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.

Mario kart 64 music kalimari desert