![]() Mario might be the U2 of the Grammys: an institutional figure who’s going to snag a nomination no matter what. This push and pull between familiar and groundbreaking - and the few games that accomplish both - will be a timeless Grammy theme that we’ll see again on this list. Its haunting score played a huge role in that, perfectly reflecting the desperate post-Americana setting. Though the game itself is now overwhelmingly praised (and will soon be adapted into its own HBO series), it’s easy to forget how unexpected its success felt back in 2013. ![]() Gustavo Santaolalla’s very somber score for The Last of Us goes the former route it doesn’t get more big-budget than hiring the Oscar-winning composer behind Babel and Brokeback Mountain. Or praise unexpected scores like the minimalist music of Gone Home. During this change-of-the-hardware vanguard, the Grammys could have gone in two directions: reward bombastic and expensive-sounding soundtracks like Batman: Arkham Origins or BioShock Infinite. And remember, this is the Grammys, where “best” often means “biggest” or “most well-connected within the industry.”īy 2013, the gaming industry was one year into its eighth console generation. the 2014 Grammys honoring the best scores of 2013). (Sorry, GTA.) We’ll note the actual year the Grammys would have been awarded for the games that came out within the previous calendar year (i.e. To keep it simple, we’re focusing on a game’s initial North American release within a calendar year and choosing actual musical scores and original music, not just great licensed songs. To celebrate the new category, we’ve decided to honor the last ten years of video-game-music selections with fake Grammys. The best ones - the triumphant gallantry of Zelda, the frantic rush of Sonic, the dark elegance of Metroid - not only enhance the playing experience in real time but also stand on their own to capture what it feels like to play the game long after it’s over. Meanwhile, the years in between have been fruitful with some of the most beloved and recognizable sounds in popular culture: Tetris, Mario, Zelda, Donkey Kong, Halo, Resident Evil, Elder Scrolls, and the Soulsborne series have all produced memorable sonics.īut what makes video-game music great in the first place? Even as most big-budget titles have evolved into more cinematic fare, scores must still fulfill some requirements: They have to reflect and flesh out a game’s atmosphere and tone, and they need to be able to loop for as long as a player interacts with the game. Three decades later, the multimillion-selling Final Fantasy franchise recorded its 15th mainline game score with a full orchestra at Abbey Road and featured new music by Florence + the Machine. Many gamers and musicians would argue that a video-game Grammys category would have made sense as far back as 1987, when Nobuo Uematsu, often called the Beethoven of gaming music, composed his highly influential and still compelling 8-bit score for the first Final Fantasy game using Famicom’s limited hardware that could only sample up to three MIDI sounds at a time (the rough equivalent in movies would be, say, filming Inception on an iPhone). Of course, in typical Grammys fashion, this category announcement was met with praise, frustration, and questions: Does this new section honor a distinct style of music, or does it really just keep it from competing with its more “serious” peers across the Grammys field? Is the music of Final Fantasy good, or is it good … for a video game? That’s right, the future gritty Angry Birds VR reboot could now win a Grammy. As opposed to the existing categories for visual media such as film and television - where in the past, a few video-game scores have managed to win - the key distinction for this new gaming-exclusive category is interactive: at least two-thirds of musical tracks nominated need to be used in game, live-action play, or during the cinematics of a video game or any interactive media (for AR, VR, and portable devices). Among the new Grammy categories announced by the Recording Academy this year, two stood out as long overdue: Songwriter of the Year and Best Score Soundtrack for Video Games and Other Interactive Media.
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