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I am planning on writing a series of articles about my love of the Best Original Song Category during the awards offseason, because I need to do something with my time between Oscar ceremonies besides play Russian Roulette with my neighbor (who I'm pretty sure has an unfair advantage in that she's from Russia). However, the conversation surrounding this category since the nominations were announced has turned this song quandary - or songdary - into a full blown songmergency. People are calling for the death of the Best Original Song category like it's an enormous beast living in a castle in the woods, and somebody needs to come to its rescue like a hot, nerdy brunette suffering from Stockholm Syndrome. Well, this hot nerdy brunette is here to save the day.

Okay, so yes, this year's Best Original Song slate is an embarrassment. But to solve the problem by eliminating the category altogether is just wrong. This is a great category that has rewarded wonderful songs, both historically and more recently. The fact that “Blame Canada” from South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut will forever be known as an Oscar nominated song is a testament to the potential this category has for greatness.

As a staunch defender of the Best Original Song category, I felt embarrassed to the point of nausea looking at the nominees this year. Two songs? One of them is one of the best movie songs of the year, but the other is a forgettable number from the also-in-all-other-ways forgettable Rio. Some people are saying that the fault lies in the contenders, that this was a weak year for original movie songs, and that there are so few good songs from movies anymore that the category has become irrelevant. There are no more Frank Sinatra or Elvis Presley vehicles being made anymore, no more movies based around big showy musical numbers. Titans from Gershwin to Porter are no longer regulars in this category, so what's the point? Let's just get rid of Best Original Song and stop embarrassing ourselves.

That's just absurd. True, there were only three high profile movie musicals released this year, and one of them was the musically humdrum Rio, but the other two featured some memorable, wonderful, show stopping numbers. The Academy did right this year in nominating “Man or Muppet” from The Muppets, but what stopped them from going back to that well more than once? As an opening number, “Life's a Happy Song” is perfect. It establishes the tongue-in-cheek nostalgia that is a theme in The Muppets, managing to be wonderfully sweet while also poking fun at itself in the way the Muppets do so well. “Pictures in My Head” continues this theme, being sad and lovely and also totally ridiculous. Music Supervisor Bret Mckenzie clearly got what makes the Muppets so wonderful, and was able to bring that magic to the movie.

And what about Winnie the Pooh? True it doesn't have the kind of big musical number or lovey-dovey ballad that Oscar usually falls for, but the songs that are in it are great if you accept them on their terms. They are fun and goofy and totally lacking in pretension. When Pooh sings “A Pooh Bear Takes Care of his Tummy” or Tigger expounds on “It's Gonna Be Great” you can't help but smile. Easily the best song from that film is “The Backson,” in which Owl warns the others a fearsome creature that he is clearly inventing as he goes along. I'm a song nerd, and when he brilliantly subverts the rhyme with “its toes are black, its fur is blue/I swear that all I tell you is not made up” I crack up.

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