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The name Simon Harris has meant many different things to many different people, since the musician and producer began his career as a club promoter in London in the early 1980s. In 1986 he co-founded the Music of Life label - home to material by Paul Oakenfold, Norman Cook Fatboy Slim and Afrika Bambaataa - and in 1988 released the Public Enemy-sampling hit single 'Bass (How Low Can You Go)' under his own name. Harris has remixed countless artists, from Prince to Elvis Presley, and produced several breakbeat collections.But in October 1992, he was the mastermind behind a single - and an album - that briefly lit up kids' bedrooms around the UK. As the lynchpin of Ambassadors of Funk, alongside British rapper Einstein (real name Colin Case, aka MC Mario for the project in question), Harris released 'Supermarioland' via Music of Life sub-label Living Beat, a high-energy dance track based on the 8-bit melodies of Nintendo's 1989 monochromatic platformer for the Game Boy. Its Chessington World of Adventures-shot video, featuring a legitimately haunting Mario costume, received enough TV airplay to turn heads, and the song broke the domestic top ten, ultimately remaining on the chart for eight weeks.
It was successful enough to earn the song a place on 1992's stocking-filler-friendly Now That's What I Call Music! 23 compilation, on the same disc as East 17's 'House of Love' and The Shamen's see-what-you-did-there-lads ecstasy anthem of 'Ebeneezer Goode'. But it came from an artist who'd not truly appreciated video games' place in the contemporary entertainment landscape of the era.
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