33 ⅓: Koji Kondo's Super Mario Bros. Soundtrack

Ultimately a letdown.

According to their website:

33 ⅓ is a series of short books about a wide variety of albums, by artists ranging from James Brown to the Beastie Boys. Launched in September 2003, the series now contains 100 titles and is acclaimed and loved by fans, musicians and scholars alike.

This volume is slightly different in that it covers Koji Kondo's work on the original Super Mario Bros. (NES). While I vehemently agree that this work deserves to be broken down to its components and analyzed, the author goes out of their way to unnecessarily lengthen the book, and it's quite tedious at points.

Schartmann definitely has the musical knowledge and know-how to effectively dissect this musical work, and it shows. His analysis is spot-on and quite engaging. I thoroughly enjoyed that part of the book. Unfortunately, it takes nearly 50 pages to reach that point. Out of the 150 page count, only a third is applicable to the title. The rest is tangents attempting to make connections to unrelated or irrelevant material. There's too much speculation and trivial guesswork going on that's not even related to the Super Mario Bros. soundtrack in the first place.

The author himself states that Kondo is tight-lipped about his process and influences, but Schartmann attempts to guess anyway, because why the hell not? This often leads to a bunch of material that is neither engaging nor important. Schartmann will even end long tangential thoughts with a statement like, "Unrelated, but interesting nonetheless." Sorry, but it really isn't.

Any factual information about Kondo is pulled from other sources, and if you're buying this book, you most likely already know the information.

I didn't pick this book up to read Schartmann's personal thoughts, philosophy, and assumptions. I picked it up for a detailed analysis of the Super Mario Bros. soundtrack. He delivers it beautifully, but the book easily could have been crunched down to a third of its current size.

Also, there's quite a bit of music theory thrown at you. If you do not understand basic score reading, chord progression/identification, form, and notated rhythm, you're best off passing on this one.

Here is the criteria for being able to fully enjoy this book:

1. Fan of the NES
2. Fan of Super Mario Bros.
3. Fan of the music from the game
4. Trained in essential basic music theory and analysis

That last point really destroys most of the potential audience, which is a shame. It really does a great job  of scrutinizing the game's music, and I truly enjoyed that part. I just didn't want a bunch of personal jargon to go with it.

Pass.