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
So now the Academy thinks that the already shortened versions of the nominated songs are too long too and that 3 minutes for all songs together is sufficient?! I guess they need more time for the host to make bad jokes. Also, not nominating WALL-E for Best Picture while it had the best reviews in 2008 of any movie is despicable too. Anyway, Peter Gabriel is right, I don’t blame him…
I don’t blame him.
V.M.L.
Well, quite personally, I don’t blame him either. If I was given a time limit that didn’t fully justify my song to its fullest, then I’d probably pull out myself.
That’s too bad, though. I was looking forward to hearing him perform….
This is a real bummer. It’s stupid, the other two nominees gets 90 seconds! Doesn’t that make it bluntly obvious he won’t win too? :[
90 seconds? What a complete JOKE.
Why did “That’s How You Know” from Enchanted get a big production number and “Down to Earth” can’t? I know it goes for 5 minutes, maybe they could have shortened it to 3.5 or 4 mins. But it would have been a good break for the show to have the song performed.
I was looking forward to it so much. It won’t be the same without Peter Gabriel singing. D=
I was bummed he canceled, but he’s totally right. 1 minute? That’s totally in the relm of “What’s the freakin’ point?”
This was actually one of the few reasons I was going to to tune in. A full blown number with a choir would have been great, as it stands, I’ll DVR the sucker.