We’ve already looked at seven times Oscar voters blew the Song of the Year selection. Today, we have a different mission. Today, we pick out seven other times when they failed to even give a nomination to an eminently deserving tune. These snubs are even more egregious than the first batch of songs. Some are understandable but still maddening. And some make no sense whatsoever.
Rules regarding nominations in this particular category have been on a roller coaster from the beginning. In 1945, 14 songs received nominations. In 2011, there were only two nominees. Part of that has to do with the relative decline of musical films, but still, that’s a pretty big gap. These days, the number is set at five, and that works fairly well.
What passes for a great movie song, at least in the eyes of older, homogenous Oscar voters, has generally lagged behind the times. Oftentimes, they are looking back a decade or two to what used to be popular when making selections. That – and nominating Diane Warren – are two virtual locks for any modern-day Oscar presentation.
These seven songs should have received Oscar Award nominations
Warren is the flip side of this little essay. Going into this year’s show, she has been nominated fifteen times, and when she fails to win for “The Fire Inside” from Flamin’ Hot, it will mark the fifteenth time she has failed to win the prize. She did at least get an honorary Oscar in 2022.
At least Warren’s songs get nominated. Here are seven songs that didn’t make it that far, despite being overwhelmingly deserving.
“PURE IMAGINATION” from Willie Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971)
1971 was actually an important year for the Oscar Best Song category. Isaac Hayes’ “Theme From Shaft” won the big prize marking the first time an African American musician won an Oscar, and the first time the Oscars recognized modern R&B/Funk with an award. I have no problem with that selection.
But several of the other nominees that year – especially the rather maudlin “Life is What You Make It” from Kotch – were fairly uninspired choices. Meanwhile, Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley penned several marvelous songs for the first film adaptation of Roald Dahl’s Willie Wonka story. “The Candy Man,” which appears early in the film, would become a major hit for Sammy Davis, Jr., and the rollicking set piece “I’ve Got a Golden Ticket” essentially launched the main plot of the movie.
Either would have deserved a nomination. But how the Academy overlooked the absolutely gorgeous “Pure Imagination,” delivered with such wonder by star Gene Wilder, is just impossible to figure.
Actually, that’s not true. It may be rather easy to figure. The movie flopped in 1971. It only became a “timeless classic” in hindsight. And Oscar voters do seem to care about the box office – at least up to a point. Still something from Willie Wonka… should have been nominated. (Except for that painfully scolding “Óompa Loompa” song. Nobody likes that one.)
“ACROSS 110TH STREET” from Across 110th Street (1972)
“The Morning After” from Poseidon Adventure won the Oscar in 1972. It may be a bit overwrought, but it fit the rather silly melodrama of the movie rather well and it did become a decent-sized hit. And since there wasn’t much serious competition amongst the nominees that year (no one could see Michael Jackson winning for singing a love song to a rat in Ben), the win didn’t raise many eyebrows.
However, had Bobby Womack’s haunting funk song “Across 110th Street” been nominated as it should have been, “The Morning After” would be now viewed as one of the most unworthy winners of all time. Womack and JJ Johnson wrote the song for Barry Shear’s crime film of the same name. It’s a very good crime movie featuring a young Yaphet Kotto and the veteran Anthony Quinn in a culture clash between two cops investigating a murder in Harlem.
Womack’s song immediately establishes the scene and the tone. It certainly was significantly more worthy than the silly trifle of “Marmalade, Molasses & Honey” from The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean or the far-too-precious “Come Follow, Follow Me” from The Little Ark, both of which were recognized with nominations.
“STAYIN’ ALIVE” from Saturday Night Fever (1977)
You don’t have to love disco to recognize how culturally significant the genre was in the late 1970s. John Badham’s Saturday Night Fever caught that wave at its absolute height, and the soundtrack album by the Bee Gees was, for a while, the biggest-selling album of all time. It produced seven major hits. But still, the Academy didn’t see fit to nominate any of its songs.
Of all the omissions, “Stayin’ Alive” is the hardest to swallow. It is the best song on the album and it defined the central character and mindset of the film exceptionally well. Still, in a year that saw “You Light Up My Life” claim the prize, and humdrum pieces like “Candle on the Water” and “Someone’s Waiting for You” get nominations, nothing from Saturday Night Fever was deemed worthy. Three of the year’s five nominees in 1977 were from kid-focused movies, not that there’s anything wrong with that. It’s just that none were particularly interesting songs.
LITERALLY ANYTHING FROM PURPLE RAIN (1984)
Failing to nominate anything from Saturday Night Fever should earn the voters a penalty time out. Failing to nominate anything from Purple Rain warrants a lifetime ban from voting. Not just for Oscar songs. You shouldn’t be allowed to vote for Favorite Breakfast Cereal. It’s that egregious.
What makes it all the more laughable is that Prince did win an Oscar for Best Original Song Score that year. That was a relatively short-lived award that ran concurrent to the still-in-existence Best Original Score award through the 1970s and into the 1980s. It was discontinued one year after the Purple Rain fiasco.
There’s a long and boring history involved in award names and eligibility requirements, but the bottom line is that it seems as if the Academy figured the Original Song Score award was sufficient recognition. The fact that that award no longer exists suggests otherwise. (1984 was an excellent year for movie songs and there were four very good nominees. But the title song and “When Doves Cry” should have taken two spots.
“DON’T YOU (FORGET ABOUT ME)” from The Breakfast Club (1985)
This is simply a case of the Academy not catching up to the times. Most of the nominated songs in 1985 were perfectly reasonable. I would have voted for “Sister” from The Color Purple, even if the Simple Minds song that closes out The Breakfast Club had secured a nomination.
But synth-pop was still a weird thing in the eyes of Academy voters, so they chose to recognize Stephen Bishop’s “Separate Lives,” a by-the-numbers love song that begins slow and then explodes into power balladry – you know, the way every other love song from that era did.
“THE WRESTLER” from The Wrestler (2008)
Bruce Springsteen had already won a Best Song Oscar when he wrote and sang “The Wrestler” at the end of Darren Aronofsky's touching drama about an aging wrestler. That Oscar came back in 1994 for his song “Streets of Philadelphia.” “Streets of Philadelphia” also won the Golden Globe in 1994, and … stay with me here…his title song from The Wrestler also took home a Golden Globe. But it didn’t even get nominated for an Oscar.
That’s especially galling for two reasons. First, the song provides a brilliant metaphor for the main character in the movie and touchingly sums up his entire journey as the credits role. And second – THERE WERE ONLY THREE NOMINEES THAT YEAR! Two of them came from the year’s most-awarded film Slumdog Millionaire. The other was from WALL-E. I have no problem with any of them. But couldn’t the Academy have included a 4th nomination for a beautiful song that fits its film perfectly and had already won other major awards? Apparently not.
“WE DON’T TALK ABOUT BRUNO” from Encanto (2021)
Everyone knew Lin-Manuel Miranda’s brilliant song “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” would get an Oscar nomination in 2021. Most of us thought it would win. It was probably the most talked about and most-sung movie song of the year. The Academy did nominate Miranda’s more romantic “Dos Oruguitas,” but they passed over the witty, insatiable, and deeply mysterious song at the heart of the film about the pluses and minuses of a magical life.
To be fair, 2021 was a strong year, with quality work from Van Morrison, Beyonce, and the ubiquitous Diane Warren, alongside eventual winner “No Time to Die” by Billie Eilish and Finneas. But “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” is arguably better than any of them. The Academy could have and should have passed over Miranda’s other number, or the millionth Diane Warren nominee in order to make room.