The Mother series is a role-playing video game series created by Shigesato Itoi for Nintendo. The series started in 1989 with the Japan-only release of Mother, which was followed up by Mother 2, released as EarthBound outside Japan, for the Super NES in 1994. A second sequel was released in Japan only, Mother 3, for the Game Boy Advance in 2006. The music of the Mother series includes the soundtracks to all three games; the first game was composed for by Keiichi Suzuki and Hirokazu Tanaka, who were joined by Hiroshi Kanazu for the second game, while Mother 3's score was written by Shogo Sakai.
The music has inspired several album releases. Mother saw the release in 1989 of an album primarily composed of vocal arrangements of pieces from its soundtrack; this album was re-released in 2004 in an expanded form. EarthBound had a soundtrack album associated with the game released in 1994 and again in 2004 that contained both original tracks from the game and medleys of multiple tracks. A compilation release, Mother 1+2, received a soundtrack album release in 2003, as well as an album of MIDI piano versions of songs from the two games in 2006. The latest release in the series, Mother 3, has two soundtrack albums: Mother 3+, released in 2006, and the online-only release Mother 3i in 2007.
The games' soundtracks have received primarily positive reviews, and the music itself has gone on to some popularity. Multiple piano sheet music books of pieces from the series have been produced, and the "Eight Melodies" song originally featured in Mother has been included in some Japanese music textbooks. Music from the series has been used in the Super Smash Bros. series of fighting games, has been played in orchestral game music concerts, and been remixed for websites such as OverClocked Remix.