Nintendo Entertainment System - The Music

    I play Nintendo.  I have played Nintendo for a long time now.  I'm not talking about your Gamecube, or your DS, or what-all, I'm talking about your Nintendo Entertainment System.  I have a great many favorite games, and some of them have music which has become endeared to me over a decade and a half of playing them.  Every once in a while, for instance, I feel like hearing the opening theme from Kid Icarus, or maybe the first level music from Blaster Master.  The rise of such excellent bands as the Minibosses and the Advantage has led to more interest in NES themes than I would expect, and while their covers are great and some flat out rock, the originals never fail to thrill.  So, in that interest, I've decided to provide some here on this page.  It's really very easy for me to do this; the files are small and capturing the music is a breeze.  I am only making these available because the games are so damn old and I don't want someone having to blow on their Megaman 2 cartridge again just to hear the Flashman theme.  If I am breaking any laws, I am not aware of them - so just tell me, Konami, if I am outside of my rights here.  Without further ado, here are some NES theme songs.  You might notice there are a lot of first level themes - I find them to be the most memorable, after all how many times did you die and start over there?
All mp3s are 64kbps mono, and stop after a couple repetitions.

Bionic Commando - Area 1 - driving military beat... must destroy Master-D/Hitler!
Bubble Bobble - Theme - drives you slowly mad as you play the game
Castlevania - Level 1 - nice solo performances - kinda Eurythmics-y (or not...)
Contra - Theme and Area 1 - short theme, gotta put in the code fast
Double Dragon - Title theme - has a very glam guitar solo feel to it
Final Fantasy 1 - Overworld - you'll hear this a lot playing this game
Final Fantasy 1 - Theme - the original, plays on the bridge after defeating Astos
Gunsmoke - Theme - Pretty grim!  Nice death march-y sound
Kid Icarus - Theme - Excellent harmonies, nice conclusion though I rarely hear it
Kid Icarus - World 1 - hard to hear over all the dying kobils
Legend of Zelda - Theme - What could i possibly add?
Legend of Zelda - Overworld - I like to listen to it when I'm walking around and imagine I'm fighting molblins 
Metroid - Theme - Rarely heard, but familiar.  Outer spacey, interesting drum kit
Ninja Gaiden 2 - Area 1 - this is the best Ninja Gaiden.  The story is off the hook
Super Mario Bros. - Level 1-1 - Like you need another copy of this.  Why did I record it?
Super Mario Bros. 2 - Theme - Listen for ragtime themes...
Super Mario Bros. 2 - Character Select - listen for more than 5 seconds and this song goes off
Super Mario Bros. 2 - Level 1 - great music for gardening :>
Super Mario Bros. 3 - Map screen - how funky is this?! that beat is so hot!
Snake Rattle n Roll - Theme - a personal addition. quite a complete jazz feel
Spelunker - Theme - why does a game about caving have such a mournful, chilling theme?  Probably because you DIE so much in it.  Give me a break!

Megaman 2:
Title Theme
Stage Select
Boss Teaser
Metalman stage
Airman stage
Bubbleman stage
Woodman stage
Heatman stage
Crashman stage
Flashman stage
Quickman stage
Boss Battle Theme
No Dr. Wily. I never liked his stage's music.

By request, here are all 3 of the Rad Racer background songs.  I had to use a game genie to get enough time on the clock to let them finish!  I can't believe I forgot about these.

Rad Racer BGM 1  Rad Racer BGM 2  Rad Racer BGM 3

Bonanza! Here is the entire Blaster Master canon:

Intro and Area 1  -  Area 2  -  Area 3  -  Area 4  -  Area 5

   Area 6  -  Area 7  -  Victory Theme  -  Ending Theme

The track names are kinda random but they have ID3 tags.  They're a higher bitrate cause I love this game the most.
 

For those of you interested in more obscure NES music or wanting to do it yourself, there are many ways to go about it.  Recording directly from the game (as I have done) is one way, assuming it has accurate sound emulation and you have a real time recording utility, but rather than play through the whole game to get each theme (like I did for Mega Man II - d'oh), it's probably easier to download the NSF file - essentially the game's music tracks, ripped from a cartridge or rom and put into a single file.  NSFs can be played with NSF players or plugins for common media players.  Here and here are two places you can find one that works - I've found that VirtuaNES works best for me (DL here).    Well, what are you waiting for?  Go on now, git!

And once again, if I am breaking any copyrights let me know.  On the other hand, if you have a request, comment it in and I'll put it up.

Comments

[nowak]

OMGWTFLOL. How could you not like Dr. Wily stage one!?!?

And if you like the Advantage and the Minibosses, check out the NESkimoes.

[Nintendo Employee]

nice work and your not violating any laws so nice... and id like to request ridleys lair song from metroid, not the boss fight w/ him just the lair, and same thing w/ kraid's and torvius

[son of mario]

well -- I've now had the SMB song in my head for months now after visiting this site. Went and learned it for the piano so that everyone can hear it with me. Fiance is now ready to leave me cuz I play it so much and asks why I don't like classical music...lol. Another good song -- Rad Racer, I think the third song choice. I lost my Rad Racer and can only hear it in my head, and what I've hacked out on the keys. Do you have it..?

[Jonathan]

I want the entire Blaster Master soundtrack! its IMPOSSIBLE to find it online.

[Adam Neuman]

How'd you do the NES stuff?

Can you do them in MPEG?

You must have a very good tape recorder.
Or telling everyone to be quiet im taping.

... why do you listen to MP3's when there are NSF files out there? Check out www.zophar.net/nsf and download the entire soundtracks instead.

[Jonathan]

I want MP3's because I wanna put those songs on a CD. Geez.

[n]

You'd get better quality just converting NSF --> WAV and burning to CD instead of NSF --> MP3 --> burn CD. Just a little better, though. Not like you NEED mp3s to burn a cd of NES music... get a NSF plugin for winamp, then play and save the output to wave file. Then burn it.

If you do that, I suggest either NEZPlug or Festalon for the best emulation. Might be newer and better players now, though.

Geez. ;-)

[BlasterMaster addict]

Wonder where I can find the rest of the levels from Blaster Master. I feel like the beats + music from that game are way beyond most other video games from the NES era.

[Pixote Andolini]

also I have the RockNes emulator for my G4 laptop and can play Blaster Master. My question is this; connecting my laptop to speakers while running the emulator - how could I go about recording from the emulator, preferably in digital format. I noticed that the music will only play while I'm currently in the program (it auto-pauses when I click out to desktop or another client...)

[Pedro Garcia]

Its great that you have all 3 songs from rad racer, You dont by any chance have the 2 songs from Rad Racer 2? I cant find them online or on the web.

[bard]

hey, how about the music from Rockin' Kats?

oh, and check out Game Over ( www.nintendometal.com ) for some more great songs.
and ocremix if you didn't already know about them

[Zachary]

Lovely to find Rad Racer here. The NSF file is seemingly hard to find. I found an obscure NSF file (Mystery Quest) at http://gilgalad.panicus.org/ which seems to have an assortment of NSF files. Nice to find a collection in addition to Zophar.

>>Thanks for the tip, always good to have extra sources! - Robosexual

[Krispy]

If you can,could please put up Dr.Wily's Stage theme #1 from MegaMan 2?
I know,you hate it...but I love it and would appreciate it!
Thanks man!

>>I'm afraid I'm abroad right now, but I'll see what I can do. I have a feeling AudioHijack and game genie will be involved unless I can get an nsf player for mac...

[Cerrenus]

Here's a link for those looking for rad racer 2 music. Coast to Coast is on here.

http://www.vgmusic.com/music/console/nintendo/nes/index-classic.html

[cool. loads of stuff there, all midi though.]

[pipolinx]

HOW DID U FOUND THE MUSIC, ive been trying to find the original midis as u got them....could u tell me ur source? =D

[dude, I recorded these straight out of an NES emulator. But there's a better way, look in the "how to" section there at the bottom of the post.]

[Dante Aranda]

DUDE I TOTALLY LOVED THE VIDEO GAME THEMES YOU GOT!!!!
CAN YOU RECORD THE MIKE TYSON'S PUNCH-OUT THEME FROM THE TIME YOU GET THE CARTRIGE ON?? THAT WOULD BE AWESOME, THANKS.

[Benjamin Tremain]

This is what I originally came to see when I got your site off of Google by searching nes music. Just thought you may wanna know.

[a.non]

if you like this, you LOVE MEGA RAN!!

www.myspace.com/random215

[robosexual sez: I'm afraid to check out the link.]

[Tibor]

robosexual: you sir, are a god. Not only do you have the entire Blaster Master soundtrack up for download, but you showed me how to easily get an mp3 file of just about any NES song. Here is the process:
1) Get VirtuaNES from your link.
2) Get the NSF files for the games you want from your link.
3) Use the wave output function of VirtuaNES to get a wav file of the track you want.
4) Use any wav-mp3 encoder (I use foobar) to make an mp3.
5) (Optional) use a sound editing program to splice and edit your sounds.

So in return, here are two cool NES music related things you might enjoy:
1) Quite well done NES rap. You have to love meganerd: http://www.ytcracker.com/nes/
2) Some cool remixes of NES songs, including blaster master and megaman: http://www.ocremix.org/system/nes/

[robosexual sez: thanks for the excellent comment. I encourage any people hitting this page to check those links out too. OCRemix has good stuff.]

[Menfis]

Pleaseeeeeeeeee!!! Will you included songs from megman 1, 3 and songs from the Dr. Willy stages from megman 2

sounds quality is perfect . . . those rad racer songs brought back some memories! thanks!

www.gh.ffshrine.org has TONS of nes 8 bit goodies

I'm lookin for the Univited soundtrack for nes ..... Any one know where this can be found?

[eric]

thanks so much for posting these. that's exactly what i was looking for!