Academy Awards: 5 Oscar-Nominated Songs That Should Have Won But Didn’t

Mike Wood | February 21, 2013 5:30 am

It’s happened to so many of us who devote all the days (and evenings) of our lives to watching the litany of awards shows that come our way this time of year: you’re rooting for your favorite to take the statue, but when the winner is announced another guy, gal, song, artist or act wins. And you want to scream, cry or take to drinking (we do all three) because you know in your gut that another song should have secured that prize. Happens all the time, right?

Well, Hollywood’s big movie awards are less than a week away, and we’re still obsessing over the music. As we mull over this year’s Academy Award nominations for Best Original Song, we can’t help but wonder about what should have been from Oscars past. Sure, they may get it right most of the time, but sometimes the Academy misses the mark (as it did often in the early 2000s). Below we look back at the last 15 years and make a case for five of our favorite Oscar-nominated songs that should have landed the little bald dude, but didn’t.

Should Have Won: “I Don’t Want to Miss A Thing” from Armageddon, 1998

Since you can’t win an Oscar for being the Most Awful Movie of the Year (or Ever), you might as well get to compete in a few other categories. With all of director Michael Bay’s stars-and-stripes-waving-in-the-wind scenes and meticulously-choreographed, slow-motion, mid-America montages, it would have seemed downright un-American, we suppose, for Armageddon not get some stateside awards attention. So why not let an icon like Diane Warren (who wrote the music and the lyrics) walk away with a statuette for the schmaltzy ballad that happens to be the very best thing about this disastrous disaster flick? If you can get past the image of a young Ben Affleck parading animal crackers on Liv Tyler’s bare midriff and belly button (seriously) while Liv’s dad Steven Tyler sings to the seduction of his daughter on a prairie somewhere, you know you just love Warren’s song — even if it is a love/hate relationship. Sometimes cheeseball songs makes us feel better than, well, cheese or chicken soup, and we’re not ashamed to admit it. Besides, who remembers anything about a cartoon called The Prince of Egypt today, anyway? Anybody? C’mon now!

Winner: “When You Believe” from The Prince of Egypt