Ohhhhh, Zeebraaaa, Zeebraaaaa, ZEEBRAAAAA!~
Here I am, tapping out once again to the Zebra Bananza theme. It’s a song fit for Carnival, a blend of styles from all across Latin America — the Brazilian Samba, the Cuban Salsa, the Argentinian Tango. Every time DK beats his chest and transforms into the buffest Zebra you’ve ever seen, I attempt to sing along with Pauline, even though I don’t understand the Kong language.
Donkey Kong Bananza is a game all about music, but if I want to go and listen to it on my downtime or while out for a drive? Well, it’s time to pull out the Nintendo Music app and rock ou… wait, it’s not on there?
Nintendo has a rich musical history, one that it’s gradually celebrating and acknowledging via this app, which it introduced last year for NSO subscribers. It’s a nice little bonus if you’re already playing for those SNES and Game Boy games on your Switch.
Ideally, I’d rather Nintendo just released its music on the likes of Spotify and Apple, but I completely understand that the company wants complete control of its extensive library. And it’s done a good job of supporting it with weekly updates to the library from its deep catalogue of tunes. This week, we got all of the Pilotwings music, not just the SNES one. Last week, it was Mario Paint to coincide with the NSO release. I regularly pop on Super Mario Galaxy or Animal Crossing: New Horizons in the car.
But Nintendo is missing a trick. We know there’s a gold mine of music to dig out from the archives, and far too many omissions to highlight. But where’s the Mario Kart World soundtrack? Where’s the multi-genre delights of the Switch 2’s launch game?
Mario Kart World is already two months old, yet if I’m jonesing to jig down the streets to the funky sounds of Crown City or sway to the smooth and slow arrangement of Steam Gardens, I have to go to YouTube in the hopes that fan uploads haven’t been taken down yet.
When publishers, developers, and composers choose to share and sell their music is obviously up to them. Big hitters like Death Stranding 2 drop their OSTs the same day as the game is out. Atlus is particularly good at getting its soundtracks up as soon as possible; Raidou Remastered was available on launch day, and Persona 3 Reload followed its PlayStation and Xbox release just a few months later. And there are so many indie titles that you can stream day-and-date, or pick up on Bandcamp.
The newest game soundtrack on Nintendo Music is Pikmin 4’s, composed by Kenta Nagata, Asuka Hayazaki, and Soshi Abe — although you wouldn’t know that from the app because the composers aren’t credited. That game is two years old at this point; can you even buy the soundtrack in a store or online? Well, unless you can find and splash out on this lovely Mother Onion limited vinyl, which contains 14 of the game’s tracks? Nope. Admittedly, Nintendo is doing a lot better than it was when I ranted about video game music three years ago. But its music app strategy is odd to me.
I don’t really expect them to turn around and pop DK Bananza on there on Tuesday — that game just came out, and companies like Square Enix often wait a few months, sometimes years, before sharing game music on streaming services. I don’t blame anyone for holding back on DK’s melodic magic for a few months. But what better way to share the magic of something like Mario Kart World’s open roads than dropping the Super Bell Hill rearrangement or the title music on the app? You don’t even need to put the whole thing on there.
In the grand scheme of things, it’s really just a tiny drop of annoyance in an ocean of problems. I care more about crediting artists, composers, and arrangers than having the shiny new music on my app, which I don’t have to pay extra money for. And look, if Nintendo wants to charge an extra buck or two a month for NSO just to stick the brand new Switch 2 soundtracks on there? I’d consider it.
Nintendo could even pull a big Mario Paint and drop GameCube soundtracks along with NSO drops. Wind Waker is already available, but we’re missing Super Mario Strikers and F-Zero GX. Imagine getting both Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance and its excellent soundtrack on the same day.
I do think Mario Kart World and Donkey Kong Bananza’s music will eventually come to the app. It might take months, maybe a year, but they’ll be there. More GameCube titles will also get their time in the sunlight, hopefully paired with their Nintendo Online release.
I’d still love Nintendo to be a bit more proactive with its music, though. A video of the Kong Bananza song, complete with lyrics, on Nintendo Today just isn’t going to cut it. I need the Freezer Layer song to sparkle in my ears, or the Forest Layer theme to chill out to.
Plus, we’ve got a contender for one of the best soundtracks of the year in Mario Kart World, and maybe one of Nintendo’s best OSTs of all-time, yet I can’t even go out and buy the soundtrack, or any of the songs. Without fans, I’d be left scrambling to try and find how to listen to this music outside of the game. Is that really what video game music deserves?
Do you want to see Mario Kart World and Donkey Kong Bananza on Nintendo Music? Vote in our polls below and let us know in the comments what you think.
