Since the Academy Awards are being held this evening, this post takes a look at songs from the Billboard year-end Top Ten charts (1951-2015) that refer to various aspects of movie-making. A search of the lyrics of this collection resulted in songs that make reference to 1) actors; 2) theaters; 3) Hollywood; and 4) film production.

The first category can be broken down into two subcategories. The first comprises the names of specific actors, such as James Dean in Don McLean's "American Pie" (1971) and John Mellencamp's "Jack and Diane" (1982); Bette Davis in Kim Carne's "Bette Davis Eyes" (1981); Michelle Pfeiffer in Mark Ronson's "Uptown Funk" (2015); and several in Madonna's "Vogue" (1990):

Another subcategory of actor references consists of generic references, as in uses of the term movie star in Mary Wells' "My Guy" (1964) and in Santana's "Maria, Maria" (1999); film star in Iggy Azalea's "Fancy" (2014); and a beauty queen from a movie scene in Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean" (1982):

References to movie-going in the collection include early movie in Rod Stewart's "Do Ya Think I'm Sexy" (1978); suggestive movie in Olivia Newton-John's "Physical" (1981); and movie screen in Fergie's "Glamorous" (2006).

The collection includes two songs that refer to Hollywood: Eve's "Let Me Blow Ya Mind" (2001) and Mark Ronson's "Uptown Funk" (2015):

Mark Ronson's official music video for 'Uptown Funk' ft. Bruno Mars. Click to listen to Mark Ronson on Spotify: http://smarturl.it/MarkRonsonSpotify?IQid=MarkRUF As featured on Uptown Special.

Finally, two songs of the collection also refer to the production of making movies, namely, Rihanna's "Umbrella" (2007) and Eve's "Let Me Blow Ya Mind" (2001):

And as a bonus, this non-Billboard-charting song from Led Zeppelin:

My latest Zep video. Enjoy everyone!

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