Misused: Award Bait Song

The initial definition is pretty clear: A sparkly end credits song to a musical film, usually a cover of a song within the movie performed by a pop singer. In particular, the genre of "Somewhere Out There" from ''An American Tail" and the credits covers from Disney Renaissance films. However, the page is getting bloated with "any song from anywhere that's nominated for a EGOT award."

We should get rid of the "Award Bait" part and rename. The only songs that I know of (that would be on this page anyway) that aren't trying for awards are parodies that would be a separate folder on the trope pages.

I think we need a tight definition for a singular trope. I use Sparkly End Credits Song, but we can discuss the name. This was the original intention of the TLP draft. A song written specifically for the end credits of a movie (or a cover of a song from the movie performed by pop singers in the end credits), featuring sparkly synth in an effort to sound romantic, inspiring, or otherwise soulful. This was codified by the Disney Renaissance but stretches at least as far back as "Somewhere Out There" in An American Tail. Most parodies are of this style. Certain live performances or one-off broadcasts also feature a song of this style (mostly Disney or anime, just like the main trope). There are also some parodies of this style.

A possible second trope is what I call Musical Soundtrack Pop Song. Not really a trope, these are just popular songs from musicals, the original versions from the film using the original cast. These are closer to Bootstrapped Theme than Award Bait anyway. If there isn't agreement on this as a trope, just cull a bit and dump them into Awesome Music.

A possible third trope is where the Award Bait really comes in. Romantic and inspirational pop songs that aren't tied to musicals at all.

In the wick check these will be called A, B, and C respectively.

• Anime: I don't have time to check every song, but the representative sample that I checked all seem to be A. A lot of American dubs will even create unique songs for the end credits. (Meaningless aside, but a lot of the You Tube links in this section are now dead, someone should do a cleanup of them).
• Disney/Pixar: All songs performed by the cast are B. All end credits versions by pop singers are A. The theme park songs will have to be sorted further, but most are A. The B. category will have to be culled; we can't have a page of "every popular song from every movie ever."
• Fan Work: Again, the representative sample is all A, but we'll need input from fans to differentiate the sparkly from the merely popular.
• Animated Film: Like the Disney films, split into A and B as needed. We'll need a cleanup of the B examples as before.
• Live Action Film: A and B, with a few Cs when someone covers a song from a movie in their own style. A few of the movie-adjacent singles that don't fit the sparkly mode will have to be culled.
• Live Action TV: Most are straight B. Not everything that's popular is sparkly, or vice-versa.
• Music: Almost always C, with a few B. Just being romantic doesn't make it sparkly.
• Professional Wrestling: These aren't even C, they're like a D way out on the fringes of what you can call sparkly. Toss them on the Awesome Music pages.
• Sports: These are A.
• Theater: After you cull out the nonsparkly ones the remnants are B.
• Video Games: Mostly A, some culling needed.
• Visual Novel: A.
• Web Original: Discussion needed, A?
• Western Animation: A and B, with culling.
• Other: There aren't links to the Macy's Parade songs, so I can't categorize them. Further research needed.

Edited by NateTheGreat on May 5th 2022 at 8:51:52 AM

I'll refrain from commenting on OP until is settled and put a reminder for Everything You Wanted to Know About Changing Names (specifically "needs evidence of misuse" part).

I assume by wick check, Nate actually meant that they skimmed the on-page examples, which is what the "medium: explanation" part is about. Still, it's not really all that indicative.

When more of the other mods are online, I'll ask them if this thread should just be closed because it doesn't seem like there's a wick check sandbox (I checked both the Wick Check Project sandbox in addition to seeing if the thread creator has a personal sandbox).

Edited by GastonRabbit on May 6th 2022 at 5:18:44 AM

Some advice for ~Nate the Great:

When we refer to wicks, we are referring to the list in the Related tab. That's what we want when asking for a wick check.