Academy Award viewers are in for a treat this weekend as every nominee for Best Original Song is set to be played during the festivities: Tegan and Sara will team with The Lonely Island for "Everything is Awesome," John Legend and Common will rehash their spectacular Grammy performance of "Glory," Rita Ora will sing "Grateful," Adam Levine will be there for "Lost Stars," and Tim McGraw will step in for the ailing Glen Campbell on "I'm Not Gonna Miss You."
That makes for one of the most musically-loaded Oscars in recent years. We went back an looked at the last five Best Original Song winners who ALSO performed their wares at the ceremony to see who did the best in front of The Academy to earn their award.
05) "We Belong Together" by Randy Newman (2011 ceremony)
Randy Newman finally got his first Grammy win from a Toy Story entry (no, "You've Got A Friend in Me" didn't win) with "We Belong Together" from You Story 3, but his actual performance that night was victimized by a bad balance of live and recorded music. It's tough to imagine Newman away from his baby grand for a live performance and so he appeared in the middle of the very large stage by himself while a slew of scenes from the nominated film projected in the background. The real issues came from the backing band however...which of course wasn't actually in attendance. The audio was prerecorded but simply too loud for Newman, who's better known for his loud sentiment than his loud vocals so the songwriting icon and his piano were somewhat overwhelmed by the backing track. You can check out a clip below.
04) "Falling Slowly" by The Swell Season (2008 ceremony)
Once again, this performance came down to more winning over less. Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová, who toured together briefly as The Swell Season around that time, won the award to no one's surprise with "Falling Slowly," the touching duet from the musical-oriented film Once. The pair's live performance however fell into a classic live Oscars trap: This watching tend to prefer bigger and louder live performances while The Academy itself tends to give the Best Original Song to less bombastic entries, such as "Falling Slowly" and Crazy Heart's "The Weary Kind." Hansard and Irglová might have actually come across as better if the show's promoters hadn't set up a weird wall of acoustic guitars behind the performers.
Glen Hansard y Marketa Iglová en los Oscars by videoyouth
03) "Let It Go" by Idina Menzel (2014 ceremony)
Two of the 2013 nominees for Best Original Song has massive amounts of viral content and mainstream popularity going for them entering the ceremony. Fortunately, the Academy chose wisely in selecting Idina Menzel's "Let It Go" over Pharrell Williams' "Happy" (no offense dude...we just preferred the "Despicable Me" track from the first film more). Menzel was set up in a similar way to the previous entries, by herself on a large, empty stage. What she has and the others didn't was a huge voice. The attention-grabbing aspect of any Menzel performance, from her roles in film to on Broadway, is her voice, not whatever else is going on around her. She came strong and wasn't thrown off by John Travolta's infamous massacre of her name (which you can see as well in the video below).
02) "Jai Ho" by A.R. Rahman (2009 ceremony)
Our main argument regarding why The Grammys, and especially The Tonys, make for better watching than The Academy Awards is because the performance aspect of the latter ceremony is so much more uptight than its competition during awards season. Every once in a while we get an exception to the rule, such as the case of "Jai Ho" from Slumdog Millionaire. You can listen to the original version, you can listen to the Pussycat Doll version, but you can't deny that this is a song designed for frolicking. Fortunately iconic Indian pop performer A.R. Rahman wasn't forced to stand alone onstage as he belted "Jai Ho," but rather was joined by a small army of Indian dancers and musicians. If this had been The Grammys, the musicians in the crowd would have been in the aisle dancing with them. As this was The Oscars, they kept their seats and watched the party respectfully.
01) "Skyfall" by Adele (2013 ceremony)
Adele was having somewhat of an "off" year during awards season in 2013 (she had only won one Grammy, compared to the six she had won a year earlier) so she made sure to bring her best to her live performance of "Skyfall" from the James Bond film of the same name to The Oscars. We were surprised to see she didn't take a cue from Newman and set herself behind the keys as she often does in live performances, but she didn't use a backing track either. She had a miniature orchestra with a brass section and a line of background vocalists to prop up her performance. It was brilliant. We may complain about the buttoned-up tendencies of The Academy but Adele's performance, in her black dress against a blackened stage was a black-tie affair, throwing back to the era of cinematic royalty that the Oscars have always sought to replicate in the modern day.
