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Peter Gabriel Cancels Oscars Performance

Academy Awards News WALL-E

Famed musician, Peter Gabriel, performer and co-writer with Thomas Newman of WALL•E’s main song "Down to Earth", will not be singing at the Oscars telecast.

He cites the reason for his decision: the producers of the awards are only letting him sing 60 to 65 seconds of the track during a medley of the nominated songs and Gabriel feels that the short amount of time will not do the "Down to Earth" justice. Although he is protesting against this limitation he will still attend the ceremony as a nominee. In this case, Oscars producers will need to get the Soweto Gospel Choir, the background vocalists of "Down to Earth", to perform instead.

Hopefully we can hear the song in the telecast, even if it’s abridged, but Peter Gabriel does have a good point which he explains in this video.
How do you feel about this decision?

(via Variety)

Last modified: February 13, 2009