In late 2008, Springsteen was riding high. He just helped Barack Obama win the presidency. He had just completed Working On A Dream, and would be starting a new tour. He would soon play the Super Bowl, where he could finally finally complete his life's mission of telling America to put down their chicken fingers. For any artist, that'd be quite a run, but in the midst of all this, he somehow earned himself his yet another Golden Globe award for his song "The Wrestler".
The stage was all set for this run to culminate in Springsteen's second Academy Award. But, fate, the fickle mistress that she is, spit in his eye.
Now, granted, I'm not here to rag on the music of Slumdog Millionaire. But, not only did Springsteen not win, he wasn't even nominated! In fact, only three songs were nominated. Generally, there are five songs nominated each year, although that can vary. However, up until that point, there had only been four prior years since 1934 where just three songs were nominated! (Just to be thorough: in 2011, two songs were nominated. That still makes it just five times in 82 years.) My conspiracy theory is that they wanted Springsteen to perform the song himself, but Springsteen declined (perhaps due to a scheduling conflict), so the Academy kicked him to the curb. Do I have proof? Of course not. Regardless, it robbed Springsteen of his chance to go down in history as a musician to win two or more Academy Awards, and, today, it officially goes down as a Great Moment in Springsteen Snubs History.
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