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Thursday, April 7, 2022

8-Bit Big Band's "Meta Knight's Revenge" won 64th Grammy Award for Best Arrangement

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - CONGRATS TO CAPTAIN VUL.

In contrast to whatever was going on at the Academy Awards (otherwise known as the Oscars), the 64th Grammy Awards for music seemed to be a decent affair that I still didn't watch (neither did most people based on its almost record-breaking low ratings). However, it did feature something very good: the 8-Bit Big Band's rendition of Meta Knight's Revenge (from Kirby Super Star, which you can play on Nintendo Switch Online) was nominated for “Best Arrangement - Instrumental or A Capella” (as opposed to best arrangement with lyrics, a different category) as the only videogame music-based song... and ended up winning. Surely you wish to listen to it:



As far as I can tell, this is the first time a videogame-based arrangement has won this award. And that's great for videogame music (though it's not the first videogame-related music to win any Grammy period; that was Civilization IV's Baba Yetu for Best Instrumental Arrangement Accompanying Vocalists). 8-Bit Big Band specifically wants to do things with the videogame music canon like other arrangers do with movies or television soundtracks. The band also has substantially more production value than an average game arranger on YouTube. Its founder, Charlie Rosen, was a Broadway guy. Here they are awkwardly running up to accept the award:


But I'm most excited for the fact that the above music video is probably going to get a lot more attention this week and beyond, and it opens up with the best character in all of Kirby: Captain Vul! This is great exposure for him.

8-Bit Big Band Meta Knight's Revenge Kirby Super Star Captain Vul Sailor Waddle Dee
Captain Vul, by virtue of being by far the tallest member of the Meta-Knights, also gets the most screen space here.


Captain Vul is a great character. Though it's Meta Knight's award (and any outlet claiming Kirby won the award is FAKE NEWS). But here was Captain Vul's reaction upon hearing that this song actually won a Grammy award:

Kirby Super Star Captain Vul holy cow what happened Nintendo Switch Online
Captain Vul loves cows, just like me!


I'd really like to know how this song actually got nominated to begin with. And if it's apparently easy enough to get nominated and win, then we should be seeing a lot more of these nominations way more often in the future. And I think that's good!


Ludwig personally prefers Super Smash Bros. Brawl's jazzy rendition of Meta Knight's Revenge more. That screenshot at the end was a result of Ludwig and fellow KoopaTV staffer Witch Princess playing Kirby Super Star via Nintendo Switch Online right before this article was published. Ludwig took a screenshot every single time Captain Vul talked. You can also see that KoopaTV staffer Heavy Lobster was in the music video.


This might be a more impressive musical accomplishment than the upcoming 30th Anniversary Music Fest!

4 comments :

  1. I'm all for anything that gets video game music more recognized. Give me a soundtrack over a normal music genre album, even the ones I do enjoy, any day.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I agree!
      (Though I don't want to test the limits of "anything")

      Delete
  2. Thrilled beyond belief I was. A video game song AND it’s from Kirby?? While I understand the 8 bit big band version of the song sounds very different, the core of the song is the same obviously. So I’d like to know what the composer of the original song thinks. I saw Sakuri reacted but I’m curious for more. Does Japan have any award ceremony similar to the Grammys? I doubt they care, if this wasn’t a Kirby song I probably wouldn’t care either.

    The thought crossed my mind that this is a big deal when really it shouldn’t be. As a society we went to listening to full symphony’s to shunning any song that doesn’t have lyrics. I’ll never understand why people look down on video game music, whether it’s 8-bit or not. But whatever, I’m happy!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Whoops, missed this comment.
      I don't think Jun Ishikawa has social media, so who knooows.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan_Record_Awards
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan_Gold_Disc_Award

      Delete

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