That certainly wasn't as terrible as I've always heard. I mean, hey it was the 80's! That's what you did! You can't say she didn't dance spectacularly.
This was an unfortunate example of Oscar's need for a production number getting in the way of the song itself. It needed a good, strong pop singer, who cared about the words being sung and could navigate its melody, and that ain't what it got.
The look on Phil Collins' face when the camera cut to him said it all. It is not shown on this video, but if you watched the Oscars that year you probably remember it.
This performance is really par for the course of Oscar song performances back then.
The reason it is remembered is because Phil Collins had made several appeals to the Academy to be able to sing the song himself, but was refused. So he went to the press, who sided with him.
This put Ann in a pretty awkward situation, and that certainly didn't help her performance.
She isn't great on vocals there, but it isn't a train wreck or anything. And the dancing is nice. They should have let Collins sing his song with Reinking and that dude dancing off to the side.
This doesn't live up to the legend....I had always heard that it was jaw dropping in its' awfulness, and this while not good, just didn't make my jaw drop. Liked the dancing, did not like the singing or the pairing of singer/song, but still not as bad as some of those Debbie Allen numbers.