Today I have a piece in The Atlantic in which I persuade the Academy Awards to create a "Best Soundtrack" category that would honor the artistic work of insightful music supervisors, who should be given the same awards as art directors and other creative film staffers. There wasn't much room to get into a large discussion of the best soundtracks ever created much less those of this year. But as I wrote, the "art is in the curating of the mix," and in that spirit, I offer you up the one-song but internally eclectic soundtrack to my life. OK, seriously: that song and this one.
UPDATE: A reader commented on the piece with an intelligent response. The comment and my reply are below.
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A "Best Soundtrack" category would be interesting... although it would immediately create confusion among viewers with the "Best Original Score" category, would it not?
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Adam BaerIt could, and I'm a big supporter of composers. One idea, then, is to create two categories for music: "Best Soundtrack" and "Best Original Music." That way scores can continue to be awarded individually, but the rare individual song could be singled out as well. Is it easier to write a song than a score? That's not really the issue, especially when many of today's scores are bits and pieces of incidental music cues. This would allow us a chance to still award composers for their important work (something important to me) and offer an award for a full soundtrack, including a score and playlist of pre-written/recorded songs.--Adam Baer
Update #2: The other strategy they could employ is two music categories: Best Music Direction (like art direction, which would include soundtrack), and Best Original Music. --Adam Baer
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