Nikki Finke reports the news:
“I don’t feel that is sufficient time to do the song justice, and I have decided to withdraw from performing,” Gabriel informed AMPAS. “I fully respect and look forward to the producers’ right to revamp the show. Even though song writers are small players in the filmmmaking process, they are just as committed and work just as hard as the rest of the team, and I regret that this new version of the ceremony is being created in part at their expense.” I’m told that the medley is the brainchild of the producers in their attempt to get the Oscar show’s running time down to 3 hours — which, frankly, would be a miracle given that it usually runs more than 4 hours. No word yet on whom the producers will choose to sing in place of Gabriel.
47 Responses for "Peter Gabriel Pulls Out of the Oscars"
I don’t know about anyone else, but I feel there’s gonna be alot of singing at this year’s Oscars.
I was angry when I heard about it and actually thought Gabriel should just suck it up for the sake of the song and those of us watching. But he’s absolutely right.
And who’s gonna sing this instead – Hugh Jackman?
Keep the 4 hours. PLEASE keep the 4 hours.
This reminds of Jorge Drexler incident. His wasn’t allowed to sing his own song from The Motorcycle Diaries. Apparently, you have to be a superstar to sing at the Oscars.
That’s ridiculous. It’s 3 songs and they need to cut them down? Idiots.
That was one of the few things I was looking forward to seeing. Peter Gabriel is great and “Down to Earth” is a knockout, particularly the last section, which I assume would require a choir. I think if they let the three nominees sing their own songs, perhaps pairing “jaiho” and ‘o saya” back to back, you’d get two very entertaining performances that would, in total, take up only about 10-15 minutes, and would certainly liven up the procedings a bit.
What was memorable last year? Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova singing “Falling Slowly,” and then winning the award. If people don’t give a shit about the category, then that speech is time when people either fast forward to flip over to another channel, but by having the nomiees perform the songs, people grow attatchments, and become interested in that category immediately.
This year’s show will suck massive Australian balls.
I just read they want to keep each song to 1 1/2 minutes. There are only three songs and none of them are awful. What are the producers afraid of. Even if each song lasted 3 minutes, that’s about 10 minutes of the show.
How silly.
Good for you, Gabriel. I hope you win this thing.
“And the Oscar goes to……Peter Gabriel, who’s winning song was NOT performed tonight because he didn’t want to butcher his own work due to the boneheaded descisions of Lawrence Mark and Bill Condon”
Down to Earth is a boring song, we’re not losing a big deal… Don’t make a bif fuzz about it…
Jai Ho should win it’s way better than Gabriel’s
Can you say “that sucks”? I want to hear the full version of the song, I don’t care how long it is. Bring out the dancers if you think it’s going to bore us. The producers always tweak the show and it gets worse with every tweak.
Wonder me this: Would they have asked Bruce Springsteen to sing for 1-1/2 min?
I don’t care if he and Newman don’t perform it, just as long as it wins and Newman takes home best score as well. He’s overdue and the academy should have acknowledged that some time ago.
What the hell would they have done if they had 5 songs to deal with? I smell a train wreck a comin’!
I say bring back Celine and her chest thump.
They sure as hell didn’t cut “My Heart Will Go On” or “Beauty and the Beast”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XhrkxCwq488
In fact, Beauty and the Beast got almost 4 minutes by itself… Hmmm…
LOSERRRRRRRRRRRRRR..He knows Jai ho will win with big margin.now making all this drama to get sympathy votes…shame on him
I’m more upset that my Bollywood boys aren’t going to get to bring down the house for as long as they should.
But I can appreciate the difficulty of the situation for the producers. Songs are such a risky thing. They can either really enthrall you, or completely bore the crap out of you.
We’ve all said it before… “oh man, this song is just going on forever!”. It can get really annoying. So my guess is that this decision has been made to prevent that from happening.
I’d trust the judgment of these guys more than anyone elses opinion. They’ve obviously done research on audience ratings for songs, and are trying something new based on this research.
I think as long as the song doesn’t just end abruptly in the middle, the audience will not be perturbed, except for the purists maybe.
Thought about it some more… I think it’s a strategic error on the part of the Producers to limit a song rigidly to 1.5 minutes. The ideal solution would be to coordinate with the performers and reach upon an agreement as to how long/short the performance should be. All that they should do is ensure that the performance doesn’t drag…
I understand the desire to somehow condense the songs.
It’s not like they show full scenes of actors, or lengthy snippets of the tech. stuff.
Why should the songs get to play in full, when say.. costumes don’t even get to be shown?
I respect his decision to pull out, but there are a lot of tech. categories to cover, and they are all equal.
Plus, I love long telecasts! I love the Oscars. They longer the merrier!!
Dear Academy -
Here’s the thing about the show’s run time – it’s not the songs that are the problem. People tend to like the songs, or at least they usually do so long as you don’t nominate three songs from Enchanted. Even the songs that aren’t particularly great can make for an interesting performance, or at least some fodder for the host to riff on. It’s like trying to trim down a horror movie and removing the gore just to get it to 90 minutes – that’s one of the reasons people see horror movies in the first place.
Is it too late for this publicity to influence voters choice of best song?
But four minutes for the song Beauty and the Beast was amazing. Just saying. Best Song hasn’t been THAT great since Disney stopped doing their animated musicals (And three songs from Enchanted did not seem that bad, considering they were actually, I don’t know, well-written songs – gosh there are years when the nominees are sooo bad).
That said: Best song is one of my favorite parts of the Academy Awards. Especially when you get to hear FIVE songs performed to their completion. This minute and a half medley crap is just ridiculous. Oh, and I like it when the Best Score nominees have excerpts played by the orchestra.
Ugh, the Oscars always screw the music branch. Take a note from the Grammy’s: musical performances are your friend.
first of all, he’s right.
second, the producers are probably happy because…
third, the song is boring!!!! (and I love Peter Gabriel)
Let the Slumdog’s rock it out.
Now I really officially think that the Academy will regret for choosing Bill Condon for this year’s show!
After all, his idea of a party turns me off.
Come on, presenters associated with 2008 movies – the big stars nobody takes seriously, of course!
Songs that last for 1 1/2 minutes! Why?!!!!! They have 3 songs only! And these three songs could make a show really.
Oscars which run for 3 hours. Come on! That’s nearly impossible! If you do that, you’ll ruin the night the way the Emmy’s do! They present the awards way too fast and it feels rushed, rushed, rushed! The Oscars need more than 3 hours!
It could be a really awful Oscar night!!!
@nicon: Please, he already won Grammy and World Soundtrack. He doesn’t need to create any drama to win. Bruce isn’t here, no song from SM will win, the Oscar is his.
What would you do if you’re told to sing your own song just in 90 secs? However long, boring, bad, blahblahblah it is, it’s a nominee in the Oscar night, and the tradition is to sing them all, full versions! You can cut it to 3:30 mins, but 90 secs is ridiculous. Please, this is not American Idol karaoke contest.
Who here thinks the Academy dwindled the number of nominees for the Best Song category from 5 to 3 to help in carrying out this anti-song policy during the ceremony?
I wouldn’t be surprised.
Is it too late for this publicity to influence voters choice of best song?
Yeah probably. Most voters turn their stuff in early, especially in a non-competitive year – they will have already seen most of the movies and voted (or their children voted or their mistresses, whatever). But even if it wasn’t too early how idiotic of them to vote for Best Song that way. Peter Gabriel’s is a great song for a great film. If the Slumdog songs cancel each other out, his will win.
Well, I guess choosing Hugh Jackman as the host was the only good decision they made, because every other decision has been terrible.
This ceremony is going to be a spectacular trainwreck and I can’t wait to see it!
At least now i know i can use the song performances for a bathroom break. Yawn city!
There will be a furor over this year’s awards if they have cut the performances for the nominated songs so they can squeeze in an over-the-top Allan Carr-esque (remember Rob Lowe and Snow White?) production number featuring Mr. Jackman. Frankly, there have been some very memorable full-length performances of nominated songs including “Falling Slowly” and, the best of all, Isaac Hayes performing “The Theme From Shaft.” Bad decision.
I support Gabriel’s decision. First they wreck the category and now they’re wrecking the performances of the 3 songs that DID manage to get nominated.
We’ll probably never again have another amazing Oscar music moment like Hansard and Irglova peforming “Falling Slowly”.
I think people are freaking out because we are so in the dark about exactly what is going to happen – and I love it!!!
It makes the excitement of oscar night even moreso!
Sounds like the Producers already had a medley in mind and didn’t nominated the Wreslter because of it.
So am I mising something … boneheaded nominee list and one of the very few things going for it was Peter Gabriel performing … so what is the reason to watch this farce.
For the love of God / Alah
Kill the Original Song category already.. jeeeez! And do we really need 3.000 musical numbers during the show? Do we really need to go through short film and short doc? Give the lessar awards in a separate ceremony
BORING.
T.
Why would we not want to award the “lesser” categories on the night of the Oscars. They deserve accolades too (and they are the ones who rarely get the pats on the back they so richly deserve). The song and score category was the one that originally had me watching the Oscars in the first place, so it was never a “lesser” category to me.
I’m watching Peter Gabriel on march 20th seventh row!!
I totally support Peter Gabriel on this. Seriously, I can’t believe the producers are shafting the Best Song category like this – and this time there are only 3 songs! If there are a bunch of montages and other “entertaining” numbers in place of giving the Best Song Nominees full time to sing, I will be really pissed.
Am I wrong here, but I thought that this isn’t the first time it has been tried to abbreviate the song choices…I can’t put my finger on it, but I thought one year there were 5 songs and there was a medley….
Not saying it’s right or wrong, but I am pretty sure it has happened before….
and let’s not get too carried away here….Gabriel still plans on attending….
The year I actually got to attend the Oscars, the songs nominated were “Streets of Philadelphia,” “Philadelphia,” “The Day I Fell in Love,” “Again” and “A Wink and a Smile.” Now, whatever one thinks of those songs and the artists who recorded them, it was undeniably a thrill to watch full live performances (very understated, for the most part) by Bruce Springsteen, Neil Young, Dolly Parton & Peabo Bryson, Janet Jackson and Keith Carradine — all in the same evening. I don’t know how it was for people watching at home, but those performances were among the evening’s highlights for me.
And I usually enjoy that part of the show, as long as there isn’t too much overwrought choreography going on in the fore- or background.
That was the year of Schindler’s List. 66th, I think. I’ve watched it on video many times and is one of my favourite Oscars. Often the songs can be a bit of a bore, but not that year – no.
They have tried many different versions with the songs over the years – they have had medleys before, but the songs were never 90 seconds each.
Anyway, Wall-E will win. Voters may think that Score goes for Slumdog, but Newman needs one already. And Peter Gabriel has more star power. And the Slumdog-songs probably eat votes from each other anyway.
I think the 65 second reduction is less frightening than the fact that the producers want to do all three songs in one medley???
RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!!!!!!!
They have time for the accountants, and montages about cinemas greatest orphans – but can only offer Peter Gabriel 90 seconds … this show went from a farce to a smug, self-satisfying clusterfu … well you know.
I’d rather watch Michael Bay give a lecture on subtlety in film than this show … at least there would be more truth there.
In 2000, they did a medley of the song nominees, I think in two groups, but it may have been all of them in one group. Aimee Mann (Magnolia), NSync w/ Gloria Estefan (Music of the Heart), Phil Collins (Tarzan), Randy Newman w/Sarah McLachlan (Toy Story 2) and a variety of people performing Blame Canada in quick succession. I remember being really pissed off because Aimee Mann basically got to since one verse and the chorus and that was it. It’s not the songs that make the awards drag–the performances can be as good or bad as anything else. To me, where it really drags is those asinine tributes that don’t mean anything to the viewer. It’s one thing to pay tribute to, say, the musicals era, but when it’s “A tribute to New York in film” or something along those lines, with 2 or 3 second clips from different films that go by too quickly to recognize, then it’s just ludicrous. THAT’S what needs to be fixed, not eliminating the songs, which are actually a part of the awards. This isn’t the AFI awards, after all. And sometimes I think the Oscars would be better if they dispensed with a host altogether, as they do with the Globes. Stupid banter can often stretch things out immensely. Having said that, I did enjoy last year’s ceremony–Jon Stewart was spot on, I felt, and it didn’t feel like a long ceremony at all.
This sucks. The songs are (frequently) one of the best parts of the show. Why can’t they cut the idiotic montages, the overly-long tributes to the special award winners (give them their due, but it shouldn’t take 15 minutes to celebrate someone – that’s always when we pause the audio to do announcements at our party anyway).
It’s as if they fail to understand any of the parts of the show that make people want to watch it.
Give us the awards, the songs, and the “dead folks”. Do that, and stop cutting off speeches, and they can bring it in. We don’t need a montage of the history of how movies took trips to the moon (although that could be cool – just not at the Oscars) or monologues from women who won Oscars for playing mothers who were also hookers.
Awards. Songs. Dead People.
There’s a show.
Great, first no Boss and now no Gabriel. Is this possibly going to be the most unentertaining Oscars ever?
Is it just me or aren’t the Oscars supposed to long. It’s one night of the year, let them all have their moment and let it be a full moment.
Putting them in a medley is almost as bad a choice as Jackman hosting. Nothing against Wolverine because he does a great job at the Tony’s but that’s the Tony’s and they should have a song and dance man host them. But the Oscar tradition is to have a comedian host and Crystal is the perfect example. Jon Stewart was also great, the point of softening the host to have it more enjoyable is stupid… I can understand not having a real cut throat kind of host like Gervais (although that to me would be AMAZING) because he doesn’t appeal to the masses but Stewart, even in his ribbing, is always good natured and light hearted.
This medley thing and three hour run time is just another on the long list of this years Oscar mistakes. If you wanted more viewers you should have nominated TDK not butcher the actual show, which has followed a formula for so long.
They already didn’t nominate the best song of the year with this limiting the category to 3 crap. GO BRUCE, his performance at the superbowl was the best half-time show maybe ever and he would have been equally exciting at the Oscars. Good choice Peter, good choice. (Also in the previous medley year, as mentioned above, I was stoked to see the individual performances and combining them left a bad taste in my mouth – Aimee Mann’s work on Magnolia was extraordinary).
I’ve been watching the Oscars since I was like 4 years old and didn’t even miss the broadcast the years I lived overseas and had to watch them at various odd hours of the day HOWEVER this might be the first time I take a pass.
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