Saturday Music from The Oscars 25 Years Ago

THE FUTURIST! tracked back the Academy Award Best Song nominees from 25 years ago (1984 to be specific) and found a treasure trove of five 80s pop tunes that ALL surfaced on the Pop Charts and played continuously on the radio. THE FUTURIST! asks: When was the last time this occurred in Academy Awards history? These songs, due to their chart rising popularity, produced awful music videos indicative of the era. The Best Song category gets more dismal every year; songs that appear during credit sequences or unmemorable tunes from mediocre animated films and lots of tunes by Randy Newman seem to populate the nominee slot each year. Some years there are just three songs nominated due to the hardship in choosing the "best" by whatever committee makes the decision. It is certainly a dying category that may not survive much longer. Who can remember most of recently nominated songs? THE FUTURIST! found many classic standards that won or were nominated in the 30s and 40s and 50s. The 1960s produced some memorable tunes, as well; The Windmills of Your Mind, Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head, The Shadow of Your Smile, Born Free, Moon River, and The Carpenters' For All We Know. But look at 1984 a year which had five really great examples of 80s pop tunes that ALL excelled financially on the air waves. THE FUTURIST! has a soft spot for the Phil Collins' Against All Odds ... a song that Mr. Collins was denied the chance to perform at the Academy Awards by the producers, because they claimed they were not "familiar with his work". Instead, Ann Reinking (a Broadway performer) was selected to perform a slow tonal crawling rendition that destroyed the force of the song's lyrical angst. Mr. Collins watched from his seat in the audience.

THE FUTURIST! was going to post a video of each song in its entirety, but thought that the visuals and the song length would cause total cerebral inertia. In regard to you, dear reader, THE FUTURIST! has found a wonderful concise example of all five songs nominated for Best Song of 1984 complied together in shortened samplings.

The winner of the coveted Oscar is the first song you will hear.

Listen:



You heard in order of sequence:

I JUST CALLED TO SAY I LOVE YOU
from the film THE WOMAN IN RED (1984)
music and lyrics by Stevie Wonder

AGAINST ALL ODDS (TAKE A LOOK AT ME NOW)
from the film AGAINST ALL ODDS (1984)
music and lyrics by Phil Collins

FOOTLOOSE
from the film FOOTLOOSE (1984)
music and lyrics by Kenny Loggins and Dean Pitchford

LET'S HEAR IT FOR THE BOY
from the film FOOTLOOSE (1984)
music and lyrics by Tom Snow and Dean Pitchford

GHOSTBUSTERS
from the film Ghostbusters (1984)
music and lyrics by Ray Parker Jr.