Oscar 2014 Music Nominations

The anticipation and debate over new gear has been building over the last several months, leading up to NAMM 2014.
This week, prior to the sure-to-be NAMM spectacle, another institution released their hotly debated choices: The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

While the topic of cinematography is intereting, and the stories of the directors, actors, and writers are certainly central to its consideration, I’m curious to know what musical scores, nominated or not, resonated with people this year . Sometimes in the lust over new pieces of hardware, an essential element to their relevance seems to be missing: they are the tools to tell a story about ourselves to eachother.

For reference here are the Oscar Nominatees related to music:

Original score
“The Book Thief,” John Williams
“Gravity,” Steven Price
“Her,” William Butler and Owen Pallett
“Philomena,” Alexandre Desplat
“Saving Mr. Banks,” Thomas Newman
Original song
“Alone Yet Not Alone” from “Alone Yet Not Alone”
“Happy” from “Despicable Me 2”
“Let It Go” from “Frozen”
“The Moon Song” from “Her”
“Ordinary Love” from “Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom”

I loved Gravity and think that the soundtrack is 50% of the experience. It is such an intelligent way to make up for the silence in space. The sounds during the more dramatic scenes (no spoilers) really blew me away. When I listen to the soundtrack at home, it’s almost like watching the movie again. Utterly fantastic work.