On June 22, 2004, CBS aired a 3 hour special called “AFI – 100 Years, 100 Songs. Hosted by John Travolta, the countdown from the American Film Institute featured clips of 100 songs.
Clay Aiken joined Burt Bacharach, Celine Dion, Barry Gibb, Barbra Streisand, and Paul Simon who commented on the songs in the Top 100.
The 100 songs were chosen by 1,500 “industry experts”; songs were evaluated on quality of music and lyrics as well as their cultural impact and legacy. “Over the Rainbow” – the Judy Garland anthem from “The Wizard of Oz” – was voted the greatest movie song ever.
The top ten list of greatest movie tunes follows:
Over the Rainbow from The Wizard of Oz
As Time Goes By from Casablanca
Singin’ in the Rain from Singin’ in the Rain
Moon River from Breakfast at Tiffany’s
White Christmas from Holiday Inn
Mrs. Robinson from The Graduate
When You Wish Upon a Star from Pinnochio
The Way We Were from The Way We Were
Stayin’ Alive from Saturday Night Fever
The Sound of Music from The Sound of Music
Commenting on “Lose Yourself” by Eminem, Clay said:
“Movie music does not have to be soaring love ballads. Lose Yourself is definitely an example of a movie song that makes a movie much more hip and much more popular for today’s culture.”
When commenting on “Unchained Melody” from Ghost, Clay said his mother had a dream that Clay would record a cover of Unchained Melody and it would be a big hit. One week later, LeAnn Rimes came out with the recording and it became a big hit. The hopes of Clay’s mom were dashed. Clay also commented that he was in 4th grade when Ghost was released and that he did not understand the significance of the hands on the potter’s wheel during the song.
Little did anyone know that Clay would record the very best arrangement of Unchained Melody seven years later. A big thank you to Clay and Ben Cohn.
Another of Clay’s comments brought a laugh when he shared that he tried hard to learn to spell supercalifragalisticexpialidocious.
100 Years, 100 Songs, with the American Film Institute, had an audience of 12.3 million people. How many of those people were fans of Clay Aiken?
Watch the video below to see Clay’s part of the AFI show.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUUzhRJnC7g