In the unlikeliest win at last night’s Grammy Awards, Kirby walked away with an award. Well, sort of. A song from the Kirby franchise was awarded a Grammy, marking the second-ever time a song from a video game was awarded at the show.
HOLY SHIT WE WON THE GRAMMY!!LONG LIVE VIDEO GAME MUSIC!! Thanks to everybody who’s ever listened to @the8bitbigband , ALL of artists who have contributed their time/talent and of course HUGE thanks to my co-arranger the one and only @Button__Masher !! MUCH LOVE! pic.twitter.com/4JTakDTPQC
— The 8-Bit Big Band (@the8bitbigband) April 3, 2022
Specifically, the Grammy for Best Arrangement, Instrumental, or Acapella was given to Charlie Rosen and Jake Silverman for their version of Meta Knight’s Revenge as it appeared in the 1996 title Kirby Super Star. The duo’s take on the song was performed by the 8-Bit Big Band, a group of 30 to 65 musicians “that formed to celebrate and realize some of the best musical themes written from various video games from all consoles.”
The 8-Bit Big Band’s first album, Press Start! was released in 2018 and featured reinventions of songs from various Nintendo franchises, including Super Mario, The Legend of Zelda, and F-Zero. Its Grammy-winning version of Meta Knight‘s revenge comes off the album Backwards Compatible. Released in January 2021, the 14-track record includes arrangements of Dire Dire Docks from Super Mario 64, Want You Gone, from Portal 2, and Hydrocity Zone from Sonic 3. Like so much of its other music, the group’s take on Meta Knight‘s Revenge is a jazzy fusion of old-school chiptune and big band, making for a gorgeous, creative track.
Music from video games is hardly ever included in nominations for the Grammys, much less the award show’s category winners. The last song from a game that won an award at the Grammys was Baba Yetu from Civilization 4.
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