Oscar's Favorite Tunes Revisited: The 2000s
2000: “Things Have Changed” (Bob Dylan) from Wonder Boys. In 1993, Bruce Springsteen picked up an Oscar and this time another rock veteran got lucky with this terrific tune. The clip shows Dylan performing live at the Oscars via satellite from Australia.
2001: “If I Didn’t Have You” (Randy Newman) from Monsters, Inc.. Randy Newman had fifteen nominations behind him when he appeared once again at the Oscars together with John Goodman to perform this song. Finally, he won the Oscar, although the tune may not be one of his very best.
2002: “Lose Yourself” (Eminem, Jeff Bass, Luis Resto) from 8 Mile. Another first for the Oscars; Eminem’s rap tune was a surprise win (at least to me), but one of the best songs ever to win an Oscar. The clip shows the video.
2003: “Into the West” (Fran Walsh, Annie Lennox, Howard Shore) from The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. Precisely the kind of song that the Academy loves, but I’m guessing one reason why it won was because it fit nicely into the avalanche of Oscars heaped on the film. Here’s Annie Lennox singing it at the telecast.
2004: “Al otro lado del rio” (Jorge Drexler) from The Motorcycle Diaries. A beautiful, unambitious and not terribly exhilarating song that nevertheless stood out in comparison with more traditional Oscar-winning tunes. The clip shows scenes from the film, accompanied by Jorge Drexler’s singing.
2005: “It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp” (Jordan Houston, Cedric Coleman, Paul Beauregard) from Hustle & Flow. Another rap tune, engagingly delivered by Three 6 Mafia at the Oscars. Not a very good song, but this was the first black group to win the Oscar.
2006: “I Need to Wake Up” (Melissa Etheridge) from An Inconvenient Truth. Melissa Etheridge’s song intended to inspire viewers to get up and do something about the climate. The clip shows the end credits of the film, but the tune will hardly stay with us forever.
2007: “Falling Slowly” (Glen Hansard, Markéta Irglová) from Once. Everybody loved this song and the performances by the two composers; the clip shows them singing the tune, accompanied by scenes from the film. I like it, it’s worthy and charmingly low-key, but I guess I’ll have to watch the movie to really fall in love with the song.
2008: “Jai Ho” (A.R. Rahman) from Slumdog Millionaire. The clip shows scenes from the film and that’s the context best suited for A.R. Rahman’s score and songs; his performance at the Oscars underlined how thin and ultimately irritating this tune is.
That’s it, that’s all the winners, decade by decade. The Oscars have never been forerunners of anything and that’s certainly true for their choices in music as well. It took the Academy forever to recognize rock’n‘roll as a genre worth rewarding, and for a very long time a handful of people dominated the category to great extent. That has changed somewhat. Of recent decades, only the ’90s had a relapse when Alan Menken won four Oscars and Disney seemed to have a lock on the category. So far, the 21st century Academy has embraced new-ish music styles… but it will always be a sucker for a good, majestic ballad.
Published by Stefan Hedmark 2009-06-22 14:53
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