Saturday, December 10, 2016

'Suicide Squad' leads Grammy nominations in music for visual media followed by 'Stranger Things'


I made the following prediction about "Heathens" by Twenty One Pilots from "Suicide Squad" and "Sledgehammer" by Rihanna from "Star Trek Beyond" to conclude One last People's Choice nominees entry about songs in speculative fiction movies.
I fully expect one or both songs to be nominated at the Golden Globes and Academy Awards.  I wouldn't be surprised if other songs from "Suicide Squad" are also nominated.  The movie probably has the best compilation song soundtrack of any live-action movie this year.
It's too early to test either prediction, as the Golden Globes nominations come out next Monday and the Oscars not until next year, but the Emmy Awards nominations made my prognostication look good as "Heathens" earned three nominations, another song from "Suicide Squad" got another nomination, and the compilation album earned a fifth.  Here are the relevant categories from Billboard.
Best Compilation Soundtrack For Visual Media:

Amy — (Various Artists)
Miles Ahead — Miles Davis & Various Artists)
Straight Outta Compton — (Various Artists)
Suicide Squad (Collector's Edition) — (Various Artists)
Vinyl: The Essentials Season 1 — (Various Artists)
I may still be right about the movie having the best compilation of songs of any film released this year, as the only other film released this year whose soundtrack was nominated was "Miles Ahead" ("Vinyl" was from a TV show on HBO that was canceled).  The rest were from movies released last year.  However, I am not optimistic about its chances in this field, as "Suicide Squad" is the only movie nominated that is not about the music business.  It's the musicians voting for this award and they might just go for "Amy," which won Best Feature Length Documentary at the Oscars and Best Music Film at the Grammy Awards last year, or "Straight Outta Compton."
Best Song Written For Visual Media:

"Can't Stop The Feeling!" — Max Martin, Shellback & Justin Timberlake, songwriters (Justin Timberlake, Anna Kendrick, Gwen Stefani, James Corden, Zooey Deschanel, Walt Dohrn, Ron Funches, Caroline Hjelt, Aino Jawo, Christopher Mintz-Plasse & Kunal Nayyar), Track from: Trolls
"Heathens" — Tyler Joseph, songwriter (Twenty One Pilots), Track from: Suicide Squad
"Just Like Fire" — Oscar Holter, Max Martin, P!nk & Shellback, songwriters (P!nk), Track from: Alice Through The Looking Glass
"Purple Lamborghini" — Shamann Cooke, Sonny Moore & William Roberts, songwriters (Skrillex & Rick Ross), Track from: Suicide Squad
"Try Everything" — Mikkel S. Eriksen, Sia Furler & Tor Erik Hermansen, songwriters (Shakira), Track from: Zootopia
"The Veil" — Peter Gabriel, songwriter (Peter Gabriel), Track from: Snowden
This is only one of three nominations for "Heathens," the others being Best Rock Performance and Best Rock Song.  I'd say it's the favorite, as the other songs were only nominated in this category.

"Heathens" is joined by my second favorite song from the movie, "Purple Lamborghini," which features Jared Leto as the Joker.  He looks like he came right out of "Batman: The Animated Series."  That's appropriate, as that's where Harley Quinn got her start.

The official video for Skrillex & Rick Ross - "Purple Lamborghini"
Featured in "Suicide Squad" movie & official soundtrack
Three other speculative fiction movies have songs in this field, "Alice Through the Looking Glass," "Trolls," and "Zootopia," along with a song from the political documentary "Snowden."  Based on the movies alone, this is a great field.  Speaking of which...
Best Score Soundtrack For Visual Media:

Bridge of Spies — Thomas Newman, composer
Quentin Tarantino's The Hateful Eight — Ennio Morricone, composer
The Revenant — Alva Noto & Ryuichi Sakamoto, composers
Star Wars: The Force Awakens — John Williams, composer
Stranger Things Volume 1 — Kyle Dixon & Michael Stein, composers
Stranger Things Volume 2 — Kyle Dixon & Michael Stein, composers
Four of these are for films released last year, one of which, Ennio Morricone's for "The Hateful Eight," has already won the Golden Globe and Academy Award for Best Original Score.  Personally, I'd prefer John Williams' score for "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" to win, but I'm not optimistic.  Personally, I think the odd nominees out have a better chance, the two CDs for "Stranger Things."  I've seen song compilation albums from TV shows nominated before, but I can't remember if the score for a TV show ever has been.  That by itself is quite an accomplishment.  Since I've already written that this is the year for "Stranger Things," I wouldn't be surprised if it pulled off an upset.

Since I mentioned the show, here is its opening theme song.


I fully expect both the theme song and the opening title sequence to be nominated for an Emmy.  I also expect it to be competing in both categories against "Westworld."  Be patient about those predictions coming true, as the nominations won't come out until June.

As for the subject of tomorrow's entry, it's time for another vote.  Should I blog about the opening weekend of "Rogue One: A Star Wars Story," the speculative fiction nominees for the Writers Guild of America Awards, or the politics and crime nominees for the Critics' Choice Awards?  Leave your vote in the comments below at this blog or at this blog's Facebook page.  I also accept write-in votes, but only for entertainment topics.  Hurry, as I'll close nominations at Noon EST Sunday the 11th.

2 comments:

  1. My knowledge of pop culture is rather scattershot and I haven't heard most of the songs listed, but I don't see how anything can compete with "Try Everything".

    The Stranger Things overture sets the mood pretty well. Can't stand rap, sorry.

    The vote's a tough one, but even though I'm not much of a Star Wars fan, it might be interesting to see how well "Rogue One" does since the most toxic elements of the wingnutosphere are calling for a boycott of it. I'm guessing they'll have zero effect.

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    1. You got me to watch the video for "Try Everything." That is a fun song! It might win at the Golden Globes and Oscars with a different electorate, but I'm not so sure about the Grammys.

      It turns out that this weekend isn't the real opening weekend for "Rogue One." That's Friday, although the movie did have its Hollywood premiere last night. I'll still vote for it. I'm lazy and it's an easy entry.

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