It’s part of why the movie works, but the lack of name recognition may have kept some of those that do the Oscar voting away, and it may have also kept the movie out of the memories of others, since it didn’t come out during “awards season.”
Sing Street made a lot of end-of-the-year top ten lists in 2016, including more than one here at CinemaBlend.
However, when the big awards are handed out in February, none of them will go to Sing Street.
It may be that one of the film’s biggest strengths ended up being a problem when it came time to nominating it.