33 1/3 is a book series by Bloomsbury Publishing that focuses on albums by all manner of artists, including The Beastie Boys, Sonic Youth, The Who, and more. There are 96 books in the series so far, and they’re about to announce 14 more, to be released in 2015 and 2016.
Today, they made an exciting announcement: they’ll be releasing a book in the series about Koji Kondo’s Super Mario Bros. score!
Author Andrew Schartmann takes us through the various external factors (e.g., advances in technology, Nintendo’s marketing tactics) that coalesced into a ripe environment in which Kondo’s musical experiments could thrive. He then delves into the music itself, searching for reasons why our hearts still dance to the “primitive” 8-bit tunes of a bygone era.
Schartmann is no stranger to writing about Nintendo’s famous 8-bit scores – he’s the author of last year’s Maestro Mario: How Nintendo Transformed Videogame Music into an Art. His 33 1/3 title will be out in May 2015.
