While artists continue to abandon EMI, the label is hoping video game music can give them a boost. Video Games Live, like its name suggests, brings video game music into a live venue. Now, they’re taking their interactive live performances and putting them onto an album recorded at London’s famed Abbey Road Studios. EMI Classics will release Volume One of Video Games Live on July 24th. The compilation eschews the old-school classics by from Nintendo’s resident Mozart Koji Kondo (Super Mario Bros., The Legend of Zelda, the underrated score to NES’ Ice Hockey), opting instead to cover modern day tracks from games like Kingdom Hearts, Halo and Medal of Honor. For the 8-bitters, there is the “Castlevania Rock” and a piano opus version of the Tetris theme. “If Beethoven were alive today, he would probably be a video-game composer… he was always ahead of the curve,” says VGL co-creator Tommy Tallarico.