I bet you never saw it coming.
As a certified JRPG sicko, Shoji Meguro has managed to bury his work in almost every Spotify playlist I’ve made. His work across Atlus games like Catherine, Persona, and Metaphor: ReFantazio live in my head rent-free, sprinkling flavourful vibes like J-Pop and jazz to my relatively normal music library.
Persona 5 has arguably become some of his most recognisable work, and the soundtrack went up for a slew of awards as a result. I’m not sure if it ever won any of them, but eight years later it has another chance thanks to jazz orchestra The 8-Bit Big Band.
Its rendition of battle theme Last Surprise, featuring Jonah Nilsson and Button Masher, has been nominated for a freakin’ Grammy of all things, for Best Arrangement, Instruments and Vocals. It’ll have to face off against the likes of John Legend for his track Always Come Back, as well as Willow Smith for Big Feelings.
It’s a pretty fantastic arrangement, somehow injecting extra jazzy vibes along with a sprinkling of some more retro digitised sound bites. Of course, the band’s just up for their audio arrangement, but I recommend watching the full video for some lovely accompanying graphics. The iconic battle menu is included, of course.
This isn’t actually the first time The 8-Bit Big Band has found itself in the Grammys. The orchestra won Best Arrangement, Instrumental or A Capella in 2022 for their performance of Meta Knight’s Revenge from Kirby Super Star, making it the group’s second nomination for the music awards. In a tweet acknowledging the nomination, The 8-Bit Big Band said it was “so thrilled” to be up for another award, adding “LONG LIVE VIDEO GAME MUSIC!!!”
It’s pretty cool to see videogame tracks getting their flowers in a more commercial awards show, especially when it’s not even in a dedicated videogame category. The Grammys actually added one of those in 2023 though—Stephanie Economou was the inaugural winner for her work in Assassin’s Creed Valhalla: Dawn of Ragnarök, with Stephen Barton and Gordy Haab taking last year’s award for Star Wars Jedi: Survivor.
This year’s—deep breath—Best Score Soundtrack for Videogames and Other Interactive Media nominations are for Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, God of War Ragnarök: Valhalla, Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, Star Wars Outlaws, and Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord.
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