How do you shorten an awards show most people already find too long? You get rid of the musical performances for songs people have never heard of.

This is what the Academy is planning to do for the Oscars this year, according to Deadline. But they also have a source saying they could change their minds and add them in if they wanted to, probably as insurance in case people got mad or something.

Either way, I believe this is a good change. Although some of the Oscar songs are actually good, most tend to bore the vast majority of people. It doesn’t help that there can be as little as 2 and as many as 5 songs. Why? Cause The Academy is complicated. Voters go through 39 songs and give each 6 to 10 points. The songs that average 8.25 points get nominated. This year there were only 2 songs that achieved that: a song from Rio and a song from The Muppets.

Fox and Disney have both logged complaints, because the songs are from their movies, but they’ve been largely ignored so far. I say cut the songs and let new musical supervisors Pharrell WIlliams and Hans Zimmer cook up. Their job was created specifically for this year’s Oscars, so hopefully it’s not custom walk-in music for each presenter. Oh God, it’s custom walk-in music for each presenter isn’t it? [Deadline via Movies.com]

academy awards, oscars, songs