The music industry is completely in shock today after the Academy Awards only nominated two songs for an award for the Original Song category.
Elton John. Photo by Ros O'Gorman
Artists like Mary J. Blige, Elton John and Madonna were completely ignored for this year’s Oscars despite having qualifying songs.
Elvis Costello had ‘Sparkling Day’ in ‘One Day’, will.i.am had ‘Hot Wings’ in ‘Rio and Zooey Deschannel had ‘So Long’ in ‘Winnie The Pooh’. Ignored.
‘Man or Muppets’ from The Muppets by Bret McKenzie and ‘Real In Rio’ from Rio by Sergio Mendes, Carlinhos Brown and Siedah Garrett were the only two songs up the music award. Really, a Muppets song?
Four songs were nominated last year. The Oscar went to Randy Newman for ‘We Belong Together’ from Toy Story 3. In 2009 Ryan Bingham and T-Bone Burnett picked it up for ‘The Weary Kind’ from ‘Crazy Heart’.
So what happened to music at the Oscars this year?
At the Golden Globes last week the nominees were Elton John ‘Hello Hello’ from ‘Gnomeo & Juliet’, Chris Cornell for ‘The Keeper’ from ‘Machine Gun Preacher’, Madonna for ‘Masterpiece’ from ‘W.E.’, Mary J. Blige for ‘The Living Proof’ from ‘The Help’ and Brian Byrne for ‘Lay Down Your Head’ from Albert Nobbs. None of those made the cut for the Oscars this year.
What about the Footloose soundtrack? Surely that should have qualified. The Footloose soundtrack featured a complete soundtrack of new songs recorded for a movie. Brad Paisley should have been looked as well for ‘Collision of the Worlds’ from ‘Cars 2’
Mary J. Blige expressed her disbelief on Twitter. I’m so thankful for true fans like you all. It saddens me & feels like the Academy is being mean. 2 only nominate 2 of the 5 slots is…….”
So what happened? Basically, the Academy stuffed it up.
