The 82nd Academy Awards Ceremony is this weekend, and the musical history of winners in the category of Best Original Song is as mixed as any other category winner.

As with many other annual long-time award ceremonies (I’m looking at you, Grammys), rock music had a hard time getting noticed. “Town Without Pity” by Gene Pitney back in 1961 may be considered the first rumblings of Hollywood taking notice of the winds of cultural change. Of course it didn’t win.

The first successful breakthrough would have to be the theme to “Shaft” by Isaac Hayes in 1971. Of course, some critics claim that this was also the first disco song, and the next such song to win the Oscar would be a real honest-to-God disco song: “Last Dance” by Donna Summer in 1978, followed up by “Fame” in 1980.

The first real rock artist to win an award would have to be Bruce Springsteen for the theme to “Philadelphia” in 1993. In keeping with the twisted sense of Hollywood fair play, he was also up against another real rock artist for the same film that year: Neil Young.

Randy Newman counts as a real artist, and one with a rock sensibility, and he is up for two awards this year, both from the same film: “The Princess and the Frog”. And since Randy Newman currently holds the record for the most performances at the ceremonies (7), he is a cinch to add a least one more appearance this weekend to his lead.