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"Loser" is definitely Beck.
There are actually two choices each for "Creep" & "Freak(s)," and you each covered my favorites, but I also liked Stone Temple Pilots' "Creep" (which, ironically, hit the airwaves at the same time as Radiohead's) and Silverchair's "Freak" (which, even more ironically, was also on the airwaves at the same time as Live's "Freaks.")
Gotta love that self-degrading mopey grungy rock.
As for the 2nd Oscar question, "Oliver" was the last musical to win Best Picture, and generally the Academy has not thought highly of adaptations made from Broadway musicals, and so they are the exception to the Adapted Screenplay/Best Picture rule, rarely ever winning... and sometimes not even getting nominated...
...as in 1965, when "My Fair Lady" was glossed over for a Best Original Screenplay nomination.
I believe that 1969 was actually the turning point in Academy history, the first of two parts of the transition to the modern era in film history. After "Midnight Cowboy's" victory, never again would a "fluffy" film (musical or otherwise) like "My Fair Lady" or "Oliver" stand a chance. Some element of nobility and harsh reality became a prerequisite for Best Picture winners, the lines between good guys and bad guys not only were allowed to be blurred (such as before-its-time-winner "Lawrence of Arabia") but they could vanish altogether, and feel-good endings were no longer required. (I must say, though, that as much as I sometimes trash "Gone with the Wind," I wouldn't exactly call its ending "feel-good.")
With the first blockbuster "The Godfather" in 1972, the transition to the modern era became complete and we have the movie world as we now know it.
And that's today's Moment in Academy History.
sticking a feather in his cap,
The Radiohead, The Silverchair & the Beck
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