Opinion: Nintendo Music celebrates the songs, but not the artists

Video game music is a surefire way to drum up comforting feelings of nostalgia. It does exactly what music should. It stirs up emotions, it creates atmosphere, and it helps mold memories. Super Mario Bros. is remembered for its overworld theme, Donkey Kong Country set a mood with Aquatic Ambience, and Yoshi's Island: Super Mario World 2 brought forth a land of imagination with a number of incredible songs. The Nintendo Music app surprised everyone earlier this week and reminded the gaming public of the power that music could have. However, it still takes the human mind, heart, and soul to create something that has such a lasting effect on audiences and the app sadly falls short in giving those artists the credit they deserve.

Nintendo Music is an exceptional app. There are songs separated by title, console, series, character, and curated playlists. Some tracks offer an extend option, which can keep a song rolling for up to an hour uninterrupted. Like the best music apps, it can keep playing even after a mobile device is locked. Each track has an accompanying screenshot, giving anyone a glimpse of where the song belongs. It's part of that whole "setting the atmosphere" thing that music does. Sadly, go searching for composers, musicians, or artists and there's nothing for the app to offer. There's a song title, its game of origin, and a Nintendo copyright, but there's nothing to indicate who created this wonderful work. It's a failure to the artist who spent a painstaking amount of time perfecting their craft.

listening to float islands on the music app but doing this so everyone knows how disappointed I am that there are no composer or performer credits listed pic.twitter.com/FACdoqALPV

— Nider 🌊🌌 aka Ina (@NiderQueen) October 31, 2024

As one might imagine, there has been no shortage of outrage from even the most ardent Nintendo fan. Ina 'Nider' Almacen, who contributed to soundtracks for this year's Nintendo Switch version of Mario vs. Donkey Kong and F-Zero 99, was among the most prominent voices dismayed by the omission of artist credits. Fans and content creators alike added to the chorus, mainly because Nintendo composers are some of the most vital contributors to a video game's creation.

For people like me who have followed the gaming industry for nearly the entirety of their lives, music artists and composers are synonymous with their craft. Koji Kondo has been creating incredible soundtracks since the dawn of the Nintendo Entertainment System and a no-brainer inductee into the Shacknews Hall of Fame. While Donkey Kong Country was marketed as a graphical leap forward for the Super Nintendo, it was David Wise's soundtrack that helped bring DK's jungle to life. Pokemon wouldn't be what it is today without the music of Junichi Masuda. More recently, The Super Mario Players and voice actress Kate Higgins were the ones who livened up Mario's world like never before with Jump Up, Super Star from Super Mario Odyssey. For people who have followed these artists, it's dismaying to click on Track Information for any of the songs in the Nintendo Music app and come up with no creator information.

There's a whole world of cover artists inspired by these composers. There's a generation of new composers in gaming today that cite these artists as inspirations, the ones who made them want to get into this industry in the first place. There's an even greater number of people who don't know who any of these artists are, but Nintendo Music offers an opportunity to teach them and to show gratitude to what their hard work has given to millions of fans. If somebody doesn't know who Kondo or Wise are, this is a chance to show them, teach them, and make them interested in more of their work.

Regarding the lack of composer credits in this app.
As someone who’s a full-time employee of a Japanese company I might be able to shed some light on this.
Though I work as a designer I imagine it’s the same in other creative roles.
Not being credited is the norm here… 🧵 https://t.co/Q5VsneFdEd

— Kaihatsu (@KaihatsuYT) October 31, 2024

It's entirely possible that none of this was done out of malice or neglect. Kaihatsu is a YouTube content creator based in Japan. He cites the lack of artist credits as a cultural thing. According to his personal experience working with a Japanese company, there's an implication that there is no credit given outside of a credits screen. Part of that is out of some sense of mystique for the artist and part of it because of Japanese business practices that see individual works as property of their employer.

That has the potential to lead to a greater argument, one that involves artist royalties, and it's one that goes slightly outside my field of expertise. For most of these artists and for those upset by their lack of acknowledgment, however, this isn't about money. It's about giving those artists, who have had a profound influence on so many people through their work, their flowers. It's about teaching new listeners their name and maybe if they decide to go into music themselves, they can cite those artists as the ones who made them want to do it.

Nintendo has often been stuck in a cultural bubble. Sometimes, it's been to its benefit, letting them do weird stuff that's out of the ordinary. Other times, it's led to Nintendo's lawyers being behind the times with something like esports. This falls in the latter category. Whatever the culture is in Japan, the company released Nintendo Music in North America and Europe as well, and it knows that things usually work differently in these regions. If Nintendo of Japan would like to keep the mystique of the artist alive, that's the company's prerogative, but hopefully there can be a breakthrough with Nintendo of America and Nintendo of Europe that allows for these artists to at least have their name on a work that they spent weeks, months, and even years crafting to perfection. Whoever creates the kind of music that's become synonymous with our favorite hobby deserves at least that much.

This article represents the views of the author and may not reflect those of the Shacknews staff as a whole.

Ozzie Mejia

Senior Editor

Ozzie has been playing video games since picking up his first NES controller at age 5. He has been into games ever since, only briefly stepping away during his college years. But he was pulled back in after spending years in QA circles for both THQ and Activision, mostly spending time helping to push forward the Guitar Hero series at its peak. Ozzie has become a big fan of platformers, puzzle games, shooters, and RPGs, just to name a few genres, but he’s also a huge sucker for anything with a good, compelling narrative behind it. Because what are video games if you can't enjoy a good story with a fresh Cherry Coke?