Mario Kart 8’s music is one of Nintendo’s greatest musical soundtracks… but what makes it so good? It turns out the music from this game was 20 years in the making, and there’s a key ingredient in the game’s music that you’re probably not aware of! Here’s my breakdown of Mario Kart music, Japanese jazz fusion, and how those two worlds collided with Mario Kart 8!

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SOURCES
DIMENSION: J-Fusion Officially Made Mario Kart Music
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(This is the video that got me interested in this topic, so thank you to Cuevas Productions!)
Wikipedia – Le Mans Japanese theme songs
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Wikipedia – F1 Grand Prix opening themes
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YouTube – F1 Grand Prix title sequences
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YouTube – More F1 Grand Prix title sequences
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YouTube – More HD F1 Grand Prix title sequences
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YouTube – Le Mans title sequences
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YouTube – Dimension’s Le Mans album
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YouTube – Mario Kart 8 Music recording playlist
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Kotaku – Mario Kart 8 sound team interview
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Iwata Asks – Kenta Nagata Mario Kart 7 interview
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Mario Wiki – Mario Kart 8 liner notes
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CREDITS
Xylophon – Glissando hoch.wav by BockelSound
– — License: Attribution 4.0
1987 Model Car Formula 1 photo taken by Takayuki Suzuki
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