BEVERLY HILLS, CA — Seventy-five songs from eligible feature-length motion pictures released in 2013 are in contention for nominations in the Original Song category for the 86th Oscars®, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced today.
The original songs, along with the motion picture in which each song is featured, are listed below in alphabetical order by film title and song title:
“Amen” from “All Is Lost”
“Alone Yet Not Alone” from “Alone Yet Not Alone”
“Doby” from “Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues”
“Last Mile Home” from “August: Osage County”
“Austenland” from “Austenland”
“Comic Books” from “Austenland”
“L.O.V.E.D.A.R.C.Y” from “Austenland”
“What Up” from “Austenland”
“He Loves Me Still” from “Black Nativity”
“Hush Child (Get You Through This Silent Night)” from “Black Nativity”
“Test Of Faith” from “Black Nativity”
“Forgiveness” from “Brave Miss World”
“Lullaby Song” from “Cleaver’s Destiny”
“Shine Your Way” from “The Croods”
“Happy” from “Despicable Me 2”
“Gonna Be Alright” from “Epic”
“Rise Up” from “Epic”
“What Matters Most” from “Escape from Planet Earth”
“Bones” from “For No Good Reason”
“Going Nowhere” from “For No Good Reason”
“Gonzo” from “For No Good Reason”
“The Courage To Believe” from “Free China: The Courage to Believe”
“Let It Go” from “Frozen”
“100$ Bill” from “The Great Gatsby”
“A Little Party Never Killed Nobody (All We Got)” from “The Great Gatsby”
“Over The Love” from “The Great Gatsby”
“Together” from “The Great Gatsby”
“Young and Beautiful” from “The Great Gatsby”
“The Moon Song” from “Her”
“I See Fire” from “The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug”
“Bite Of Our Lives” from “How Sweet It Is”
“Try” from “How Sweet It Is”
“Atlas” from “The Hunger Games: Catching Fire”
“Better You, Better Me” from “The Inevitable Defeat of Mister & Pete”
“Bring It On” from “Jewtopia”
“Aygiri Nadani” from “Kamasutra 3D”
“Har Har Mahadeva” from “Kamasutra 3D”
“I Felt” from “Kamasutra 3D”
“Of The Soil” from “Kamasutra 3D”
“Sawariya” from “Kamasutra 3D”
“In The Middle Of The Night” from “Lee Daniels’ The Butler”
“You And I Ain’t Nothin’ No More” from “Lee Daniels’ The Butler”
“Let’s Take A Trip” from “Live at the Foxes Den”
“Pour Me Another Dream” from “Live at the Foxes Den”
“The Time Of My Life” from “Live at the Foxes Den”
“Ordinary Love” from “Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom”
“Monsters University” from “Monsters University”
“When The Darkness Comes” from “The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones”
“Sacrifice (I Am Here)” from “Murph: The Protector”
“The Muslims Are Coming” from “The Muslims Are Coming!”
“Oblivion” from “Oblivion”
“Sweeter Than Fiction” from “One Chance”
“Nothing Can Stop Me Now” from “Planes”
“We Both Know” from “Safe Haven”
“Get Used To Me” from “The Sapphires”
“Stay Alive” from “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty”
“So You Know What It’s Like” from “Short Term 12”
“There’s No Black Or White” from “Somm”
“Cut Me Some Slack” from “Sound City”
“You Can’t Fix This” from “Sound City”
“Let It Go” from “Spark: A Burning Man Story”
“We Ride” from “Spark: A Burning Man Story”
“Becomes The Color” from “Stoker”
“Younger Every Day” from “3 Geezers!”
“Here It Comes” from “Trance”
“Let The Bass Go” from “Turbo”
“The Snail Is Fast” from “Turbo”
“Speedin'” from “Turbo”
“My Lord Sunshine (Sunrise)” from “12 Years a Slave”
“Make It Love” from “Two: The Story of Roman & Nyro”
“One Life” from “The Ultimate Life”
“Unfinished Songs” from “Unfinished Song”
“For The Time Being” from “The Way, Way Back”
“Go Where The Love Is” from “The Way, Way Back”
“Bleed For Love” from “Winnie Mandela”
During the nominations process, all voting members of the Music Branch will receive a Reminder List of works submitted in the category and a DVD copy of the song clips. Members will be asked to watch the clips and then vote in the order of their preference for not more than five achievements in the category. The five achievements receiving the highest number of votes will become the nominations for final voting for the award. A maximum of two songs may be nominated from any one film.
To be eligible, a song must consist of words and music, both of which are original and written specifically for the film. A clearly audible, intelligible, substantive rendition of both lyric and melody must be used in the body of the film or as the first music cue in the end credits.
The 86th Academy Awards® nominations will be announced live on Thursday, January 16, 2014, at 5:30 a.m. PT in the Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theater.
Academy Awards for outstanding film achievements of 2013 will be presented on Oscar Sunday, March 2, 2014, at the Dolby Theatre® at Hollywood & Highland Center®, and televised live on the ABC Television Network. The Oscar presentation also will be televised live in more than 225 countries and territories worldwide.
# # #
Ed Sheeran did an incredible job with “I See Fire” from The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug. Haven’t seen the movie yet but I’m an Ed Sheeran fan and saw the song on iTunes and just went for it. It’s a beautiful song. I doubt he makes it to a nomination though. This is a strong year for original songs.
The T Bone Burnett/Carter Burwell thing can be confusing, but honestly, I don’t think they should get Oscars for every folk song and hymn that they happen to touch up for a Coen brothers movie. Their work is great and vital to the films, but the music categories are specifically for original songwriting and compositions. There used to be an adapted score category which would have been ideal for these guys, but that was in place when musicals were king. It’s not really fair to people who write songs from scratch when Burnett was working from stuff in O Brother and Llewyn Davis that had been around for decades. It would be kind of insulting to the other songwriters to give T Bone a competitive Oscar for that stuff, though I think a Special Award certainly wouldn’t have been out of order. Maybe he’ll get Lifetime Achievement recognition one day.
Atlas is a great out lifting song , hope that it win this
T Bone Burnett and Carter Burwell too for that matter usually get disqualafied in either categories because their work on the score and songs is usually based on existing material. But to be honest, the stuff Burnett and Burwell do to existing material is far more creative and valuable than most “original” work that sometimes gets nomintaned. Fargo missing a nomination for score is a crime (an even bigger crime when you consider there were two categories back then, and it should have been nominated in the comedy/musical one), but it was in fact based on some Scandinavian hymn. Same goes for the brilliant score to “True Grit”, the movie didn’t need more nominations, but that one it should have gotten. “Man of constant sorrow” not nominated? No at least one song from the whole “O Brother, where art thou”? Now that’s some serious BS.
I hope Diane Warren got this nomination for “Unfinished Songs” from “Unfinished Song”… The song is so beautiful.
Skimming my way through, of what I’ve seen so far
1. Let It Go – Frozen (Idina Menzel) (it’s not even close)
2. Young & Beautiful – The Great Gatsby (Lana Del Rey) (WTF was the HFPA smoking in snubbing this, like there are so many great options?)
3. He Loves Me Still – Black Nativity (JHud/Angela Bassett) (the production is sparse, minimalistic, but the clip of them from singing it from the movie is somberly moving. Their harmony is beautiful. This has one of the most sonically pleasing melodies of what I’ve heard so far. Nothing game-changing, and I’m sure the Academy will stick to its record of ignoring live-action musical flops (while awarding deserving animated ones). But it’s a nice song.)
4. Ordinary Love – Mandela (U2) (this song is noticeably better produced than most of even the top contenders, though it feels pandering and simplistic by the end)
5. A Little Party Never Killed Nobody – The Great Gatsby (Fergie) (the hook is terrific, but I don’t see them doing it)
6. “The Moon Song” – Her (Karen O.) (a pleasant tune and intriguing lyrics. Not really my cup of tea, but I see the Academy eating this up. Maybe in context this song is really touching, so my estimation of it could go up.)
7. Sweeter Than Fiction – One Chance (Taylor Swift) (let’s give her credit, she’s a good songwriter and this is pleasant, though instantly forgettable)
8. Happy – Despicable Me 2 (Pharrell Williams) (catchy tune that I won’t mind if they nominate, but kind of redundant and forgettable, and potentially annoying after a while)
9. The Muslims Are Coming! (this one stood out, and I just had to sample it. Like Timberlake’s Llewyn Davis song, this falls in the so-bad-it’s-good territory. The tune was actually quite pleasant, but I couldn’t finish the song, it was so stupid.)
10. Atlas – Hunger Games (Coldplay) (boring, and I usually love Coldplay)
11. 12 Years a Slave (I remember more from the movie, maybe a different song, but this is just a monotonous slave chant. Obviously it was perfect in context, but not worthy of a Song Oscar.)
12. When the Darkness Comes – The Mortal Instruments (Colbie Caillat) (disappointing; not her best; not a good melody)
But frankly, you could’ve filled this category out with some Frozen songs (especially “Do You Want to Build a Snowman” and “In Summer”), and who would have complained? I’m afraid this is a pretty weak year otherwise.
“Please, Mr. Kennedy” was actually pleasant, but such nothing. Did anyone nominate Candice Bergen’s intentionally bad “Better than Ever” from Starting Over? And that could double as a legitimately good song. Still, “Kennedy” has musicality and uniqueness, which set it above all but “Let It Go,” “Young & Beautiful,” and “He Loves Me Still,” so yes, I guess it was ripped off. But I’m glad it’s not there to steal Frozen’s Oscar. And I hope it’s not representative of Inside Llewyn Davis as a whole, because I could get tired of watching that.
I actually think that if you take the actual point of the category the fairly maligned ‘Gatsby’ has some real winners in “Young & Beautiful” and “A Little Party”. Both songs work well with and improve the film further and the style it goes for. I actually think I see them as worthy winners, even if the latter is annoying.
I also would love to see Arcade Fire win for Score. What a great moment that would be.
this is a first, apparently they now allow 5 songs per film, when it used to be limited to 2. Hopefully it doesn’t turn into a disadvantage for Gatsby…
Personal Top 3 so far:
1. Young & Beautiful – The Great Gatsby (Lana Del Rey)
2. A Little Party Never Killed Nobody – The Great Gatsby (Fergie)
3. Let it Go – Frozen
I need to listen to the rest of the list to round up my top 5 but with Coldplay, Taylor Swift, Karen O and others also in the mix, this could be hotter tvan the Grammys!
OMG, people, there are TWO songs called “Let It Go.” I hope voters don’t fuck this up.
Yay for Karen O for the Moon Song too !!! Hope Arcade Fire can get a score nomination but I am feeling doubtful especially when they overlook the amazing Jonny Greenwood twice for There Will be Blood and The Master.
There is a GOD, thank goodness there is NO Justin Timberlake for that terrible Mr Kennedy song.
This Oscar belongs to the best song on this list by far, HAPPY by Pharrell Williams !!!! Best video too !!! See his amazing video below, its a great video:
http://24hoursofhappy.com/
Well as of this moment BLACK NATIVITY is still my favorite movie of the year,
^^ I agree. It was the ONLY musical of the year and too bad it did badly at the boxo. They had some amazing songs.
Well I can tell you Lenny Kravitz is out promo’ing his song from The Butler….he was just on Letterman a week ago. I don’t remember the song from the movie….I didn’t remember it when Gladys Knight sang it on Letterman.
BUT, I do remember Bleed for Love from Winnie.
This list is toooo long. How do they whittle it down. Is there a committee?
Come on “Together” from Great Gatsby!
And Paltrow will be presenting the award….
Coldplay will win this
Let It Go will easily take this one. Hope Coldplay, U2 and Lana Del Rey get nominated too. Young and Beautiful is a particularly good song that, as Gregoire wrote, really capture the strange atmosphere of the movie.
I totally agree paddy I think Keith Stanfield deserves best supporting actor consideration I’m also disappointed that John Gallagher Jr deserved awards consideration to
I really hope that Young And Beautiful gets in for Gatsby. Say what you will about the movie but that song embodied the ideas and captured the movie’s strange atmosphere.
What in the twopenny fuck? Where is any representation for Inside Llewyn Davis in *either* of the music categories? Why does everything that T-Bone Burnett is attached seem to automatically become ineligible for Academy consideration?
Jim–
Yes, the songwriters and Disney folks decided they didn’t want to dilute their chances of winning so they only submitted the one song. And I got that directly from the songwriters in a junket interview.
Stevie Nicks!!! How cool would it be…
Interesting that only “Let It Go” was declared eligible from “Frozen,” but with “Please Mr. Kennedy” from “Inside Llewyn Davis” ineligible is there anything to keep “Let It Go” from winning?
Anyone have insight on why only one song from Frozen is eligible? Olaf’s summer song was, to me, the best in the movie. Odd not to see it here.
Obviously, I’m rooting for all 5 nominations to go to Kama Sutra 3D.
Well as of this moment BLACK NATIVITY is still my favorite movie of the year, so I’ll be rooting for those songs. But if I’m being honest I really don’t know what the rest of the songs, except the Hobbit one, sound like. I heard some of them when I saw the movies but then not since then.
Go Lana!
I sure hope so, david. I’m gunning for it. How great to see that nominated, and Keith Stanfield potentially becoming an Oscar nominee. In my mind, he deserves to be a double nominee for Short Term 12.
So you know what its like Keith Stanfield song from Short Term 12 is a lock for a nomination