Hollywood Music in Media announced their shortlist of the best videogame soundtracks of the year. This is an issue near and dear to my heart, and I'm here to say that they got it so, so wrong for a couple of reasons.
Now, I've deduced by the fact that there's only Western-developed games on this list that, for whatever reason, Japanese-developed games can't be nominated. That would explain the bizarre omission of Super Mario Galaxy 2 (which I still maintain has one of the greatest game soundtracks of all time), but other, equally deserving games such as Final Fantasy: The Four Heroes of Light, and Kirby's Epic Yarn.
This doesn't really explain the ones that have been included on the list, though. I have no idea what Epic Mickey's soundtrack sounds like, so it gets a pass, but I can personally attest that Alan Wake's soundtrack is banal and completely unmemorable, falling into the trap of relying on moody "tones" instead of legitimate music-making. Otherwise, the list is chock-full of atonal, orchestral bombast and self-consciously unmelodic, "cinematic" music. Videogame music is a very special thing, and should be treated as such. It has such a history and distinct quality that to turn away from that in favour of the worst tendencies of cinematic soundtrack decisions is a bad step, I'd say. And any list of Western-developed videogame soundtracks that doesn't include the absolutely haunting score from Red Dead Redemption is totally broken.