A Little Bit of Art and Music Culture

Uncategorized 3 Minutes

After a post earlier this week about a kid urinating in an elevator and one about my being lower brow than a Neanderthal, I figured it was time to try and inject some class back into my blog, through the worlds of art and music.

First, the world of art. Here is a video that compresses 3,000 years of art into just three minutes.

I think the best thing about the video is that I no longer feel a need to go to any art museum ever again. Like it says at the end of the video, “You have just had all of the great art of the world indelibly etched in your mind. You are now cultured.” I’m pretty sure I saw the Mona Lisa flash by, so yes, I am now definitely cultured.

Now for the world of music, and film in a way as well.

The great site fivethirtyeight has been working on ranking the winning Best Original Songs in Oscar history. This was done b taking a 30-second clip from every best original song winner in Academy Award history and loading the samples into a random matchup generator. Then they asked people to select which song they preferred. This was promoted across FiveThirtyEight’s social channels over several weeks. It’s not a scientific sample, but with more than 50,000 individual matchups evaluated, but the people at fivethirtyeight are confident that this ranking approximates prevailing attitudes toward the winners. Each song was then ranked by the percent of matchups it won.

Here are the results, with the columns showing the name of the song, the year it won an Oscar, and the percentage of matchups it won. I’ve created links to a youtube video for the fist few songs, and will work on adding more links over the next few days until I complete the list. In the meantime, enjoy, and argue.

1 “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” 1939 91%
2 “When You Wish Upon a Star” 1940 80
3 “Can You Feel the Love Tonight” 1994 77
3 “Flashdance (What a Feeling)” 1983 77
5 “The Way You Look Tonight” 1936 73
6 “Fame” 1980 71
6 “Lose Yourself” 2002 71
6 “Rain Drops Keep Falling on My Head” 1969 71
9 “White Christmas” 1942 70
10 “My Heart Will Go On” 1997 69
10 “Que Sera Sera” 1956 69
10 “Under the Sea” 1989 69
13 “A Whole New World” 1992 68
13 “Let It Go” 2013 68
13 “Moon River” 1961 68
13 “Time of My Life” 1987 68
17 “Take My Breath Away” 1986 67
18 “Beauty and the Beast” 1991 66
18 “Skyfall” 2012 66
20 “Colours of the Wind” 1995 65
21 “Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah” 1947 64
22 “Streets of Philadelphia” 1993 63
22 “Theme From Shaft” 1971 63
24 “The Way We Were” 1973 62
25 “Last Dance” 1978 61
26 “Chim Chim Cher-ee” 1964 60
27 “Glory” 2014 59
28 “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” 1949 57
29 “Falling Slowly” 2007 54
29 “Up Where We Belong” 1982 54
29 “You’ll Be in My Heart” 1999 54
32 “I Just Called to Say I Love You” 1984 53
33 “All the Way” 1957 52
33 “Arthur’s Theme (Best That You Can Do)” 1981 52
35 “Born Free” 1966 50
35 “Swinging on a Star” 1944 50
37 “High Hopes” 1959 49
37 “I’m Easy” 1975 49
39 “Jai Ho” 2008 48
39 “Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing” 1955 48
41 “Mona Lisa” 1950 46
41 “You Light Up My Life” 1977 46
42 “It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp” 2005 45
42 “Sooner or Later” 1990 45
42 “The Windmills of Your Mind” 1968 45
42 “Things Have Changed” 2000 45
47 “City of Stars” 2016 44
47 “If I Didn’t Have You” 2001 44
47 “Remember Me” 2017 44
47 “Thanks for the Memory” 1938 44
51 “Call Me Irresponsible” 1963 43
51 “Say You, Say Me” 1985 43
51 “The Morning After” 1972 43
54 “The Weary Kind” 2009 42
54 “We May Never Love Like This Again” 1974 42
54 “Writing’s on the Wall” 2015 42
57 “Al Otro Lado del Rio” 2004 41
57 “Into the West” 2003 41
58 “Evergreen (Love Theme From A Star Is Born)” 1976 40
58 “We Belong Together” 2010 40
58 “When You Believe” 1998 40
62 “Days of Wine and Roses” 1962 38
62 “It Goes Like It Goes” 1979 38
62 “Let the River Run” 1988 38
62 “Lullaby of Broadway” 1935 38
62 “Three Coins in the Fountain” 1954 38
62 “You’ll Never Know” 1943 38
68 “Gigi” 1958 37
68 “It Might as Well Be Spring” 1945 37
68 “Stand Up for Something” 2017 37
71 “For All We Know” 1970 36
71 “Man or Muppet” 2011 36
71 “Secret Love” 1953 36
74 “Mystery of Love” 2017 35
74 “Talk to the Animals” 1967 35
74 “This Is Me” 2017 35
77 “Never on Sunday” 1960 34
78 “The Shadow of Your Smile” 1965 33
79 “You Must Love Me” 1996 33
80 “The Last Time I Saw Paris” 1941 32
81 “The Ballad of High Noon” 1952 31
81 “The Continental” 1934 31
83 “Cool Cool Cool of the Evening” 1951 30
83 “Mighty River” 2017 30
85 “I Need to Wake Up” 2006 29
86 “On the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe” 1946 28
87 “Buttons and Bows” 1948 22
87 “Sweet Leilani” 1937 22

So at this point, I’m feeling pretty cultured, at least until the next viral video…

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Published by Jim Borden

A 60-something guy trying to figure out the world, and his place in it. Happily married for 40-plus years, three wonderful sons. Accounting teacher, fitness enthusiast, blogger, reader.

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