Firstly, the parentheses in the headline are meant to indicate that the winner has not always been a song written specifically for the film. Therefore in some years the word “original” has dropped out of the category heading. However, the qualification is still virtually the same: the song must appear in a film and under a new orchestration. I define orchestration rather loosely meaning someone doing a cover can qualify.
Secondly, I saw a lot of chatter on Twitter during the Oscars indicating that this category should be dropped. Whether or not the Oscars will I don’t know. I doubt it. The Academy has too much tradition and potential production value invested in this category. As for me I’m only really interested in aesthetics and don’t have a show to put on I see no reason to scratch it. I’ve heard no valid argument against its inclusion, many say “Not every film has one” but not every film uses visual effects heavily or is animated or foreign but the categories remain. The ubiquity of an element is helpful but unnecessary. All the songs below are memorable, catchy and capture the essence of the film in which they are contained. And, yes, there is an art to either selecting, placing, orchestrating and/or writing that song so the category will remain.
it’s more prevalent here than elsewhere so I will state it now: TV movies are not excluded from inclusion in the BAMs as a rule so you will find one in here amidst the eclectic mix.
2011 Born to Be Somebody Justin Bieber Justin Bieber: Never Say Never
Justin Bieber in Justin Bieber: Never Say Never (Paramount)
2010 Never Say Never Justin Bieber (feat. Jaden Smith) The Karate Kid
2009 Quiero que Me Quieras Gael Garcia Bernal Rudo y Cursi
2008 A Capella rendition of Sweet Child O’Mine by Tom Davis, Kathryn Hahn, Lurie Poston and Elizabeth Yozamp in Step Brothers
2007 The New Girl In Town The Cast Hairspray
2006 What I’ve Been Looking For High School Musical
2005 America (Fuck Yeah) Team America: World Police
2004 Vois Sur Ton Chemin The Cast (Soloist: Jean-Baptiste Maunier) Le Choristes
2003 Toi, mon amour mon ami Virginie Ledoyen and Ludivine Sagnier 8 Femmes
April 13th, 2011 → 10:51 AM
[...] it was discontinued is that there was, and likely would continue to be, redundancy between this and Best (Original) Song. Again there is a skill to picking the right pre-recorded song and placing it in a film but is it [...]
January 4th, 2012 → 3:21 PM
[...] you look at past winners in this category you’ll see diversity. Here there is too: Chatte Batte is a sung in voice-over theme song from [...]
February 7th, 2012 → 9:15 AM
[...] Her plotline is well-rendered albeit somewhat predictable. The film also has the first legitimate Best Song contender of the year (maybe more than one) in the end [...]