Super Mario Galaxy - Music

Music

During development, Mahito Yokota, who was in charge of the composition of music, originally wanted Super Mario Galaxy to have a Latin American style of music and even had 28 tracks completed for the game. The reason for this was that Latin American percussion instruments had been used in previous Mario games, such as steelpans, bongo drums, and congas. For Super Mario Galaxy's theme, Yokota used Latin American instruments and a synthesizer to create science fiction sounds. The composition was approved by Yoshiaki Koizumi, the game's designer, but when he presented it to Koji Kondo, he told him that his composition was no good. According to Yokota, he always had an image that Mario was for children, causing him to create cute music that would appeal to children. Three months later, Yokota presented three different styles of music to Shigeru Miyamoto. One piece had an orchestral sound, one was a mix of orchestral music and pop music, and the last was pop music. Miyamoto chose the orchestral piece, which was written by Kondo. From then on, the game's soundtrack was composed for a 50-player symphony orchestra. Kondo composed four pieces for the game ("Egg Planet", which plays in the Good Egg Galaxy, and the three "Rosalina in the Observatory" pieces, which play in the Comet Observatory at different points within the game), while Yokota composed the rest. The composers asked the orchestra to play at different tempos in order to perfectly synchronize with the rest of Mario's movement. They also stated that even the sound effects fit into the musical score if the player listens carefully.

The official soundtrack was released on January 24, 2008. It was initially an exclusive to Club Nintendo subscribers in Japan, although as of November 2008 both versions of the soundtrack are available from Club Nintendo of Europe. The soundtrack was released in two versions: the Original Soundtrack, which only contains 28 tracks from the game, and the Platinum Edition, which contains an additional 53 tracks on a second disc for a grand total of 81 tracks. The soundtrack has won numerous critic awards, such as "Best Design in Audio" from the U.K.'s Edge Magazine.