Amid the hoopla of this morning's Oscar nominations, you may have been too caught up in ordering congratulatory muffin baskets for George Clooney, Melissa McCarthy, etc. to really focus on some of the non-acting categories. We were, anyway. (Yo, Clooney: you're not allergic to gluten, are you?)
As such, we're going to do you a solid, and inform you of this year's nominees for best song.
First up, we've got "Real in Rio," Sergio Mendes and Carlinhos Brown's chirpy ditty from the animated flick Rio. (Get acquainted with it below.)
And then there's "Man or Muppet," one of our favourite numbers from Jason Segel's The Muppets, courtesy Flight of the Conchords' Bret McKenzie. (Relive the Muppet-ational melodrama...)
And then…
Oh.
That's totally it.
There are just two nominees this year -- and as Slate points out, the Oscars have never recognized so few songs in their 84-year history. In a system where "It's Hard Out Here For a Pimp" can be recognized as the year's most important contribution to cinematic song, and Zooey Deschanel's "So Long (Winnie The Pooh), Bruno Mars' "It Will Rain" (Breaking Dawn), and any of the oodles of Muppets songs can't even rate a mention -- what gives, Oscar?
Oscar, for his part, isn’t commenting. But the category's official voting process at least accounts for how something like this could have happened. (And just so you know, be happy that anyone was recognized at all; according to the rules, it's entirely possible for zero songs to be nominated in a given year -- though that quirk has yet to transpire.)
Here's how the system works (according to what we've read at Billboard and Slate, among other sources): This year, 39 original movie songs were deemed eligible for an Oscar shortlist, each tune written especially for its film, and each one appearing prominently and substantively within a scene or as the first song of a credits sequence.
That shortlist -- a batch of songs that included pieces written by Mary J. Blige, The National, Elton John, among others-- were put to the Academy's Music Branch. That group is a voting body made up of 236 people, Slate notes, and here's a fun fact for you: Bryan Adams is one of the guys who gets to cast a vote. Same goes for The Edge from U2.
Maybe those dudes are raging Muppet fans. Who knows? But here's what we do understand about how they voted: members screened footage of the shortlisted songs as they appear on film, then they rated the pieces on a scale of 1 - 10.
Each member's ratings were collected and averaged -- and the shortlisted songs needed to score an average rating of 8.25 to be nominated for an Oscar. If nobody got that mark, nobody would be nominated. Or, in this case, if only two contenders made the grade, there would only be two nominees.
As such, we look forward to Sunday (Sunday! SUNDAY!!!), Feb. 26, when an elderly Brazilian jazzman and the fine-featured half of New Zealand's fourth-most-popular folk duo face off in what's sure to be a rabid deathmatch.
Can't wait!
Until then, check out the rest of our Oscar nominations coverage:
"Oscar Nominations: The 20 Biggest Snubs and Surprises"
"Gallery: See Who's Nominated for an Oscar"
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