Oscars Change "Original Song" Rules

In an effort to prevent a single musical from monopolizing the Original Song field at the Oscars, the Academy has changed the rules of the category. While movies can submit any number of songs they want, starting with the 2009 Oscars, only two songs can be nominated per film. The move comes after two consecutive years in which a musical received nods for three songs in the category, Enchanted in 2008 and Dreamgirls in 2007. In both cases, however, dominating with three nominated songs ultimately proved to a curse, as Once's "Falling Slowly" won this year's Oscar and Melissa Etheridge took the prize in 2007 for An Inconvenient Truth's "I Need To Wake Up." In addition, the Academy will allow DVDs of musical numbers to be sent to members of the voting committee who are unable to attend screenings. Had this new rule gone into effect last year, it's possible Eddie Vedder would have received a nomination for his Golden Globe-winning work on Into the Wild's soundtrack.

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Song Stories

“Help Me”

Joni Mitchell | 1974

Joni Mitchell wrote and recorded this song for her album Court and Spark, but she had to switch from her regular band to make the song sound exactly the way she wanted. "I had attempted to play my music with rock & roll players," she told Rolling Stone. "They’d laugh, 'Awww, isn't that cute? She's trying to teach us how to play.'" Mitchell switched to a jazz band, Tom Scott’s L.A. Express, and scored the biggest hit of her career in the process.

More Song Stories entries »

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