Justin Timberlake's "Can't Stop the Feeling!" song is vying for Best Original Song at the upcoming 89th Academy Awards. It debuted in May 2016 for the animated musical movie "Trolls" that was released in November 2016. The song, which has been a hit in the United States has strong contenders at the Oscars.
Timberlake's "Can't Stop the Feeling" competes with "How Far I'll Go" from another cartoon "Moana." Its other rival is "The Empty Chair" from documentary film "Jim: The James Foley Story" which wants to follow the achievement of "I Need To Wake Up" from "An Inconvenient Truth." The latter was the first song from a documentary movie to win the Best Original Song.
Romantic film "La La Land" has two nominations, "Audition (The Fools Who Dream)" and "City of Stars" which could split the vote. However, the latter is the favorite of many and is predicted to grab the award, according to CNN.
Whether popularity would help the song get the Academy Award or not, it remains to be seen until Feb. 26. The awards-giving body has honored crowd favorites in the past, such as "Skyfall," "Over the Rainbow" from "The Wizard of Oz" and "My Heart Will Go On" from the box office hit "Titanic." Some songs that won Academy Awards likewise enjoyed YouTube popularity, which can also be a factor.
Songs previously favored by Oscars came from musicals 24 percent of the time while those from non-musicals had 20 percent chance. "The Continental" from the 1934's "The Gay Divorcee" and "Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah" from the 1946's "Song of the South" are from musicals. Some winners were from animated pictures like "When You Wish Upon A Star" from the 1940's "Pinocchio."
Timberlake's "Can't Stop the Feeling" comes from an animated film and has more than 300 million views on YouTube. With regard to to popularity and sales, it topped Billboard Hot 100 and is 2016's biggest-selling digital song download, selling 2.49 million, Billboard reported. It is one of the 2016 tracks that sold over 2 million downloads in that year.
Watch the music video of Timberlake's song below: