Still, it ranks high mainly because the bridge about two minutes in is really quite good. I guess it’s supposed to kind of sound Christmas-y, but they didn’t quite hit that. The two wintery courses share the same song, and it’s pretty good. 4 | Frappe Snowland and Sherbert Land (20:05) To me, this song feels like racing music - but that could be a chicken/egg scenario. I don’t know if it’s all that good or not, but I know I’ve heard it so many times that I appears I’ve inadvertently established an emotional connection with it. 5 | Luigi Raceway, Mario Raceway, Royal Raceway and Wario Stadium (4:15)Ģ5 percent of the courses in Mario Kart 64 use this song. I’m just not sure it’s good enough to be associated with the most popular track in the game. The song absolutely fits the course it’s definitely beach music. The notes tend to really fuzz out, especially on the old TVs that were around when Mario Kart 64 came out. The song here fits the wild west motif, but it gets docked for the poor recording quality. (Like, why is Peruvian pan flute music and African drum music the same genre?) That being said, the song for DK’s Jungle fits the course pretty well - it’s just awfully basic.

This song is Mario Kart 64‘s only venture into the mysterious genre of “world music,” a section that baffled me as a kid going to record stores and still doesn’t make a ton of sense as an adult. It feels more like “driving around the Pacific coast at sunrise in 1995” music. The song they chose doesn’t feel like “weaving in and out of traffic” music. Why not just give them both the same generic spooky music and give Wario Stadium its own song? 9 | Toad’s Turnpike (16:55)

Still it’s really a coin flip between the songs for Banshee Boardwalk and Bowser’s Castle which is worse. It seems they tried a little harder here the eerie choir and a more complicated melody show a bit more effort. The other “spooky” song from the game, and another failure. I also can’t really explain the random sounds of perhaps a broom hitting a floor that are repeated almost randomly throughout the song.

Or someone over at Nintendo got a marimba for his birthday and decided he was going to find a way to use it in the studio that day no matter what, dammit. They were going for spooky minor key action but more or less phoned it in.

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