Pick Your Poison: Monday 3-3-14

It’s not the most musically oriented of the awards shows, but the Academy Awards happened on Sunday, and I’d like to take a moment to talk about them. I’ve given plenty of commentary about the Grammys and how much I generally dislike/don’t watch them because they give awards to all the wrong artists, songs and albums, but the Oscars are different. The Academy Awards may not always get it right, but they do give plenty of recognition to great films from the previous year. I was happy to see 12 Years A Slave get the Best Picture win, even if it wasn’t even in my Top 5 films of 2013. It’s an impressive, well-made film with mindblowing performances and deals with an important topic. And my favorite film of 2013, Her, did walk away with a Best Original Screenplay win, which is exactly one more award than American Hustle, Captain Phillips, Nebraska picked up last night. Nothing against any of those three movies that earned a bunch of nominations but went home empty handed. Them’s the breaks sometimes. Overall I found this year’s Oscars to be largely predictable, both in the very “safe” hosting job that Ellen did as well as the winners and losers of the night. While I always do well on my Oscar ballot, this year I set a new personal best by only getting one category incorrect. That’s how easy it was. Perhaps the lone surprise of the evening was John Travolta and his wonderfully absurd introduction of singer Idina Menzel, for whatever reason calling her “Adele Dazeem” instead. There’s been plenty of comedy pulled out of that gaffe in the last 24 hours, and I hope it keeps going for awhile, just because. But while I’m thinking about singers and music performances, how about that performance of “The Moon Song” with Karen O and Ezra Koenig of Vampire Weekend? That small, intimate performances was a highlight of the night for me, a brief respite from the big, epic glitz and glamor of the evening. In case you missed it, you can watch it here. It’d be nice if there are more moments like that at future Academy Award broadcasts. What were your thoughts on the evening? Share them with me in the comments below. Meanwhile, there’s this Monday edition of Pick Your Poison to get to. Great tracks today from Ed Schrader’s Music Beat, Jadeite, King of Prussia, LIZ, Will Phalen, Zoo Brother and The Field’s remix of Wild Beasts’ “Wanderlust.” In the Soundcloud section after the jump, stream songs from Bok Bok (ft. Kelela), Fennesz, Hauschka, Landlady, Panama and Real Estate (covering George Harrison).