Last year, the Academy Awards' race for best original song could be fairly boiled down to a two-horse race between two deeply different — and equally excellent — songs from the blockbuster Barbie soundtrack. Who could forget last year's Oscars, wherein Ryan Gosling made an absolute meal of "I'm Just Ken"? Good times.
This year … well.
The Oscars telecast is bypassing performances of the best original song nominees altogether, and if that sounds like an outrage, then you may not have heard the songs themselves. Because this is, to put it generously, a ragtag crop: low-key efforts from industry veterans, a decent-but-insubstantial closing-credits song from a promising up-and-comer, and two pieces from a deeply weird musical that was polarizing to critics and audiences even before it received an inexplicable 13 Oscar nominations. (And then became the subject of a whole lot more controversy, most of it unrelated to the songs.)
This is the seventh year NPR has been publishing a ranking of the best original song nominees' overall quality — here's 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020 and 2019 — and this feels like the weakest of the bunch. But someone's gotta win, so let's get rankin'!
5. "The Journey," The Six Triple Eight, performed by H.E.R. (Diane Warren, songwriter)
Diane Warren has been nominated for 16 Academy Awards — 16! sixteen! XVI! — without a win, a slight that would be considerably more regrettable if more than a handful of her nominated songs were any good. (By my count, she should have two Oscar wins, for "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing" and "Til It Happens to You," and about a dozen fewer nominations.) In recent years, she's essentially had a spot set aside for her in this category, no matter how obscure the film in question; this is her eighth year in a row with a nomination (!), and ninth in the last decade.
At this point, we can only assume that the Academy has made Warren a perennial nominee in order to ward off a curse of some kind; after all, the last time she wasn't nominated, a presenter announced that the wrong film had won best picture and chaos ensued! Surely, had Warren been passed over for a nomination this year, Sunday's Oscars telecast would make the New Year's Eve scene in The Substance look like a church picnic.
At least "The Journey," which rolls over the epilogue of the Tyler Perry war epic The Six Triple Eight, has a nice vocal by H.E.R., who defeated Warren in this category back in 2021. And it improves on the boilerplate uplift and/or defiance of many recent Warren songs, given that "The Journey" — which, make no mistake, is a thoroughly boilerplate song of uplift and defiance — could only work thematically in a film that contained a journey of some kind.
That said, this awards season has already seen the end of Beyoncé's album of the year curse. In a weak field, it's unlikely but not out of the question that Diane Warren could follow her lead, albeit far less deservingly.
4. "Mi Camino," Emilia Pérez, performed by Selena Gomez (Camille & Clément Ducol, songwriters)
In a musical full of bonkers moments — including one titled "La Vaginoplastia" — "Mi Camino" is probably Emilia Pérez's most straight-ahead, commercial-sounding pop song. It's even performed by a mainstream pop singer, both in the film and on its soundtrack, which lends each a welcome sense of proficiency.
The problem is that "Mi Camino" just isn't much of a song. It plays out in the film as little more than an interlude — a karaoke duet that morphs into a brief moment of pop bliss — before disappearing like vapor the second it ends. The songs in Emilia Pérez are a mixed bag, to put it lightly, but at least the worst ones are memorable. Few people, aside from the occasional Selena Gomez stan, would remember that this song exists by the time the credits roll.
There's rarely much sense mourning for the songs that got shortlisted for nomination only to fall short, but it's galling that "Mi Camino" received a nod over the Will & Harper theme "Harper and Will Go West," performed and co-written by the actress Kristen Wiig. The track wonderfully encapsulates the themes of the documentary it accompanies, while also, ahem, actually centering a trans narrative that does justice to its subjects. In a just world, Wiig would have this spot. (Note: There's no sense in wishing she'd taken Warren's spot. The Oscars will keep nominating dismal Diane Warren songs until sometime after the heat death of the universe.)
3. "Like a Bird," Sing Sing, performed by Abraham Alexander & Adrian Quesada (Abraham Alexander & Adrian Quesada, songwriters)
This is a tough one, because on paper, "Like a Bird" ought to be a favorite in this category: Abraham Alexander is a terrific young singer-songwriter, Adrian Quesada has been an awards favorite as a key member of Black Pumas, and Sing Sing ranks among 2024's best films. (It really should have been nominated for best picture.) Though mostly relegated to the closing credits, "Like a Bird" plays over the movie's emotional final moment.
So what's not to like? The issue is that there isn't much of a song here. Alexander's sandy, agreeable voice pairs nicely with Quesada's elastic guitar work, but the lyrics rarely reach for more than couplets of the "try, try, try / fly, fly, fly" variety. It's a good tonal and thematic match for the film that spawned it, but it feels slight by comparison.
2. "El Mal," Emilia Pérez, performed by Zoe Saldaña (Jacques Audiard, Camille & Clément Ducol, songwriters)
Before Emilia Pérez became embroiled in controversy, "El Mal" was the runaway frontrunner in this category. And, given how often the Oscars have turned a blind eye to backlash — lookin' at you, Green Book — it's most likely still the frontrunner.
"El Mal" does have a fair bit to recommend it. It's the best musical number in the film, fueled by Zoe Saldaña's bracing, physical performance. It's woven deeply into the fabric of Emilia Pérez rather than plopped limply over the closing credits; that's always a huge plus in this category. Writer-director Jacques Audiard received a writing credit alongside the film's core songwriters (Clément Ducol and Camille), which tells you that "El Mal" is intended to make a statement rather than just provide a momentary musical interlude. And it explores some of the film's most compelling ideas, as Saldaña's character excoriates members of Mexico's high society for their complicity in the ills they claim to address.
But then the film abandons those ideas completely, never to return again, rendering "El Mal" little more than an extraneous jolt of excitement in a film that's constantly hurtling off the rails. It's also, when divorced from Emilia Pérez, a tuneless and formless song; try listening to it without the accompanying visuals and it deflates like a week-old balloon. It's still the likeliest of these five songs to win, but should it?
1. "Never Too Late," Elton John: Never Too Late, performed by Elton John & Brandi Carlile (Brandi Carlile, Elton John, Bernie Taupin & Andrew Watt, songwriters)
Taken as a free-standing Elton John song, "Never Too Late" can't help but feel like a minor epilogue in a hall-of-fame career. Factor in that it was destined to serve as a closing-credits song — Elton John: Never Too Late documents the star's early career, framed by the run-up to what was billed as his final U.S. concert — and "Never Too Late" has all the trappings of a low-effort awards grab.
But damned if the song doesn't work beautifully as a portrait of an artist who can't quite believe he's around to write the final chapters of a 50-plus-year career on his own terms. "Never Too Late" was never going to match the career peaks of John's collaborations with Bernie Taupin — though the presence of Brandi Carlile, who sings with John and wrote the first draft of the lyric, certainly helps — but it works perfectly as a summation of the stories that preceded it.
John has already won two Oscars in this category, for "Can You Feel the Love Tonight?" — with Tim Rice, for 1994's The Lion King — and the Taupin collaboration "(I'm Gonna) Love Me Again," for the 2018 biopic Rocketman. Still, he feels like the sentimental favorite of this lineup.
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