Soundtracking: Oscar's Original Song Shortlist

by Chris Feil

Monday's Oscar shortlists already have us handwringing. So naturally as an Original Song obsessive, I'm taking a look at each of the nominees and their chances to make the final five. I shed a tears for Hearts Beat Loud, "Capital Letters" from Fifty Shades Freed (yeah I said it!), and everything else in A Star is Born that isn't "Shallow". But there can be only five and I am happy for any competitive year that keeps quiet those calling for this category's death!

The fifteen finalists favor big music names like Oscar favorites like Diane Warren and Alan Menken, so there is a lot of competition between heavyweights...

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Learning iMovie and Making Lists with Chris

Chris here with some more listy goodness that Nathaniel wanted me to pass along: my own! This year rather than going the normal listicle route for my Best Of, I tought myself iMovie to make a video montage as both a love letter to the cinematic year and present my Top 20. Consider this a Soundtracking side quest, because I lean hard into my song choices. One thing I learned from teaching myself something new (aside from the technological mishaps - but hey, staring at films you love sure does ease all frustrations), is how to find similar narrative threads in the movies that move us, which I was able to do through song choices shared over multiple films.

Consider this a small peek into my ballot (which is in full here) for next month's Team Experience Awards, or hopefully just a quick way to bask in the past movie year as it comes to a close. We all love a montage, but I hope you love this one too! (NSFW for language)

2018 Film Year in Review from Chris Feil on Vimeo.

Soundtracking: 2018 Grammy Nominees at the Movies!

by Chris Feil

The Oscars aren’t the only big movie music prize on the horizon. Last week we got this year’s Grammy nominees and the Grammy voting committee has clearly been spending a lot of time at the movies this year! Aside from the film categories (more on that in a minute...) soundtracks showed up in major categories in a big way thanks to behemoths Black Panther and A Star is Born.

“All the Stars” from Panther and “Shallow” from Star both made it into the Record and Song of the Year categories, in addition to both getting nominated in the genre performance categories. But the biggest movie moment among the nominees has to be Kendrick Lamar’s nomination in Album of the Year for Black Panther’s soundtrack...

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Soundtracking: FYC 5 Original Song Outliers

by Chris Feil

In lieu of a regular deep dive into the soundtrack of one film, Soundtracking is indulging in some For Your Consideration tracks before the season narrows down to a few contenders. Naturally, all of the talk for original songs this season has been gobbled up by A Star Is Born with some hopes being thrown towards the likes of Mary Poppins Returns, Black Panther, and even Radiohead's Thom Yorke for Suspiria. I'll unpack the field once Oscar reveals its shortlist on December 17 (remember that quiet news item that the Academy will be announcing song and score shortlists all at once along with such categories as visual effects?).

But the outsiders deserve some love too, so allow me to champion a few solid tracks...

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Soundtracking: Randy Newman's Original Song Nominations

by Chris Feil

Happy 75th Birthday to Randy Newman!

Newman has had an extensive musical career, but in these parts we remember the musician as once one of the most Oscar nominated folks without a win - previously missing out on 14 bids in both Original Song and Original Score before finally winning for 2001's Monsters Inc. track "If I Didn't Have You". To date, he now has a total twenty nominations and two wins, and isn't slowing down anytime soon. Just last year he delivered some massively underrated work for The Meyerowitz Stories and will be returning to the Toy Story franchise for next year's fourth instalment.

Newman's impact on the movies is one of uplift and charm, and a current mainstay in the Mouse House. But Oscar history is the name of this week's Soundtracking game, so let's rank his Best Original Song nominations...

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