Upcoming The Main Reason I Hope the Hollywood Writers’ Strike Ends Before This Year’s Academy Awards Ceremony…
posted by on January 11 at 9:39 AM
…besides the extension of basic financial and creative justice to the writers, of course, is so I can watch Jay-Z win the Oscar for Best Original Score.
There can be no denying that American Gangster deserves the honor—it’s the most exciting original-song score since Purple Rain, and one of the best records Jay-Z’s ever made. (According to my late-30s-white-guy math, its only competition is the mighty Reasonable Doubt. Both the lightly overrated Blueprint and lightly underrated Black Album are killer singles albums with iffy filler, while American Gangster—like Reasonable Doubt—is a killer album with deep thematic unity loaded with killer songs. Current faves: “Blue Magic” (!!!), “Hello Brooklyn.”)
So please, striking writers and greedy media conglomerates, work something out. I want to see Jay-Z accept his statuette in a good, old-fashioned, seven-hour-long Oscar ceremony, not some makeshift bullshit half-ceremony like last week’s People Choice Awards travesty. (RIP Queen Latifah.)
P.S. To all those who have Oscar dreams for Kimya Dawson for her contributions to Juno: Give ‘em up. Nominated songs have to be written expressly for the film, not preexisting tracks selected for the soundtrack. Bah. Still, how nice to live in a world where Kimya Dawson wrote nearly half the tracks on a top-ten album.)
i don't know if this is a joke that i'm not getting, but 'american gangster' has nothing to do with the movie other than a few samples and some thematic elements.
Jay-Z's album is inspired by the movie but is not its score, which is an unrelated work by Marc Streitenfeld. As far as I know, there is no Oscar for "Best Album Inspired By And/Or Featuring Clips From A Film." If there was, then Jay-Z would probably have a lock on that this year.
Not sure if it's nominated but for my money Jonny Greenwood's score for "There Will Be Blood" was the best of the year, hands down.
Way to set whitey back another 10 years Schmader.
hallelujah schmader, i love it when you write about rap. dont listen to the haters.
the album is amazing, and fuck all these people doubting its kinship with the movie. it's got snippets from the movie, it's all about mafioso/gangster shit, it's set in the 70s (sort of)
it's an incredible album, and all the live instrumentalists on it would've been rad to parade on stage
@5
no one is hating, they are just facing up to facts
jay z's album is not the score of the movie
Yes, I'm confused. During the '80s-'90s, the Oscars had two categories: Original Score and Original Song Score. Purple Rain won the latter in '87, but it doesn't look like that category's existed since the turn of the millenium. Stupid me, poor Jay-Z, lucky Jonny Greenwood.
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