Tone-Deaf Tinseltown: Seeking Recognition for Original Soundtracks

As the calendar turns to November, the entertainment industry gears up its marketing machine to promote talent that will hopefully spur big holiday sales and resonate in the popular culture long enough to gain accolades at the major winter awards ceremonies (the Golden Globes, Oscars, Grammys). For cinephiles, this is therefore the time of year to anticipate an advertising blitz unleashed by the movie studios promoting their most critically acclaimed films, directly politicking for Academy Award nominations through "For Your Consideration" (FYC) ads in trade publications. By contrast, for audiophiles, the Oscar campaign season (which unofficially began a week ago) has dwindled in importance over the past fifteen years--a development that I find lamentable since the erosion of the unique cultural platform for pop music created by the Oscars is hardly the fault of the musicians, songwriters, and composers that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) seeks to honor each year. In particular, the Academy Award for Best Original Song has suffered in reputation, and what was once a show-stopping, highly forecasted moment is now treated like an amusing subplot on Oscar night.

Perhaps the explanation is that the film industry simply cares insufficiently about the idea of the original motion picture soundtrack to make it an integral part of any movie, not to mention movies that are expected to contend for awards. The economic success of recent best-selling movie soundtracks like 2007's Music from the Motion Picture "Juno" obscures the fact that they contain few original songs beyond the film's incidental or orchestral score. Such a strategy would have been unimaginable in Hollywood only a decade ago, as the biggest would-be blockbusters of the 1990s stocked their soundtracks with commissioned pieces from a mix of both high-profile and up-and-coming musicians. More recently, however, an original movie soundtrack has been eschewed in favor of amalgamations of classic radio staples, retro '80s tunes, and forgettable modern rock--not just in summer "popcorn" movies but also in films across the board. The first wave of FYC advertisements for 2008 appears to support this theory: the whimsical ad (see image left) taken out in Variety by Disney, an entity with a long track record of scoring Best Original Song nominations and wins, for the consideration of Wall-E omits any mention of its soundtrack centerpiece, Peter Gabriel's "Down to Earth," already the recipient of Best Original Song laurels at the 2008 World Soundtrack Awards. That any studio would summarily ignore an easy-pickings category like Original Song is puzzling given that studios spend hundreds of thousands of dollars sweating out their awards-season ad campaigns, precisely because an Oscar win can be, according to the recent statements of a "specialist awards PR tactician" in the Guardian, "worth millions in publicity."

The Academy itself may be beginning to recognize the potential obsolescence of the Original Song competition in the current climate for film music, overseeing a change in eligibility rules. The 2005 ceremony boasted an embarrassing three nominees in the category, indirectly resulting in the approval of three nominated songs each from the films Dreamgirls and Enchanted in 2006 and 2007, respectively, to mask the supposed dearth of worthy entries. For the 2009 event, AMPAS has decreed that no given film is allowed more than two song nominations in a stated "attempt to level the playing field." However, this change is having little effect on increasing the buzz associated with the category and soundtracks in general. Prognostications for music Oscars tend to be limited to a pre-emptive crowning of Bruce Springsteen by over-eager bloggers for his theme to The Wrestler, a movie scheduled for release in December. By all early (and perhaps unreliable) accounts, it is exactly the type of original soundtrack song that defined the field in the late 1980s and 1990s: a specially authorized track from an established artist written and performed through an affecting emotional lens but of little consequence to the plot of the movie.

These new rules hopefully signal an effort to include more variety in the field of Original Song nominees, which means desirable national exposure for more musicians. Yet one cannot help feeling that, in this case, the award-show pundits and AMPAS are hitching their wagons to a falling star. Premature plaudits for what very well may be a superlative new Springsteen track are nonetheless indicative of a severe cultural myopia regarding movie music. The lukewarm attitude from journalists like the Los Angeles Times' awards specialist Tom O'Neil towards the nomination hopes of "Another Way to Die," the newest James Bond theme from the upcoming film Quantum of Solace (see image right), is startling given that the Bond film franchise is one of the last cinematic institutions to emphasize the original movie soundtrack and place it front and center, if only for a few minutes during the opening credits. Furthermore, a notable composition like Huey Lewis and the News's title song for the 2008 summer comedy Pineapple Express is likely to be left out in the muddled world of Best Original Song nominations. This is not only because of the song's drug-referencing subject matter, but also because its self-referential lyrics and direct connections to the film's plot are a drastic departure from the general nature of nominated songs, which tend to address their associated films abstractly (and often generically) through theme or mood.

Sound can be taken for granted in movies, but many films are remembered specifically for their attention to combining soundtrack and image in ways that exhilarate the viewer or clinch the emotional impact of a particular scene. Unfortunately, one of the best tools in cinema's aural arsenal--the original song written for film--is a struggling art form garnering little respect from entertainment industry authorities like the AMPAS. Perhaps the notion of a star-studded album of music created for a specific film is hopelessly outmoded, but it is not hard to imagine a minor comeback for soundtracks in the realm of the digital single, an appealing option to a casual music buyer due to its convenience, value, and instant gratification. And while more Oscar recognition is not the only way to validate the merits of the original film soundtrack, it is undoubtedly a crucial element in convincing the public that movies are supposed to be a feast for the ears as well as the eyes.

It's Still Rock and Roll to Me: A Look at the Online Music Zeitgeist

This week I tackled the daunting task of evaluating the web's expansive body of sites and resources pertaining to the critical role of popular music within American culture. Using the criteria established by the Webby Awards and ISMA, I have produced a linkroll of twenty sites (see below right) that display superior functionality and content within an immersive online environment. My goal was to provide a list of links highlighting the best the web has to offer in analyzing the constantly-evolving zeitgeist of popular music and reflect some of the current cultural tensions evoked by each these sites. To aid in my explanation, I group each site within one of four categories as I evaluate their significance to my blog and the web at large.

The first cluster of links concerns a topic that has consumed much of my blogging energies to date: intellectual property, as the protection of copyrights and the notion of fair compensation are firestorms of fact and opinion. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is a logical starting point, a professional, elegant site that promotes legal music downloading practices and parental resources. However, the RIAA's site has the feel of a publicity front, whereas the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) provides a real environment of consumer empowerment in the "Intellectual Property" section of its website. The EFF's somewhat vague but well-meaning mission manifests itself nicely with links to ongoing legal battles over digital rights. Less pedantic is the blog "Recording Industry vs. the People" which despite its populist biases and distracting advertising layout, is packed with superb content written by a New York-based lawyer specializing in infringement cases. On the other hand, the site of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) is dry but easy to navigate and approaches intellectual property rights as a multifaceted issue, counter to the "us vs. them" spirit of the RIAA and the EFF. Finally, FreeCulture.org suggests an interesting alternative to legal wrangling: a community of artists and consumers avoiding a financially-driven model for all types of culture, including music. The site is somewhat sparse in design and content but provides dozens of links to grassroots projects and organizational chapters.

It is important to note that the copyright debate was sparked in part by a revolution in the distribution of music, which includes the resurgence of radio and the development of many non-traditional avenues for broadcasting. The Media Bureau of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an excellent place to keep abreast of seismic shifts in the laws governing broadcasting, but it might be difficult for the average citizen to find useful information buried under a digital deluge of red tape. The online home of Friday Morning Quarterback, or FMQB (see image below left), is a better place for a casual web surfer to find music industry news paired with intriguing information about radio technology. However, FMQB appears to rely heavily on corporate press releases to keep a steady flow of updates. More industry-oriented is Radio 411, which addresses the entire broadcast spectrum (news, music, sports, etc.) with an impressive diversity in content--sometimes too diverse, in fact, as the site attempts to mix useful applications like career-building resources with random news headlines from wire services. The creation of actual listening communities fares better at Live365 Internet Radio, where users can browse a wide variety of radio stations that stream audio over the web and become Internet broadcasters themselves, though the site's interface makes wading through the many amateurish broadcasts more difficult than it needs to be. Conversely, CMJ.com--the website of the College Music Journal--is an appealing site providing chart information and other resources for college radio stations, despite the presence of irritating animated advertisements.

Print publications like CMJ are increasingly building an online presence to tap into the desires of a new generation of consumers that demand more diverse and immediate information. Rolling Stone's "Rock and Roll Daily" blog is a great example of one of the "old guard" putting together a very slick site that tends to address the past rather than the present vanguard of popular music. There is nothing inherently wrong about this type of nostalgia, but Spin Magazine's "Daily Noise" is a better sample of a "corporate" blog that at least brings the discussion on popular music into the current decade. Nevertheless, both blogs have a specific audience in mind and serve them well, if in a sanitized fashion. The highly commercial but quite useful Billboard Music News and Reviews site is perhaps the most up-to-date example of mainstream music journalism; its design is pleasant and accessible even for non-industry types. MTV's Buzzworthy is a little too synergistic for my liking, mostly focusing its coverage on artists most likely to appear on the parent network, but has a unique energy and a generous amount of multimedia that keeps visitors anchored to the site. Conversely, the refreshing NPR Music blissfully exists outside of the mainstream and covers oft-neglected genres, even if the site lacks adequate contextualization for non-aficionados.

Spearheading a new trend of influential music publications that never actually appear in print, Pitchfork Media has the gloss and the clout of a mainstream music news site with the esoterica and elitism of an alternative periodical. Though the site's layout is a little hard to follow, Pitchfork is nonetheless an essential trendsetting site. The "Andy Whitman on Music" blog, written by the Paste magazine journalist, is a more irreverent destination with main page "jump" links that occur too frequently but are worth following. And for people who find Whitman too boring, there is My Old Kentucky Blog, which pushes the concept of the sarcastic-yet-incisive blogger to its farthest limits; however, its coarse brand of "infotainment" is motivated by a clear love for the music it covers. Coolfer, a level-headed music business blog, looks staid in comparison but supplies a rare commodity--staunchly independent commentary on the music industry. Last but not least is Stereogum (see image above right), a hybrid blog/cultural salon that, despite engaging in some triviality, combines unobtrusive and largely ad-free design with crowd-pleasing features like a built-in media player. Features like this elevate the site's status from simple time-waster to unique online destination--a commonality among the sites and blogs of "new" paperless music journalism that has the old periodicals and institutions scrambling to stay relevant.