The category of Best Original Song at the Academy Awards has been something of a controversy as of late. Many have complained that sub par or undeserving pieces have been nominated and even won due to technicalities in the rules. Take, for instance, last year’s snub of Bruce Springsteen’s “The Wrestler,” which virtually the entire movie-going world had marked down as the sure winner, but failed to even garner a nomination based on some hazy technicality that no one really seems to understand.

Well, according to The Hollywood Reporter, the Academy’s answer for this is to simply not present an award at all if there is no song deserving of it.

The changes to the rules will take effect at next year’s ceremony, the 82nd Annual Academy Awards, and will require that at least one song  achieve a minimum score of 8.25 on a scale of 6 to 10 in voting by members of the academy’s music branch.

“We’re trying to improve the quality,” said composer Bruce Broughton, head the music branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. “There’s been a lot of talk about the songs in films, the lack of memorability compared to songs in the past, the almost forgetability of some of them. … This is an attempt to really make the songs as good as possible.”

The THR article goes on to report, “The music branch has about 230 members, who rate songs after viewing them in a marathon screening or on a DVD compilation of the tunes as they appear in the films.

If no song achieves the minimum score, there will be no best-song Oscar awarded. If only one song scores that well, then it and the tune with the next-highest score will be the category’s two nominees. The number of nominees in the category can range from two to five depending on how many hit the minimum score.

Broughton said while the change sets minimum standards songs must meet, he doubted that there would be a year when the category would be scrapped because no tunes rated highly enough.”

And there you have it.  Another strange and baffling solution from the Academy.