Super Mario Bros. score to be featured in '33 1/3' book series about music albums

Koji Kondo's iconic original score for Super Mario Bros. will be the focus of a future entry in Bloomsbury Publishing's 33 1/3 book series, the company announced today on the series' blog.

The book is set for release in May 2015, and will be written by music theorist Andrew Schartmann, the author of 2013's Maestro Mario: How Nintendo Transformed Videogame Music into an Art. Schartmann will explain the circumstances that set the stage for Kondo's music to make a splash, and then analyze the score itself.

Bloomsbury's 33 1/3 series, which began in 2003, consists of nearly 100 relatively short books, each of which focuses on a particular album. Featured records include AC/DC's Highway to Hell, Stevie Wonder's Songs in the Key of Life and Radiohead's Kid A. The name of the series is a reference to the playing speed of vinyl LPs — 33 1/3 revolutions per minute.