U2 and Paul McCartney Fall Short Of Oscar Nominations

There were 63 songs in the running for an Oscar nomination this year, so the nominees for the final cut this year went from three to five – and we previously reported Randy Newman leading the selective top five songs for the big day. Although we’re a little bummed about Karen O and some other indie artists not being able to have a Swell Season-Grammy moment, we’re still excited for the nominees this year. The Princess and the Frog brought us back to the old Disney days with those two tunes, Newman should be proud for the work he’s put into material.

However, we do wonder why some other big names such as U2 and Paul McCartney got snubbed for the Oscars this year. We’ve got U2 who continues to sell out venues and reinvent themselves and we’ve got McCartney – a Beatle! Both musical acts have great influence in the songwriting area, so what went wrong when the Oscar committee had to decide?

U2 got nominated for their song, “The Hands That Built America” for Gangs of New York in 2002 but lost to Eminem‘s “Lose Yourself” for 8 Mile. McCartney has been nominated but also lost twice for his songs, “Live and Let Die” with his ex-wife for the film of the same name and more recently “Vanilla Sky” from the same-titled film but lost to Newman’s “If I Didn’t Have You” from Monsters, Inc. and “The Way We Were” for the same-titled film, respectively.

This year, neither U2 or McCartney made the top 5 select songs for the annual ceremony, and Los Angeles Times’ The Envelope explains that it may have not been lack of songwriting credibility by breaking it down in rather simple terms for everyone to understand:

“Unlike other branches — such as acting, which uses a preferential ballot — the music makers screen clips of all the eligible entries and then score them on a sliding scale from 6 to 10, with half-point increments in between. If a member has a song in contention, they are ineligible to vote.

As per the rulebook, “If no song receives an average score of 8.25 or more, there will be no nominees in the category. If only one song achieves that score, it and the song receiving the next highest score shall be the two nominees. If two or more songs (up to five) achieve that score, they shall be the nominees.”

With five nominees this year, we know they all scored at least 8.25. Perhaps the tunes by U2 and McCartney broke that barrier as well but fell short of the even higher scores registered by the nominees.”

We know that all of McCartney’s songs would all personally be rated higher than 8.25 and fans of U2 would probably say the same for the Irish group, but now we do wonder how much higher Newman and others scored!

What do you think? Do you think U2 and McCartney should have been in the top 5 songs this year for the Oscars?