The Oscars are about to get a little bit chilly. Today (Jan. 16), right in the height of the 2014 awards season, the nominations for the 86th Annual Academy Awards were released, and some of music's biggest names were given nods, including William Butler of Arcade Fire, U2 and Pharrell Williams.
Butler, best known for being a wide ranged, highly enthusiastic supporting instrumentalist for Arcade Fire, was given a nod for his score work for the Spike Jonze film Her, alongside Owen Pallett. Alongside his other Arcade Fire members, music from the band's new album Reflektor was given the instrumental treatment to help highlight Joaquin Phoenix's Theodore falling in love with his operating system, Samantha (Scarlett Johannsen).
Other nominees in the Best Original Score category went to: the legendary John Williams (The Book Thief), Steven Price (Gravity), Alexandre Desplat (Philomena) and Thomas Newman (Saving Mr. Banks).
While Best Original Score is an exciting category, nothing in the music/movie hybrid world quite beats the Oscar for Best Original Song. U2, who got the Golden Globe for its Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom song "Ordinary Love" predictably lead the nominations.
While Arcade Fire didn't get any nods as a unit for Her, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs' Karen O alongside the film's director Spike Jonze received a nomination for "The Moon Song."
Pharrell Williams can be happier about his massive 2013. On top of the No. 1 song of the year with "Blurred Lines" and a huge return to the music world, he can just add an Oscar nomination as the cherry on top. He got a mention for his Despicable Me 2 song "Happy," which, unlike the other Oscar nomination songs, is finding an audience with pop music fans and is the No. 1 song in the UK.
The true mysterious men of the Oscar for Best Original Song are Bruce Broughton and Dennis Spiegel for "Alone Yet Not Alone" from the film of the same name.
To round things out, the magnificent "Let It Go" from the No. 1 album in the country right now, the soundtrack to Frozen, also predictably got a nomination, given to songwriters Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez.
Any music from the epic film The Great Gatsby (especially Lana Del Rey's "Young & Beautiful") is notably absent from the nominations.
The 86th Annual Academy Awards will take place on March 2.
