Grammy Awards will soon honour those making video game music

New York

Gone are the days when music directors only had movies and albums to showcase their talent. With companies spending more, video games with brilliant soundtracks have been around for at least a decade. The aural treat surely adds a lot to the immersive gaming experience. Now, these music directors can aim for a Grammy as the academy will feature new honours including for the year's best video game soundtrack and Songwriter of the Year. The awards will begin to be given from 2023 Grammies onwards.

Additionally, the Songwriter of the Year prize will not be open to performing or producing artists, but rather focus on working songwriters who often receive little recognition for their contributions, and have lobbied for years for such a tweak to the prestigious music awards

Artists will also be able to submit their work for Best Alternative Music Performance, Best Americana Performance and Best Spoken Word Poetry Album, a field that will now be separate from the always eccentric audiobook category.

The academy will also give a special merit award. The winners will be chosen by a designated committee and will be honoured for Best Song For Change Change. The academy said that this category will seek to celebrate tracks that "contain lyrical content that addresses a timely social issue and promotes understanding, peacebuilding and empathy."

Rework of Grammy categories has been going on for several years following criticism that the categories are not inclusive and they do not represent evolutions and changes in music industry.

"We're so excited to honor these diverse communities of music creators through the newly established awards and amendments, and to continue cultivating an environment that inspires change, progress and collaboration," said Harvey Mason Jr., the academy's CEO, in a statement.

In 2020, the Los Angeles-based institution made a number of category name swaps, including changing the controversial "urban contemporary" to "progressive R&B."

The move came amid growing concern in the music industry that "urban" was far too general to encompass the genres including hip-hop and R&B that it came to describe, and belittled the innovations of Black musicians.

(With inputs from agencies)

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