'Mario' techno beats bounce up the charts

A new electronic song inspired by Nintendo's "Super Mario Bros." has been climbing Japan's music chart, and it's finally ranked in the country's weekly top-five list.

The song, titled "B-Dash," appeared in Japan's music chart 12 weeks ago, and this week finally made its way to fourth place.

"B-Dash" uses sampled music from the original "Super Mario Bros." game released by Nintendo in 1985 and fuses it with techno beats and humorous lyrics such as "the princess might be a fake," "you might be using Mario too much" and "Luigi might get sulky." The song was created by the Tongari Kids, a techno band consisting of three members.

"B-Dash" first appeared in 36th place in Japan's music chart for the week of March 28. Despite the fact that songs usually slip in the charts after their initial appearance, "B-Dash" became a national hit after it aired on FM radio, and its popularity was further strengthened after it appeared on TV. The song has continued to stay in the top-10 rankings for the past month; last week, it ranked in sixth place. "B-Dash" has sold a total of 196,000 CD singles in Japan to date.

Hirohiko Niizumi reported for GameSpot.