Civilization 4: Baba Yetu wins an Grammy!

[BigBiker05]

As it has been brought to my attention by carpe in the shoutbox, last night the theme song to Civilization IV became the first video game composition to win a Grammy award. Congrats to Christopher Tin and the video game industry!

The fact that this song has had a life outside of the game is owed almost entirely to Video Games Live. They were the first to bring this music to concert stages around the world and to places I had never dreamed possible.

-Christopher Tin, Composer

However, there is still controversy in this nomination. The Grammys still isn't recognizing video-game music as part of the industry, despite the significant number of bizarre categories it celebrates each year. Calling All Dawns is a collection of 12 songs, each sung in a different language with "Baba Yetu"'s Swahili vocals leading the album. Both the song and concept are worthy of honors, but these nominations are sending mixed signals.

Baba Yetu, as seen on PBS special and performed by Video Games Live:

[TheCarpe]

Well deserved, it's truly an epic and stirring song. It's a step in the right direction, though. Video game music is, albeit slowly, starting to seep it's way into the mainstream. Most of the people who would denounce it still hear Mario style chiptunes when they think of video game music.

If they think of this song instead, it's hard to argue against it being as relevant and moving as any other music.

BTW, might wanna fix the thread title. It won a Grammy, not an Emmy

[Plinko]

Ah, so it really won as a performance piece during 2010.

The Grammies are a music-industry self-promotion event. When the music of video games become a money-maker for record labels, we'll see Grammies for them.