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Add another to Journey's long list of accolades. thatgamecompany's stunning PSN title, which earned a glowing review from Game Rant, is at the front of the pack in total nominations for this Friday's Spike Video Game Awards, and now it's up for another, more mainstream - and, it must be said, more prestigious - award: a Grammy. Composer Austin Wintory's Journey soundtrack has been nominated in the category of Best Score Soundtrack For Visual Media.

Wintory's Journey score (available from iTunes) is the first full-length video game soundtrack ever to be nominated for a Grammy, though Civilization 4's opening song, Christopher Tin's “Baba Yetu, took home the 2011 award for Best Instrumental Arrangement Accompanying Vocalists. Competing against Wintory for the 2013 Best Score Soundtrack For Visual Media Grammy are John Williams for The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn, Ludovic Bource for The Artist, Hans Zimmer for The Dark Knight Rises, and Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross for The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.

Wintory, who is currently at work on the scores for forthcoming games Monaco and The Banner Saga, expressed his shock at receiving the Grammy nomination on Twitter.

Well I don't really have words right now .... I just got a Grammy nomination for #JourneyPS3 ... grammy.com/nominees?genre…

– Austin Wintory (@awintory) December 6, 2012

The Grammy nomination for Journey's soundtrack comes just as the end-of-year video games awards season is beginning to rev up. Within weeks, most major games media outlets - including Game Rant - will have posted their picks for the year's very best games, and with a Metacritic rating of 92%Journey is all but sure to show up on quite a few lists. Here at Game Rant, we already named Journey the best game of the first half of the year, and it further holds the distinction of being the fastest-selling PlayStation Network title in history.

Ranters, what do you think of Journey's Grammy nomination? Can Wintory win against heavyweights like John Williams and Hans Zimmer? What's your favorite game soundtrack of 2012? Let us know in the comments below.

The 55th Grammy Awards will air February 10, 2013, on CBS.

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Follow me on Twitter @HakenGaken.

Source: The Grammys, Joystiq, @awintory