Kirby is officially a Grammy Award winner – yes, at least in spirit. The pink, spherical creature helped give Charlie Rosen and Jake Silverman a Grammy for best arrangement, instrumental or acapella for their bid. Meta Knight’s Revenge from the classic from 1996 Kirby Superstar. The cover was originally performed by the aptly named 8-Bit Big Band, a 30- to 65-member orchestra that specializes in putting its own spin on video game music.
In the past, the 8-Bit Big Band has performed Zelda’s lullaby from Ocarina of Time, Fourside from Grounded, Big Blue from F-zero, and much more. You can listen to the group’s construction of the rethought Meta Knight’s Revenge in the embedding above – it’s a really jazzy bid for the original track, and dare I say it sounds even better than Nintendo’s remake included in Super Smash Bros.
Video game music is not nominated for a Grammy very often, but this victory is especially relevant given the recent release of Kirby and the Forgotten Land. In 2011 the song Baba Yetu from Civilization IV won a Grammy after being re-released in a separate album. Trip was nominated for best score soundtrack for visual media in 2012, but ended up losing to The girl with the dragon tattoo.