The music industry celebrated itself with the 51st Grammy Awards that were broadcast on CBS last night, and James Newton Howard and Hans Zimmer won the award for "Best Score Soundtrack Album For Motion Picture, Television Or Other Visual Media" for their work on The Dark Knight.

They beat out the other nominees in that category:

• Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull - John Williams, composer
• Iron Man - Ramin Djawadi, composer
• There Will Be Blood - Jonny Greenwood, composer
• WALL-E - Thomas Newman, composer

Readers here know that I'm a big fan of the score for The Dark Knight, so it's no surprise that I'm pretty happy about this news, especially in light of the score getting snubbed by the Oscars, not once but twice! I haven't seen There Will Be Blood, but the other movies did have good soundtracks, but not to the level of The Dark Knight.

In addition to "Best Score Soundtrack Album," there were two other categories that were movie-related. In the category "Best Compilation Soundtrack Album For Motion Picture, Television Or Other Visual Media," the winner was Juno. Other nominees included American Gangster, August Rush, Mamma Mia!, and Sweeney Todd — The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street.

The other category was for "Best Song Written For Motion Picture, Television Or Other Visual Media," in which "Down To Earth" from WALL-E was the winner. The song was written by Peter Gabriel & Thomas Newman and performed by Peter Gabriel. The other nominees were "Ever Ever After" from Enchanted, "Say" from The Bucket List, "That's How You Know" from Enchanted, and "Walk Hard" from Walk Hard — The Dewey Cox Story.

I just watched Mamma Mia! this weekend, and I liked it a lot! The way they weaved the songs from ABBA into a musical was very enjoyable, and I never knew that Meryl Streep could sing so well, and Pierce Brosnan could not... It's easy to see why the soundtrack was nominated, and perhaps a little surprising that it did not take home the award.

In case you're wondering why some of these movies are being grouped together (they're not all from 2008), the eligibility period for this Grammy celebration is October 1, 2007 through September 30, 2008.

If you're interested in hearing samples from these soundtracks, please see the links below. Gift Shop merchants Amazon.com and iTunes Store have them available for download and CD's are also available on Amazon.com.

• Grammy Winners and Nominees -- Amazon.com
• iTunes Store Music -- iTunes Store