Mario Paint was Nintendo’s answer to the age-old question, “Can graphics editing software ever get any better than Microsoft Paint?” While the internet may argue the answer to that question as “no,” Mario Paint proved to be a worthy contender, allowing many SNES owners to dabble in animation and illustration.
The package for Mario Paint consisted of a cartridge, a large lump of plastic marketed as a mousepad and a mouse that plugged into one of the two controller ports on the Super Nintendo. This mouse was the most important inclusion in the box as it allowed for more accurate drawing than moving a cursor around with the d-pad on a standard controller.
While the main marketing push behind Mario Paint focused on the ability to draw and animate, one of the application’s more underrated features has taken hold of my interest as of late.
Mario Paint’s composer tool was GarageBand over a decade before GarageBand existed. Users were presented with a blank timeline where they were free to drag music notes onto the staff to create music. Nintendo’s intended purpose of the music was to provide background music to animations.
What happens with the composer these days is something special, something Nintendo probably never had in the realm of possibility when the application was first released. Since the composer uses a staff like a piece of sheet music, users can take the original notes of any song and remake it in Mario Paint. This has led to many popular songs being recreated in chiptune-like form.
YouTube is filled with Mario Paint composer recordings of popular music throughout the ages; songs like Queen’s beloved “Bohemian Rhapsody” and Toto’s “Africa” are present in their entirety with their creators stating they spent hours rebuilding these songs faithful to the originals.
I have started listening to them while I do work. One of the hardest parts of listening to music you love while you study is getting distracted by singing along with the words and getting nothing done. These Mario Paint Composer creations offer a nice in-between of listening to the songs you want to hear and listening to solely instrumental music to keep focused.
Below are some of my favorites, some of the songs that impressed me. Enjoy!
“Bohemian Rhapsody”-Queen (cat333pokemon)
“Carry On My Wayward Son”-Kansas (by Alex Tanasychuk)
“Africa”-Toto (by Alec Britt)
“Stairway to Heaven”-Led Zepplin (by Pokem4n)
“Poker Face”-Lady Gaga (by TessituraToni)
“Mr. Brightside”-The Killers (Alec Britt)
“Chop Suey”-System of a Down (by devinring)
“Snow (Hey Oh)”-Red Hot Chili Peppers (by THEpiGUY)
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