
With its concentration on the music industry, it's easy to forget that the Grammys have a
few movie-related categories. They include best compilation soundtrack album, best score soundtrack album and best song written for motion picture, television or other visual media. One thing that's always odd with the Grammys, though, is how many nominees are so old. Take a look at the score/composer nominees, for example:
Babel (Gustavo Santaolalla);
Blood Diamond (James Newton Howard);
The Departed (Howard Shore);
Happy Feet (John Powell);
Pan's Labyrinth (Javier Navarrete);
Ratatouille (Michael Giacchino). Only the last of those films came out in 2007. But the eligibility period for the Grammys is always October of the previous year until the end of September of the current year. All but
Ratatouille's soundtrack were released in October, November and December of 2006. Since the Grammy ceremony is only a couple weeks prior to the Oscars, the ancient films honored are easily seen as that much more old news (
Babel won the 2007 Academy Award for score).
Happy Feet was also recognized in the best song category, for "The Song of My Heart" by
Prince (who already has the
best soundtrack of all time), despite its not having received an Oscar nomination. Same goes for one of its competitors,
Casino Royale theme song "You Know My Name", co-written (with
David Arnold) and performed by
Chris Cornell.
Dreamgirls' "Love You I Do", written by
Siedah Garrett and
Henry Krieger (performed by
Jennifer Hudson) is the only overlap from last February's Oscar nominees (it lost to
Melissa Etheridge's "I Need to Wake Up" from
An Inconvenient Truth). The other recognized tracks, both from 2007 releases, are
Eddie Vedder's "Guaranteed" from
Into the Wild and
Glen Hansard and
Markéta Irglová's duet "Falling Slowly" from
Once.
Once is also a contender for best compilation soundtrack, though it faces a huge challenger in The Beatles, who are recognized for the album for the Cirque du Soleil show
Love (how does that fall into this category and not the one for musical show album?) and indirectly for the soundtrack to the movie
Across the Universe, which features covers of the band's tunes performed by the movie's cast. Other soundtrack nominees are retro musicals
Dreamgirls and
Hairspray. Sorry, fans of
High School Musical 2.