T Bone Burnett, Karen O Not Eligible For Oscars

Where’s the justice? This awards season T Bone Burnett and Karen O have gained plenty of praise for their musical scores for Crazy Heart and Where The Wild Things Are. Now that January is here, Oscar nominations will be out in less than a month, and we’ll surely see their names on the ballot, right? Wrong!

According to a report from The Wrap, The Yeah, Yeah, Yeah’s front woman and T Bone Burnett may have violated one of the many rules the Academy has for contention. Both their scores feature too much preexisting material for the voter’s tastes and therefore could be deemed as ineligible. Check out the fine print…

“[S]cores diluted by the use of tracked themes or other preexisting music, diminished in impact by the predominant use of songs, or assembled from the music of more than one composer shall not be eligible.”

The scores for Crazy Heart and Where the Wild Things Are do feature tracks that can be submitted for Best Original Song, but the Best Score category is a done deal. Nomination ballots went out last week and the overall count for eligible scores added up to 81. That’s one of the smallest fields this year in comparison to the other categories like Best Editing or Cinematography.

It would have been great to see Karen O’s work get recognized in its entirety, but I guess we’ll have to settle for a Best Song nod.

Do you think the Academy is too strict on composers? Should the films be submitted?