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But isn't this category supposed to be voted on by song nerds like me, people who appreciate the detail and nuance that composers and lyricists put into their work in creating the world of their songs? If that's true, how could the voters have overlooked a great musical number from a non-musical, “Star Spangled Man” from Captain America: The First Avenger. As an homage to George Cohan's patriotic numbers it is spot on, and the montage it plays over is by far the best part of the surprisingly entertaining film. The Best Original Song category is made for numbers like this, songs written specifically for a film because they both match and enhance the tone and style that the film is creating. Another song that does a great job of this is “Rango's Theme,” which plays in bits and pieces during Rango before playing in its entirety during the credits. Rango does a superb job of creating a specific kind of world for its story, and the music perfectly complements that world.

But beyond the world of musical theater there were a number of great rock and pop songs written for movies this year. The band OK Go wrote a delightfully satirical song, “The Greatest Song I Ever Heard,” for Morgan Spurlock's overlooked documentary Pom Wonderful Presents The Great Movie Ever Sold. “Think You Can Wait” by indie rock band The National is a heartbreakingly beautiful song from Tom McCarthy's Win Win, probably the best closing credits number since Bruce Springsteen's “The Wrestler.” And while Elton John's work for Gnomeo and Juliet was not anywhere near the quality of what he did on The Lion King, he still had some memorable numbers in there, notably the fun pop song “Hello Hello” (which he and Lady Gaga rocked for the soundtrack) and the sweet ballad “Love Builds a Garden.”

But the film that had hands down the best original songs of the year was Richard Ayoade's British coming-of-age comedy Submarine. Ayoade got his start making music videos for The Arctic Monkeys, so Monkey's frontman Alex Turner returned the favor by writing a handful of beautiful and memorable songs for Ayoade's directorial debut. Take your pick of any of the songs and you'll have one of the best original movie songs of the year. My personal favorite from the film is “Stuck on the Puzzle. Just the opening lines, “I'm not the kind of fool who's gonna sit and sing to you/About stars, girl/But last night I looked up into the dark half of the blue/And they'd gone backwards” had me hooked on that song.

So clearly the problem is not a dearth of good songs written for movies (did I mention any of the beautiful songs from Chico & Rita, or the surprisingly catchy anthem “Collision of Worlds” from Cars 2?). Then what's the problem? Well, like with the Documentary branch and the Foreign Language voters, the way that the voting is tabulated for Best Original Song is seriously messed up. All of the voters watch the song played over the scene from the film in which it was originally played, and then the voters give each song a score from 6 to 10. Any film that receives an 8.5 or higher is eligible for the award, and if there is a year in which no song gets a score that high, the category is cancelled for the year.

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