Oscar Time!

Tonight's the Oscars. Unfortunately, I guess I shouldn't really talk about them, just because, you know, movies aren't music (although I will say that Milk is probably the best of those five movies). But, as I'm pretty sure they do every year, there are probably gonna be performances of all of the "Best Original Song" nominees.

About three years ago, these performances became completely irrelevent, and haven't been worth watching since. Why?



The above performance happened on the Oscar stage for the song "It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp" by Three 6 Mafia. It was easily one of the funniest moments in history for several reasons:

1) Just, umm, look at the stage. What the hell is going on? It kind of looks to me like the set's a living room, or something, but there's a guy riding through it on a bicycle. It's like a musical gone wrong up there.

(I'm gonna interrupt here: one of the guys on stage is wearing Phillies gear, and that made me happy.)

2) The edited version of this song. "A whole lot of wenches jumpin' ship?" Did anyone really believe that this was the real lyric?

3) The 2:52 mark, the greatest Oscar moment EVER. This is the only time the word "PIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIMP!" would ever be yelled at the Oscar ceremony. Watch that part a couple times. It's absolutely amazing.

4) Queen Latifah's reaction immediately afterwards, where she can't stop laughing. My thoughts exactly.

5) Think about it. The Academy probably nominated this song because people felt like they had lost touch for nominating songs by Randy Newman so many times (although, I confess, I really do like "You've Got a Friend in Me"). THEN, they had to sit in their seats and squirm through this. Awesome.

But then, finally, 6)

IT WON. From that moment to this, when referring to DJ Paul and Juicy J, one now has to do it as "Oscar-winners DJ Paul and Juicy J." I can't find the acceptance speech anywhere, but it was absolutely perfect.

I've gotta say though, I feel like no rap boast is ever gonna beat winning an Oscar, especially since only three rappers can claim to have done it: the two in Three 6 Mafia and Eminem.

Worst Five Best Original Song Winners, in chronological order:

*1947's "Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah" from "Song of the South." It did beat a song called "Pass That Peace Pipe," which was probably really offensive... so I wish "Pass That Peace Pipe" had won. Honorable mention to "Chim Chim Cher-ee" from Mary Poppins as the two nominees with absolutely nonsensical lyrics.

*1983's "Flashdance... What a Feeling" from, umm, Flashdance. Yeah. Also, who is qualified to say that the Flashdance song is good enough to win... but the Footloose songs from the next year aren't?
EDIT (Kristina): I LOVE Flashdance.

*Consecutive years: 1986's "Take My Breath Away" from Top Gun and 1987's "(I've Had) The Time of My Life" from Dirty Dancing. These songs are so 1980s, it hurts.

Henceforth, I will never bring up Dirty Dancing again.

*1997's "My Heart Will Go On" from Titanic. Possibly the worst song ever written, and it BEAT ELLIOTT SMITH. That has to be a joke.

Anyway, this year, the two nominees from Slumdog Millionaire will probably split the vote, and that song from Wall-E will probably take it. This is a shame, as the performance from a newly de-babied M.I.A. will probably go in vain.

Enclosed in the playlist are a few songs that either did win at some point (Shaft theme? Why not?), should have won ("The Bare Necessities" and Elliott are great), or are up tonight ("Down to Earth"). Enjoy!