The 2026 Academy Award nominations were recently announced and there are a number of music-related honorees even beyond the song and score categories. But instead of talking about Song Sung Blue, let's learn some previously unknown trivia about an Oscar-nominated music movie released thirty years ago.
That Thing You Do! was the first film credit for Adam Schlesinger, the late songwriting genius behind Fountains Of Wayne and Ivy. He wrote and recorded "That Thing You Do!" to serve as the hit by fictional '60s pop band the Oneders aka the Wonders in Tom Hanks' 1996 film of the same name. (The Candy Butchers' Mike Viola sang the lead vocal mimed by Johnathon Schaech in the movie.)
The song "That Thing You Do!" was nominated for an Oscar and charted just shy of the real-life Top 40. Schlesinger went on to an illustrious TV/movie scoring career, with three Emmy wins and too many credits to count. Most of the That Thing You Do! soundtrack was written by behind-the-scenes types like Scott Rogness and Rick Elias, but apparently some other '90s power-pop acts submitted songs that didn't make the cut.
Three decades after the movie's release, Danny Benair has now randomly revealed some previously unknown details about the soundtrack. On his social media accounts, the former Polygram Music Publishing exec has been sharing excerpts from demo tapes that he'd held onto.
In 1995, Gigolo Aunts were coming off the success of their biggest hit, "Where I Find My Heaven," which was featured in 1994's Dumb And Dumber. The Potsdam, NY rockers did ultimately get a Wonders song on the That Thing You Do! soundtrack, "Little Wild One." But Benair revealed they submitted a bunch more, including three attempts at the Wonders' big hit. (“They described to us what Tom Hanks wanted which was songs that sounded like faux-Beatles tunes," bassist Steve Hurley said in 2007.) Gigolo Aunts also submitted a track called “Draw The Line" that has never been released.
Another cassette, labelled "Film Ideas," came from World Party. That contained the late British songwriter Karl Wallinger's ideas for the Wonders. This would've been shortly after World Party's "Young Americans"-inspired track "When You Come Back To Me" was selected for 1994's beloved Reality Bites soundtrack. Ultimately none of Wallinger's tunes were used for TTYD!, but the song previewed in Benair's video became "It Is Time" from World Party's 1997 album Egyptology.
Benair also shared excerpts from a couple of demos by the Cardigans. One is labeled "Untitled Song for ‘Romeo + Juliet.’" The track, which was selected for the soundtrack for 1996's Romeo + Juliet, was "Lovefool," their biggest hit. Turns out the Swedish pop-rock band also submitted "Juliet's Theme"; it was not selected, but ultimately became "Great Divide" from their 1996 album First Band On The Moon (the same LP with "Lovefool").
Check out clips from all these demos below and lemme know if I'm the only one who finds this lore interesting.
Gigolo Aunts’ "That Thing You Do!" demo v1:
Gigolo Aunts’ "That Thing You Do!" demo v2:
Another unused Gigolo Aunts' demo for the Wonders, “Draw The Line”:
Adam Schlesinger’s "That Thing You Do!" demo:
World Party's submission for That Thing You Do!:
The Cardigans' “Untitled Song For ‘Romeo + Juliet’" aka "Lovefool":
The Cardigans' "Juliet's Theme":
