developed by Nintendo Research & Development 1, Nintendo R&D1, the same team that designed the Game Boy. It was published by Nintendo as Game Boy#Launch titles, one of the first four games released for the console. I ...

'', developed by

Nintendo is a Japanese Multinational corporation, multinational video game company headquartered in Kyoto. It develops, publishes, and releases both video games and video game consoles. The history of Nintendo began when craftsman Fusajiro Yamauchi ...

and composed by

Hirokazu Tanaka , also known as Chip Tanaka, is a Japanese musician, composer, sound designer, and executive who pioneered chiptune music. He is best known as one of Nintendo's in-house composers during the 8- and 16-bit era of video games. Tanaka also had a role ...

. Nintendo game director

Shigeru Miyamoto is a Japanese video game designer, video game producer, producer and Creative director#Video games, game director at Nintendo, where he has served as one of its representative directors as an executive since 2002. Widely regarded as one o ...

gave permission for Harris to release the song and record an album featuring similar material. Released in October 1992 via Harris's Living Beat

sublabel "Big Three" music labels A record label or record company is a brand or trademark of music recordings and music videos, or the company that owns it. Sometimes, a record label is also a publishing company that manages such brands and t ...

, "Supermarioland" was swiftly promoted and marketed in the United Kingdom, allowing the song to reach number eight on the UK Singles Chart. The song also charted in Ireland and the Netherlands the same year. Along with Doctor Spin's "

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", H.W.A.'s "Supersonic" and Power-Pill's "

Pac-Man ''Pac-Man,'' originally called in Japan, is a 1980 maze video game developed and published by Namco for arcades. In North America, the game was released by Midway Manufacturing as part of its licensing agreement with Namco America. The pla ...

", this song contributed to the brief trend of

video game music Video game music (VGM) is the soundtrack that accompanies video games. Early video game music was once limited to sounds of early sound chips, such as programmable sound generators (PSG) or FM synthesis chips. These limitations have led to t ...

entering mainstream popularity. Nintendo UK provided an actor for the song's music video, which was filmed at

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in London.

Background

, the mastermind behind Ambassadors of Funk, explained to

video game A video game or computer game is an electronic game that involves interaction with a user interface or input device (such as a joystick, game controller, controller, computer keyboard, keyboard, or motion sensing device) to generate visual fe ...

website ''

Eurogamer ''Eurogamer'' is a British video game journalism website launched in 1999 alongside parent company Gamer Network. In 2008, it started in the formerly eponymous trade fair EGX (Eurogamer Expo until 2013) organised by its parent company. Fr ...

'' that he initially had no intention to create ''

Super Mario (also known as and is a platform game series created by Nintendo starring their mascot, Mario. It is the central series of the greater Mario (franchise), ''Mario'' franchise. At least one ''Super Mario'' game has been released for every ma ...

''-themed compositions, but after his friend introduced him to

Game Boy The is a handheld game console developed by Nintendo, launched in the Japanese home market on April 21, 1989, followed by North America later that year and other territories from 1990 onwards. Following the success of the Game & Watch single-ga ...

console, he became fond of the theme music from ''

'', composed by

. He realised that the songs on the game's

score SCORE may refer to: *SCORE (software), a music scorewriter program * SCORE (television), a weekend sports service of the defunct Financial News Network *SCORE! Educational Centers *SCORE International, an offroad racing organization *Sarawak Corrido ...

had a similar tempo to

house music House is a genre of electronic dance music characterized by a repetitive Four on the floor (music), four-on-the-floor beat and a typical tempo of 115–130 beats per minute. It was created by DJs and music producers from Chicago's underground ...

, so he was able to incorporate the samples into "Supermarioland" easily, recruiting Einstein to provide the rap vocals. After Harris created the track, he contacted Nintendo to clear the music samples, and the company, liking what Harris had done, also requested that he and Einstein record an album of ''Super Mario'' material. Nintendo UK quickly began to promote and market "Supermarioland", even providing an actor for the music video, but

Nintendo of America is a Japanese multinational video game company headquartered in Kyoto. It develops, publishes, and releases both video games and video game consoles. The history of Nintendo began when craftsman Fusajiro Yamauchi founded the company to p ...

was difficult to contact, and the track was never released in the United States.

Mario Mario (; ) is a Character (arts), character created by the Japanese game designer Shigeru Miyamoto. He is the star of the ''Mario (franchise), Mario'' franchise, a recurring character in the ''Donkey Kong'' franchise, and the mascot of the Ja ...

's designer,

, approved the project, and the album, titled ''Super Mario Compact Disco'', was released in Japan in August 1993, featuring tracks from other Mario games such as '' Super Mario Bros. 3'' and ''

Super Mario Kart is a 1992 kart racing game developed and published by Nintendo for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES). The first game in the ''Mario Kart'' series, it was released in Japan and North America in 1992, and in Europe the following yea ...

''.

Release and promotion

Living Beat, a

of Harris's Music of Life label, released "Supermarioland" in the United Kingdom in October 1992. On 25 October, the song debuted at number 14 on the UK Singles Chart, taking two weeks to rise to its peak of number eight. The song spent five more weeks on the chart before dropping out, and at the end of 1992, ''

Music Week ''Music Week'' is a trade publication for the UK record industry distributed via a website and a monthly print magazine. It is published by Future. History Founded in 1959 as ''Record Retailer'', it relaunched on 18 March 1972 as ''Music We ...

'' ranked it at number 97 on the UK year-end chart. In Ireland, the song debuted on the

Irish Singles Chart The Irish Singles Chart is the Republic of Ireland's music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by the Irish Recorded Music Association (IRMA) and compiled on their behalf by the Official Charts Company. Chart rankings are ...

in November and peaked at number 22. The song also charted in the Netherlands, reaching number 69 in December and spend five weeks on the

Single Top 100 The Dutch Single Top 100 or Single Top 100 is a Dutch chart, based on official physical single sales, legal downloads and since July 2013 streaming and composed by Dutch Charts. It is one of the three official charts, the other two being the Du ...

. On the

Eurochart Hot 100 The European Hot 100 Singles was compiled by ''Billboard'' and ''Music & Media'' magazine from March 1984 until December 2010. The chart was based on national singles sales charts in 17 European countries: Austria, Belgium (two charts separately f ...

, the song peaked at number 35 on 17 November. This song, along with "

" by Doctor Spin, "Supersonic" by H.W.A. and "

" by Power-Pill began a short period of recreated

entering mainstream popularity. The song's music video, filmed at

in London, features Einstein and several others dancing along to the song with an actor wearing a Mario costume.

Critical reception

Upon the song's release in October 1992, ''

Computer and Video Games ''Computer and Video Games'' (also known as ''CVG'', ''Computer & Video Games'', ''C&VG'', ''Computer + Video Games'', or ''C+VG'') is a British-based video game magazine, published in its original form between 1981 and 2004. Its offshoot web ...

'' magazine called it "the essential item for

-loving

rave A rave (from the verb: '' to rave'') is a dance party at a warehouse, club, or other public or private venue, typically featuring performances by DJs playing electronic dance music. The style is most associated with the early 1990s dance mus ...

rs everywhere" and predicted it would enter the UK top 20 charts.

Track listings

UK CD single # "Supermarioland" (radio version) – 3:30 # "Supermarioland" (club house mix) – 5:15 # "Supermarioland" (instrumental) – 5:10 # "Supermarioland" (Daisy's breakdown) – 5:00 UK 7-inch and cassette single # "Supermarioland" (radio version) – 3:30 # "Supermarioland" (instrumental) – 5:10 UK 12-inch single :A1. "Supermarioland" (club house mix) – 5:15 :A2. "Supermarioland" (radio version) – 3:30 :B1. "Supermarioland" (instrumental) – 5:10 :B2. "Supermarioland" (Daisy's breakdown) – 5:00

Charts

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

References

{{Mario franchise 1992 songs 1992 singles Novelty songs Songs about video games Super Mario Land Works based on Mario Mario (franchise) music