[At GDC, I had a chance to interview Nealon Ledbetter, newly-appointed curator of The MADE, a new crowdfunded videogame museum in San Francisco.]

Have you ever played a game on the Apple Bandai Pippin ? How about the JVC X’Eye ? Even if you’re a retro gaming diehard, chances are you haven’t. For most people, these consoles and many others like them remain, at best, dim memories — unreceived items from past Christmas wish lists that you thought you wanted at some point and can’t quite remember why. But now, two guys from San Francisco have taken it upon themselves to unearth these relics from the vaults of obscurity, allowing the world to see — and play — what they may have otherwise forgotten.

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[My latest piece on Motherboard tackles the significance of videogame music’s first encounter with the Grammys, and whether or not either side really understands what videogame music is, was or should be.]

Somewhere between Lady Gaga’s red carpet egg-cellence, a TV anchor epilepsy scare and everyone on Twitter asking who the F is The Arcade Fire, an unlikely group found cause for celebration at this year’s Grammy Awards: Gamers. “Baba Yetu,” a song composed by Christopher Tin for the half-decade old PC strategy game Civilization IV won for ‘Best Instrumental Arrangement Accompanying Vocalists’ last Sunday, marking the first time a song from a videogame was recognized at the awards.

Before the evening was out, hordes of eager game bloggers had already turned the spotlight on Tin, touting the win as a triumph for videogame music in the mainstream; the planted flag in a collective assertion that game music had finally “made it.” The non-game press too began to speak of the newly “legitimate” field of game music, positing modern game composers as underdogs who had finally seen a glimpse of the big-time.

But in a period when hardware and budgets no longer limit game soundtracks in production quality or scale, does “videogame music,” as the Grammys would understand it, actually mean anything? Or is it simply a label that either interests or repels via association with popular entertainment?

The Grammys isn’t ready for videogame music, and videogame music isn’t ready for the Grammys either.

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[One of the sites I contribute to, Original Sound Version, just announced the winners of their annual music awards, and my good bros George & Jonathan have won for ‘Best Chip Music Album’!]

Coming seemingly out of nowhere, dance party duo George & Jonathan have smitten us this year with their toxic tunes and endearing, finger-wagging sass. While not “chip” music by its most precise definition, the intricately-programmed anthems of The Best Music, constructed lovingly in Daisuke “Pixel” Amaya’s Pxtone Collage tracker, have swallowed whole the hearts of those who have experienced it. Like a sugary candy, we can’t help but gorge ourselves again and again on the sweet, teeth-rotting exuberance and saucy funk stylings G&J offer. Having already played shows with the likes of chiptune heavy-hitters Anamanaguchi, Sabrepulse and Starscream, there’s little doubt we’ll be hearing more from them in 2011.

You can see a full list of winners, runners-up, and nominees here.

[Not my usual style, but here’s a fun little number I did for the holiday, combining year-in-tech recaps with some irreverent and moderately substantiated prophecy; Happy New Solar Cycle, y'all.]

The double-0’s are double-over, and with all the kerfuffle that’s gone on in the past 365 earth rotations, there’s never been a better time to re-assess your role on this lonely planet of ours as you hurtle unceasingly towards your own demise.

Google will tell you that 2010 was a year of oil spills, particle collisions and Justin Bieber. But it was also a year where many of us realized that the world is slowly spiraling out of our control: Information leaks, weaponized computer viruses and government-sponsored hacking are things we’ve seen first-hand this year that will shape the future of life on this planet. So when deciding on your New Years resolutions, consider the following. Or risk devolving into obsolescent protoplasm.

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It was an especially cold December in New York City this year. And it had nothing to do with the massive blizzard that was whipping 18 inches of snow around at speeds up to 35 mph. It had to do with the fact that, for the first time in a long while, the five boroughs (and indeed the world) was bereft of the joyous celebration known as The Blip Festival, the largest chip music festival that our tiny blue planet has to offer — 3 days of performances from musicians and artists from around the world, celebrating the musical and visual limitations of obsolete game consoles and other antiquated computer tech.

But fear not — Blip Fest isn’t gone for good. Not even close. Rather, it’s being rescheduled to take place later next year, in the brighter and cheerier month of May. Still, there’s a certain nostalgia associated with Blip’s wintery whimsy, frightful weather and the G train notwithstanding. And it’s fair to assume that thousands of chip music fans have been a bit down in dumps in light of the Festival’s absence from their 2010 calendar.

Luckily, there was a small bit of mercy left in Blip’s stead, and it came in the form of Blip Festival: Reformat The Planet, the comprehensive documentary on chip music and the Blip Festival, crafted lovingly over the course of 3 years by NYC filmmaking troupe 2 Player Productions. And lucky still, what they’ve captured on this DVD amounts to the closest possible simulation of the inspired artistry and impassioned mayhem that surrounds the half-decade strong Blip Festival.

Hit the jump to see how a skeleton crew of documentarians went about capturing the world’s largest and most exciting chip music event, and the indelible impact it had in the spreading of an exciting new form of electronic music to all corners of the globe.

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