The annual awards season feels like it's been going on forever, but we only just got to this year's Oscar nominations this morning. In Los Angeles, Charli XCX buddies Rachel Sennott and Bowen Yang read off the nominees. As usual, a few big-deal musicians were among the nominees.
Yesterday, the Wrap reported that this year's Oscars telecast will do away with the performances of all the Best Original Song nominees. Instead, the show will celebrate the nominees through "personal reflections," according to an email sent to Academy members per that Oscar-speak email, the show will still have "powerful musical moments that connect film’s rich history to its bold and inspiring future," but we won't get the long breaks for people to sing end-credits ballads from movies that may or may not actually exist. Considering this year's list of nominees, that's a good thing. We got some snoozers here!
Best Original Song nominees include two of the songs that Clément Ducol and Camille wrote for the musical Emilia Pérez: Golden Globe winner "El Mal," sung by Zoe Saldaña, and "Mi Camino," sung by Selena Gomez. Elton John, Bernie Taupin, Brandi Carlile, and Andrew Wyatt are nominated for "Never Too Late," from the Disney+ documentary Elton John: Never Too Late. Elton John is already a two-time winner for "Can You Feel The Love Tonight" in 1994 and "(I'm Gonna) Love Me Again" in 2019. He shared the latter award with Taupin, while Miike Snow leader Wyatt was nominated for "I'm Just Ken" last year. Black Pumas member Adrian Quesada and singer-songwriter Abraham Alexander are up for "Like A Bird" from Sing Sing, while perpetual nominee Diane Warren scores her 16th nomination for "The Journey," which H.E.R. recorded for Tyler Perry's Netflix war film The Six Triple Eight. Warren has never won, and this probably isn't her year.
As far as Best Original Score goes, former Yuck frontman Daniel Blumberg is nominated for his stirring work on The Brutalist, while Volker Bertelmann, also known as Hauschka, is up for Conclave. Those Best Original Song nominations were not enough for Clément Ducol and Camille, who have also been nominated for their Emilia Pérez score. John Powell and Stephen Schwartz are nominated for Wicked, as is Kris Bowers for The Wild Robot. Notable omissions include two-time winners Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, whose Challengers and Queer scores go unrecognized.
In the other categories, the biggest music-related story is probably Ariana Grande's Best Supporting Actress nomination for Wicked, which is not a surprise but which still solidifies an extremely successful transition to film acting. The Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown has eight nominations, including Best Picture and Best Director for James Mangold. Timothée Chalamet is nominated for playing Dylan, Monica Barbaro for playing Joan Baez, and Edward Norton for playing Pete Seeger. Selena Gomez did not get an acting nomination for Emilia Pérez, but Karla Sofía Gascón and Zoe Saldaña both did.
In fact, Emilia Pérez led the pack with a bewildering 13 nominations. The all-time record is 14 nominations -- a record jointly held by All About Eve, Titanic, and La La Land. Those guys sure like Emilia Pérez. This year's Oscars go down 3/2, and the show will air on ABC and stream live on Hulu. Conan O'Brien is hosting, so that should be good.
