Hans Zimmer and Pharrell Williams are possibly the last two people you would expect to collaborate on anything, but the Oscars can bring people to do strange things. According to a report from The AP reports that the Oscar-winning composer Zimmer and the rapper and producer Pharrell will be collaborating as the music consultants for the 84th Academy Awards, which will air on February 26 next year. Neither has ever worked for the Oscars before, and it's unclear exactly how or why they were chosen, other than to create the most unlikely merging of genres since Bing Crosby and David Bowie sang "Little Drummer Boy" together.
I've been trying in vain to hunt down previous music consultants for the Oscars, and the fact that I can't probably indicates how relatively low-profile the music consultant's job is. Presumably they'll help host Billy Crystal put together some songs, and Pharrell's rap background might make him especially well-suited for one of Crystal's signature songs summing up the year in film. And while Zimmer could easily find himself a nominee this year thanks to his work on either Rango or Sherlock Holmes 2, his familiarity with orchestral arranging might bring some zing to the house orchestra you usually just hear playing off the songs that run too long.
But those are the reasonable expectations. Why not hope that they'll set a rap to the iconic Inception "Brangh BRANGGGGGH" or get Pharrell collaborator Jay-Z to somehow show up? It's still a few months before the ceremony, so we may as well have dreams before they're crushed by a crop of mediocre nominees or something equally obnoxious.
