The Grammys are singing their praises
Even to those who don’t regularly play video games, their music is iconic, and in many cases instantly recognizable. There are a ton of different factors that can make a game stand out as one of the greats, and a great soundtrack alone is enough to make a title stick in our heads for years to come. The Grammys are the most prestigious awards in music, and now they’re finally giving video game music the credit that it’s due.
The Recording Academy actually added five new categories that will be honored at the awards ceremony next year, including “Songwriter of the Year,” “Best Spoken Word Poetry Album,” “Alternative Music Performance,” “Americana Music Performance,” and of course, “Score Soundtrack for Video Games and Interactive Media.”
While this will be the first time that video game music will be honored in its own category, this is not the first time that score from a game has won a Grammy.
Most recently, The 8-Bit Band took home “Best Arrangement, Instrumental or A Capella” for their cover of Kirby Super Star‘s “Meta Knight’s Revenge” earlier this year. Civilization IV composer Christopher Tin won the “Best Instrumental Arrangement with a Vocalist” award for the track “Baba Yetu” in 2010. Journey composer Austin Wintory was nominated for the “Best Score Soundtrack for Visual Media” award, but unfortunately didn’t take home the win.
Hopefully now that games have an entire category of their own, the incredible work that game composers do will be recognized on a larger scale. Game composers have a whole new set of challenges to face when writing for interactive media, which, in my eyes at least, is really what makes it stand out from other types of scores.
Video games will always have awards for music within the industry, but taking home a Grammy award just hits different, I imagine.
