(New York) The Grammy Awards, the music industry’s most important honors in the United States, announced on Wednesday the addition of a category to honor the best video game soundtrack, a new sign of their quest of diversity and recognition for the sector.
Posted at 2:08 p.m.
The award for “Best Soundtrack for Video Games and Other Interactive Media” is one of five new awards that will make their appearance at the 65e Grammy ceremony, in 2023, like the best songwriter of the year and the best spoken poetry album.
“The Academy’s top priority is to effectively represent the music people we serve, and each year that means listening to our members and ensuring our rules and guidelines reflect our ever-changing industry,” said in a press release Harvey Mason Jr, president of the Recording Academy, which brings together professionals in the music industry.
The news was received positively on social media, with netizens on Twitter offering retroactive rewards for the soundtracks of street fighter 3, Mario Kart 8 Where Final Fantasy 8by Japanese composer Nobuo Uematsu, among many suggestions.
If there was not yet a specific category, video game music had already distinguished itself at the Grammy Awards. The piece Baba Yetucomposed by Christopher Tin for the famous strategy video game Civilization IVwon the prize for “best arrangement” in 2011.
At the last ceremony, Charlie Rosen and Jake Silverman, with The 8-Bit Big Band, were crowned in this category for their version of Meta Knight’s Revengea piece of the video game Kirby Superstar.