Sunday night was Hollywood’s prom: the glitzy and glamorous 83rd annual Academy Awards, a night to honor those who work in the film industry. Of course, the focus of the event is always on the prestigious (overrated? predictable, maybe?) Best Picture award, but as was made clear in the presentation for this year’s Best Original Score award, music also plays an essential role in Oscar-nominated movies.

Historically, music has always served as an intrinsic element of film. During the silent film era, pianists would play live music alongside film reels, imbuing the film with nuance, tension and emotion. While films no longer require live accompanists, a good score can still make or break a movie, enhancing the dialogue and blending in seamlessly with the action. When experienced independent of the film, a good score should also be listenable; and when done right, it will make the listener remember the exact scene where in which it was played.

So, my apologies to Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, but I don’t think you both deserved to win that Best Score Oscar for The Social Network. The film’s score is extremely distracting at times, and the main “Hand Covers Bruise” is the sonic equivalent to bees and mosquitoes buzzing in my ears. Several tracks use a layering technique, starting with a single repeated sound or rhythm and gradually building on it, but none of this fancy footwork imparts an emotional effect on the listener. In fact, The Social Network’s win for Best Original Score was the single most frustrating moment of this year’s Oscars.

So who should have won? Unfortunately, I won’t be able to properly review the soundtrack from nominee 127 Hours, because I haven’t had the pleasure of actually watching James Franco fall into a canyon, break his arm and cut it off with a dull pocketknife. Composer A.R. Rahman won two Oscars for his work on Slumdog Millionaire, but unfortunately 127 Hours’ “meditative” and “human” score didn’t have nearly the feel-good dance factor that “Jai Ho” did.

It was a lot easier to see the connections that composer Alexandre Desplat (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button) was trying to make with his score for The King’s Speech. The entire score has a chamber music feel, reminiscent of live accompaniments to silent films. Throughout the soundtrack, Desplat makes a distinction between the tracks meant to portray King George VI as an individual and as a monarch: A light, whimsical piano theme contrasts with the ensemble of strings used in the scenes where the King must carry out his royal duties. Unfortunately, the most moving song on the soundtrack is not an original composition, but a recording of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 that was played at the climax of the film.

Inception won the Oscar for Best Sound Mixing and Editing, and Hans Zimmer’s (Sherlock Holmes) score was one of my favorites while watching the movies. The superbly mixed score uses a mix of synthesized sounds and an orchestra, enhancing the dreamscape with digital notes and static whispers in the background. Several tracks use the same layering technique that was used in The Social Network’s score, but here the layers build to an emotional crescendo, reflecting the movie’s theme of constructing different layers of dreams. However, the emotions evoked while listening to the Inception soundtrack are inextricably linked to the film itself, making the soundtrack inaccessible when experienced separately from the film.

In an ideal world, The Bourne Ultimatum composer John Powell’s score for How To Train Your Dragon would have won. The soundtrack tells a cohesive story, with a full orchestra playing variations on recurring themes. Listening to the soundtrack, I was instantly transported back to the movie theater, getting those warm fuzzy feelings while watching the growing friendship between Hiccup and Toothless, and holding my breath during the final fight sequence. Although one could say that Powell’s score was the most obvious and clichéd of the nominees (it utilizes both the classic fantasy open-vocals and Celtic instruments and styles), it is also the most uplifting, and it definitely made for great listening.

In conclusion, even though I think the Academy made the wrong decision by awarding The Social Network the Best Score award, overall it has been a good year for movie music. Here’s hoping for another one.