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Billie Eilish, Beyoncé, Lin-Manuel Miranda
Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images; Kevin Winter/Getty Images; Chris Pizzello/APA pop queen, a voice of a new generation, an EGOT contender, a 13-time nominee still searching for a win, and a rather curmudgeonly classic rocker comprise one of the most intriguing Oscar categories at the 94th Academy Awards — Best Original Song.
There’s isn’t a dim star in the bunch this year, starting with Beyoncé, who shared her first Oscar nod with Dixson for “Be Alive” from King Richard. Billie Eilish and her brother Finneas also earned their first Oscar nominations for their James Bond theme “No Time To Die,” while Lin-Manuel Miranda could finalize his arguably inevitable EGOT if wins he for “Dos Oruguitas” from Encanto.
Rounding out the category is Diane Warren, who was once again nominated in the category she has still yet to win for “Somehow You Do” from Four Good Days. And arguably the most unexpected nominee was Van Morrison, who, in between releasing a double album and complaining about Covid-19 safety measures, released “Down to Joy” for Belfast.
With such a stacked category, it’s hard to pick a front-runner, though it’s arguably a three-way race between Beyoncé, Eilish, and Miranda. (“No Time to Die” won Best Original Song at this year’s Golden Globes, but it’s hard to say how much of an awards season bellwether the untelevised and scandal-plagued show is in 2022.) But with three superstars potentially splitting the vote, a dark horse like Morrison is always possible. Or maybe, just maybe, it’ll finally be Diane Warren’s year.
Check out all five Best Original Song nominees below. The 94th Academy Awards will take place place on March 27 at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles
“Be Alive” is vintage Beyoncé — a full-throated, empowering anthem that perfectly complements the story of how Richard Williams coached and raised his daughters, Venus and Serena Williams, to be tennis champions. Last October, Will Smith, who plays Richard in the film, told Entertainment Weekly that Beyoncé was inspired to write the song after an early screening of King Richard. “The marriage of a movie and a song is a kind of magic that’s unmatched in entertainment,” Smith said. “I was so happy when Beyoncé called.”
“Be Alive” marks Beyoncé’s first Oscar nomination. Back in 2020, she was short-listed in the Best Original Song category for “Spirit” off the Lion King soundtrack she spearheaded, but the song ultimately did not make the final cut.
“No Time to Die” has probably had one of the strangest, most prolonged journeys to the Oscars ever. The song was released long ago in the heady pre-pandemic lockdown days of February 2020, when Daniel Craig’s final James Bond flick was set to arrive that spring. Because of the song’s early release, it essentially hung around in limbo for a year and a half as No Time to Die was repeatedly delayed until finally hitting theaters last September. While the Oscars and Golden Globes held off on nominating Eilish and Finneas’ brooding theme until the movie actually came out, the Grammy Awards were unable to contain their excitement for it: “No Time to Die” picked up the trophy for Best Song Written for Visual Media at the 63rd Grammys, which were held in March 2021, six months before the movie was actually out.
When Lin-Manuel Miranda went from Broadway darling to international superstar with Hamilton, it seemed only a matter of time until the multi-talented songwriter and performer would earn his EGOT (winning an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony). He’d already won Grammys and Tonys for his breakout musical In the Heights, and he won his first Emmy for an opening number he coincidentally penned for the 67th Tony Awards broadcast. But so far, the final letter in the acronym has eluded Miranda. He picked up his first Oscar nomination in 2016 for his Moana track “How Far I’ll Go,” and “Dos Oruguitas” from Encanto is just his second (the song is performed by the Colombian singer, Sebastián Yatra).
“Dos Oruguitas” is notably the first song Miranda wrote entirely in Spanish, and as he told Rolling Stone, “[A]ll those words are just so much prettier in Spanish. ‘Dos oruguitas’ is so much more beautiful than ‘two caterpillars,’ [which would] become like a Muppets song. It becomes, like, Kermit on a log singing ‘Two Caterpillars.’ I’m bilingual, but I’m pretty English-dominant. My brain runs in English mode. And what was interesting was, in writing this song, I started dreaming in Spanish again, which I had not done since I was a kid.”
Over the past two years, the majority of attention Van Morrison has received hasn’t necessarily been for the most flattering reasons. The storied singer-songwriter has spent the pandemic railing against lockdown measures and putting his frustration into songs like “Stand Up and Deliver,” featuring fellow Covid-complainer Eric Clapton. It’s maybe no surprise that his bluster has overshadowed his involvement in Kenneth Branagh’s Belfast, where his music provides the soundtrack for a coming-of-age saga set during the Troubles in Northern Ireland (Morrison, of course, was born and raised in Belfast himself). While the movie largely features Morrison classics like “Warm Love,” “Bright Side of the Road,” and “Jackie Wilson Said (I’m in Heaven When You Smile),” he did contribute one new track, the Oscar-nominated “Down to Joy,” which appears to be loosely based on an unreleased demo from the early Seventies, “Coming Down to Joy.” In a further testament to Morrison’s quiet involvement in the film, it doesn’t appear that “Down to Joy” ever got an official release. The newly minted Oscar nominee isn’t on Spotify or Apple Music, and it only appears on YouTube via an unofficial upload.
What else is there to say about Diane Warren and her Oscar quest? This is the celebrated singer-songwriter’s 13th nomination; she’s been nominated in the Best Original song category seven of the past eight years (only missing out in 2017), and somehow she still hasn’t won the coveted prize. Warren penned her latest stab at Academy Awards glory, “Somehow You Do,” for Rodrigo Garcia’s family drama Four Good Days, and reunited with Reba McEntire, who performs the song (Warren wrote McEntires late-Nineties/early-2000s singles, “What If” and “I”ll Be”).
As Warren told ScreenRant, “Somehow You Do” was inspired as much by the Four Good Days as it was by the pandemic: “So many people are feeling lost and hopeless,” she said. “There’s that line in there, ‘Life has punched a hole in your soul,’ and a lot of people felt like it punched a hole in their soul. And yet ultimately, you’re gonna get through it. It was really a song of hope for the movie, but it also felt like a song of hope for real life.”
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Harry Styles paid tribute to the late David Hockney and reflected on his time in One Direction last night (June 12), as he kicked off his record-breaking residency at Wembley Stadium.
Hockney – whose painting of Styles was displayed at the National Portrait Gallery in 2023 – died on June 11, aged 88, and the musician honoured him during his set by sharing a quote from the painter on the big screens.
“What an artist is trying to do for people is bring them closer to something, because of course art is about sharing,” the quote read. “You wouldn’t be an artist unless you wanted to share an experience, a thought.”
Styles’ gig last night marked the first of 12 gigs at Wembley, which will see the star break the record for the most shows at the venue in a single tour. Coldplay previously held the record, delivering 10 gigs at the stadium last year as part of their Music Of The Spheres tour.
The London residency follows the Together, Together tour beginning in Amsterdam in May, and will be followed by stops in São Paulo, Mexico City, New York, Melbourne and Sydney. He will be supported by a different artist in each city, joined by Shania Twain in London, who delivered a set of hits and new tracks from her upcoming album, ‘Little Miss Twain’.
As the sounds of Simon And Garfunkel’s ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’ played over the stadium PA, Styles made his way to the stage, kicking off his set with ‘Are You Listening Yet?’, from his latest album, ‘Kiss All The Time. Disco Occasionally’. Between renditions of ‘Golden’ and ‘Adore You’, he addressed the crowd for the first time, saying: “Our job tonight is to entertain you. Your job is to have as much fun as you possibly can.
“If you want to sing, if you want to dance, please feel free. Please feel free to be whoever it is you’ve always wanted to be tonight. We’ve got each other’s backs.”
Throughout the night, Styles subtly reworked some of the songs on the setlist. He dedicated ‘Taste Back’ “to all the ravers in the house”, as a snippet of Underworld’s ‘Born Slippy’ was interpolated into the song, while a brief burst of Talking Heads’ ‘This Must Be The Place’ was introduced to ‘Treat People With Kindness’. During ‘Dance No More’, the pop star’s band played part of the groove from Happy Mondays’ ‘Step On’, while Styles sang a snatch of Gorillaz’s ‘Clint Eastwood’.
There were also nods to Styles’ days in One Direction early in the set. As the musician left the stage after ‘Fine Line’, the string section on stage played a medley featuring clips of the group’s hits ‘Night Changes’ and ‘History’, plus Styles’ own track ‘Falling’. After ‘Keep Driving’, he took the time to reflect on Wembley’s connections to his and the boyband’s journeys.
“Just outside of this building, just next door, is Wembley Arena, and 16 years ago, my sister brought me to London for the very first time for my X Factor audition,” he said. “So driving here today, and any time I come through Wembley, means so much to me, ‘cause right in that building next door, I was put into a band. We were called One Direction.
The Together, Together setlist features a different surprise song each night at the start of the encore. Last night, Styles treated the Wembley audience to ‘Little Freak’, taken from ‘Harry’s House’, for the first time since 2023. After the song, he spoke to the audience for the final time, saying: “I don’t know if you’ve been listening to me for a week, or a month, or a year, or five years, or 10 years, or 16 years, or whatever it is, but you have changed my life over and over again. Thank you so much for being here and allowing us to do these shows. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
“Finally, 16 years ago, my mother signed me up for the X Factor without my knowledge. I wouldn’t be here today if she hadn’t done that. She’s here today – thank you so much. You’ve changed my life, all of you.” Referencing a lyric in ‘Dance No More’, he added: “Remember – respect your mother.”
‘Are You Listening Yet?’
‘Golden’
‘Adore You’
‘Watermelon Sugar’
‘Music From A Sushi Restaurant’
‘Taste Back’
‘Coming Up Roses’
‘Fine Line’
‘Italian Girls’
‘American Girls’
‘Keep Driving’
‘Ready, Steady, Go!’
‘Dance No More’
‘Treat People With Kindness’
‘Pop’
‘Season 2 Weight Loss’
‘Carla’s Song’
‘Aperture’
‘Little Freak’
‘Sign Of The Times’
‘As It Was’
The Together, Together, London residency continues at Wembley Stadium tonight, with further dates on June 17, 19, 20, 23, 26, 27, 29 and July 1, 3, and 4. Visit here for any remaining UK tickets and check out doors and stage times here.
The gigs will see Styles donate £1 from every ticket sold to LIVE’s levy to help protect UK grassroots music venues and support emerging talent, and before Styles’ headline performance, the big screens at the venue encouraged fans to support Music Venues Trust.
The tour is in support of the star’s latest album, ‘Kiss All The Time. Disco Occasionally’, which was released in March. In a four-star review, NME described it as “an album that you’ll really want to spend a lot of time with, letting all its layers envelope you”. It added: “It’s the most exploratory album of his career so far, trying out new things and steering his ship in new directions.”
Meanwhile, Styles has also curated this year’s Meltdown Festival at the Southbank Centre. The line-up chosen by the star includes Stephen Fretwell, Nilüfer Yanya, Orlando Weeks, Bar Italia, Dev Hynes, Jon Hopkins, Getdown Services, LCD Soundsystem’s James Murphy, Soulwax and more, as well as an intimate gig from Styles himself.
The festival kicked off earlier this week (June 11) with a performance from Los Angeles’ Warpaint, whose show was their first in nearly two years. During the gig, they shared fan favourites like ‘Love Is To Die, ‘Billie Holiday’ and ‘Disco//Very’, plus a cover of Kate Bush’s ‘Running Up That Hill’.
