so for some reason (reason being: i know people i guess) this was my first year being a part of the grammy voting membership, and now that the nominations are out there i wanted to do a little debrief about my experience being one of (ostensibly) the people generating lists that then get tabulated to create a list of nominees.
specifically: there are several ways to be invited to the recording academy. mine involved a recommendation from two existing members & me filling out the info to verify i qualified. so here we are.
first thing's first: there are a ridiculous number of categories & nominees. so much so that the categories are basically broken down into "field" blocks. the "big awards" (best record, best album, best artist etc) are open to anyone to vote on, and the fields are allowed in based on your own personal industry experience (but it's opt-in so you could just vote for everything if you felt like it). for my own personal experience, i only felt comfortable voting in the block that game soundtracks were in.
the actual categories in that "field" are:
- Best Children's Music Album
- Best Comedy Album
- Best Audio Book, Narration, and Storytelling Recording
- Best Compilation Soundtrack For Visual Media
- Best Score Soundtrack For Visual Media (Includes Film And Television)
- Best Score Soundtrack for Video Games and Other Interactive Media
- Best Song Written For Visual Media
- Best Music Video
- Best Music Film
so, knowing that, basically anyone who is voting for any of these other categories can also vote for best game soundtrack. given the history of the music industry, it is very likely that 99% of voters will be here because of things that aren't video games.
where does that lead us? well, after 2 years of nominations in this category, i can answer pretty emphatically: games that are part of huge AAA franchises that your layperson has heard of (God of War, Call of Duty, Assassin's Creed), games that are part of huge multi-media franchises (Star Wars, Harry Potter), and people who have won grammys before (Austin Wintory, Christopher Tin)
and like so, the 2024 nominees:
this obviously isn't to discredit the huge effort that went into these soundtracks, but the scope of the games industry is so much wider than this lens. SO much wider.
when i went into the long list of accepted entries (pretty much anyone credible who had a label that could submit their soundtrack), i was pretty blown away by just how many scores & soundtracks were there. some 75-odd submissions that span your obvious AAA inclusions, to even the smallest indies.
for each category, a grammy voting member can list 5 nominees to toss into the hat. even narrowing it down to 5 was a pretty difficult task. there's even more incredible soundtracks released this year that weren't included either due to origin (not many japanese labels submit) or circumstance (nintendo rarely releases soundtracks the same year of their games). remember that this is the recording industry. the release needs to be an album, not simply music associated with a game release.
but among those, i could still pick out some real gems!
- cyberpunk 2077's expansion phantom liberty i thought for sure would be a shoo-in, but again think of who is submitting votes here. sure, gamers know what cyberpunk is, but does anyone else? but the soundtrack for the expansion is one of the most expressive & haunting electronic scores i've heard in years & out of anything was hoping it would get through.
- pentiment is an absolutely stunning score, despite its sparseness. i already highlighted it last year in my music of 2022 write-up but again like... if something like cyberpunk doesn't make it in, how is any indie score not written by a grammy-winner going to get traction?
- warhammer 40,000: darktide by jesper kyd was also one of my standouts last year (it is funny how many of these were end-of-2022 releases that were just outside of the grammy voting window) and was super inventive, but again just too far outside the mainstream understanding.
- hi-fi rush was a huge mix of funny needle drop picks & original score, but i thought it was cool enough to get a nod there. since it was the original score being nominated, it probably can't even include all the funny licensed inclusions, though the "streamer friendly" versions of those tracks are possibly just as if not more sick.
- my game ost for harmony: the fall of reverie was also in there, but even celeste's success hasn't made my name really recognizable to the greater music industry. even taking minecraft into consideration, i'm still pretty small potatoes.
and like, ultimately, looking at all the other categories & who got the nominations...it really does feel like that's the grammy's in a nutshell. metallica and the rolling stones keep releasing albums and even if they're kinda shit, they'll get grammy noms because they're metallica & the rolling stones. that's just how it is. john williams released two scores this year, and both of them are nominated because he's fucking john williams. ludvig goransson also release two scores and both of them are nominated, because he won for black panther & now everyone knows who he is. are they all talented? yeah! but when we're judging the content of a specific release it's just.... it all feels a bit perfunctory unless our voting body is actually meticulously aware of the nuance and strengths of the music that releases during that year.
who even cares about this? i would like to hope people out there do. will there ever be an award that feels actually representative of its industry? maybe not. i dunno. i'll keep trying to shout out my faves though.
