'Wall-E' singer pulls out of this year's Oscars

 

One of the pet peeves that many of us avid Oscar viewers have had each year when watching the telecast is the displeasure of having to sit through the five nominees for 'best original song' performing each one live, taking a massive 20-25 minute chunk out of an already overlong show.  All of this to honour songs whose only contribution to the film, in most cases, is making sure the end credits don't play in silence.........and to sell a few soundtrack albums.

Because I believe that the Oscars is a television show first and an awards show second, I started to accept that they would never let this tradition go as the songs have just become part of the entertainment package along with the jokes, the monologues, the opening spoof and the bloody montages. 

But bugger me, the Academy has actually nipped this cliche in the bud this year, albeit with one slight hiccup along the way.  One of the scheduled performers, Peter Gabriel, has decided to pull out performing his song at all.  'Yahoo Movies' gives us this: 

The singer has pulled out of performing his Best Song nomination on the awards show after producers, in one of their many concerted efforts this year to increase telecast ratings and otherwise shake things up, limited him to just 65 seconds on stage.

His nominated tune, "Down to Earth" from Wall-E, clocks in at just under six minutes.

"I'm an old fart and it's not going to do me any harm to make a little protest," Gabriel said in a video posted to his website. "But the ceremony should be fun and I'm looking forward to it."

My good buddy Jamie told me they were shaking things up this year but I never thought they'd do that. It's a shame that Gabriel has pulled out and reducing the length of the songs (of which there are only three nominees this year) seems to make them almost completely redundant as a catergory anyway but this is a good enough compromise for all of us who have long wanted them gone completely from the show.

The only problem for me is that I used to use the song performances as a toilet or a tea break. I suppose I'll just have to do that when Hugh Jackman bursts into song this year.