At this year’s Academy Awards, coming up on Sunday March 15, one song that had reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, HUNTR/X’s megahit “Golden” from KPop Demon Hunters, is competing for best original song. That’s nothing compared to the 1985 Oscars, when all five nominees had been No. 1 hits, for the first and (so far) only time in Oscar history.
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The nominees included two songs from Footloose – Kenny Loggins’ rhythmic title song and Deniece Williams’ midtempo R&B/pop charmer, “Let’s Hear It for the Boy.” Footloose was just the fourth film to spawn two best original song nominees, following Fame in 1981 and a pair of films in 1984, Flashdance and Yentl. Dean Pitchford, who wrote the screenplay for Footloose and co-wrote all the songs on the soundtrack, was nominated for co-writing both songs. He was the only nominee in the category that year who had previously won an Oscar. In 1981, he won for co-writing Irene Cara’s smash “Fame” from the film of the same name.
The other nominees were Phil Collins’ torch ballad “Against All Odds (Take a Look at Me Now)” from Against All Odds; Ray Parker Jr.’s catchy earworm “Ghostbusters” from the film of the same name; and Stevie Wonder’s warm, sentimental “I Just Called to Say I Love You” from The Woman in Red.
Two of these songs, “Against All Odds (Take a Look at Me Now)” and “I Just Called To Say I Love You,” also received Grammy nods for song of the year. (The Grammys didn’t introduce their category of best song written for visual media until 1988.)
As stacked as this category was that year, two other film songs topped the Hot 100 that year and were not nominated – Prince’s “When Doves Cry” and Prince and the Revolution’s “Let’s Go Crazy,” both from Purple Rain. But Prince did win an Oscar that night for best original song score.
Travel back with us to the 57th annual Academy Awards, held at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles on March 25, 1985, the only ceremony where all five nominees for best original song were No. 1 Hot 100 hits.
“Against All Odds (Take a Look at Me Now)”
From the film: Against All Odds
Music and lyric: Phil Collins
Recorded by: Phil Collins
Weeks spent at No. 1: Three
Performed on Oscar telecast by: Ann Reinking with Gary Chryst
Notes: This was Collins’ first nomination. He was nominated again in 1989 for “Two Hearts” from Buster (a co-write with Motown legend Lamont Dozier). He finally won in 2000 with “You’ll Be in My Heart” from Tarzan.
The producers of the telecast didn’t invite Collins to perform his torch ballad, which was his first of seven No. 1 hits on the Hot 100. They instead extended the invite to singer/dancer Ann Reinking, who was joined by dancer Gary Chryst. Four years later, when Collins was nominated for “Two Hearts,” none of the nominated songs were performed on the telecast. Fortunately, the Academy invited Collins to perform the third time he was nominated, for “You’ll Be in My Heart.”
“Footloose”
From the film: Footloose
Music and lyric: Kenny Loggins and Dean Pitchford
Recorded by: Kenny Loggins
Weeks spent at No. 1: Three
Performed on Oscar telecast by: Debbie Allen
Notes: This was Loggins’ first and only No. 1 Hot 100 hit. “Footloose” helped establish his identity as the go-to guy for film songs in the 1980s. He followed this smash with “Danger Zone” from Top Gun, “Meet Me Halfway” from Over the Top and “Nobody’s Fool” from Caddyshack II, all of which made the top 15 on the Hot 100.
Footloose was such an iconic film that it was remade in 2011. Blake Shelton performed the title song in the reboot. He even opened that year’s Country Music Association Awards with a performance of the song, where he was joined by Loggins. (That makes up for the fact that Loggins wasn’t invited to perform his smash on the 1985 Oscars. Debbie Allen performed a heavily-choreographed rendition of the song instead. The producers of that year’s telecast clearly were not highly attuned to the Billboard charts.)
“Ghostbusters”
From the film: Ghostbusters
Music and lyric: Ray Parker Jr.
Recorded by: Ray Parker Jr.
Weeks spent at No. 1: Three
Performed on Oscar telecast by: Ray Parker Jr.
Notes: This was Parker’s first and only No. 1 hit Hot 100 hit. This was one of two nominations the film received, along with best visual effects. Parker performed the song on the Oscar telecast in an elaborate production number, capped by a cameo appearance by comedian Dom DeLuise.
Ghostbusters was the year’s top-grossing hit at the domestic boxoffice, according to boxofficemojo.com. Of the other films represented with best original song nominations, Footloose was No. 6 for the year, The Woman in Red was No. 33 and Against All Odds was No. 39.
“I Just Called to Say I Love You”
From the film: The Woman in Red
Music and lyric: Stevie Wonder
Recorded by: Stevie Wonder
Weeks spent at No. 1: Three
Performed on Oscar telecast by: Diana Ross
Notes: This was Wonder’s eighth of nine No. 1 Hot 100 hits. Fellow Motown legend Diana Ross performed the ditty on the Oscar telecast. Wonder accepted the Oscar from actor/dancer Gregory Hines. After expressing disbelief that he won (“I really cannot believe it”), he set about thanking people: “I would like to accept this award in the name of Nelson Mandela. I’d like to thank, first of all, Miss Dionne Warwick for allowing me this opportunity. I’d like to thank Gene Wilder for thinking that I might be able to do some songs for your film. Thank Orion Pictures and thank Motown Records and my family and my crew. From my heart, I love you.”
According to the indispensable tome, Inside Oscar: The Unofficial History of the Academy Awards, Wonder’s support for Mandela, the South African civil rights leader who had been imprisoned since 1964, drew a swift response from the South African government: They banned his music.
For the record, Wonder was the first blind person to win an Oscar.
“Let’s Hear It for the Boy”
From the film: Footloose
Music and lyric: Tom Snow and Dean Pitchford
Recorded by: Deniece Williams
Weeks spent at No. 1: Two
Performed on Oscar telecast by: Deniece Williams
Notes: This was Williams’ first and only No. 1 hit Hot 100 hit. Williams performed the song on the Oscar telecast. Pitchford and Snow were nominated again in 1990 for “After All” from the Cybill Shepherd/Robert Downey Jr. rom-com Chances Are.
Here’s a fun story: When Clive Davis was overseeing Whitney Houston’s debut album, he thought that, to balance the ballads, she needed a sassy, youthful song along the lines of “Let’s Hear It for the Boy.” He found it in “How Will I Know” — which, like “Let’s Hear It…,” topped the Hot 100. Happily, Pitchford later had a more direct relationship with Houston than simply having inspired the selection of a song she recorded: In 1991, Houston topped the Hot 100 with “All the Man That I Need,” a torchy ballad that Pitchford co-wrote with his “Fame” collaborator Michael Gore.
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