Please welcome new contributor Kyndall Cunningham...
When the soundtrack for this year’s The Lion King remake dropped in July along with the lead single “Spirit,” performed by Beyoncé, fans on Twitter described its long-awaited arrival as the singer “coming to collect her things” - one of those things obviously being an Oscar for Best Original Song.
The gospel-inspired ballad penned by Beyoncé, the British singer-producer Labrinth and songwriter Ilya Salmanzadeh includes Swahili chants, a choir and, of course, Beyonce’s acrobatic vocals that practically summon thunder by the end of it. The song is noticeably Oscar-baity in its grandeur but also in that a live performance at the ceremony would prompt a long standing O and make for one of the best moments of the night...
Think of John Legend and Common’s 2015 performance of “Glory” from Selma or Pharrell’s performance the previous year of “Happy” from Despicable Me 2. Also, when has a televised Beyoncé performance not sent Twitter into a frenzy or made national headlines?
Despite Disney’s best efforts to promote the crap out of The Lion King’s music (i.e. ABC’s Beyoncé Presents: Making The Gift), the path to the Oscars stage is never as clear as it initially seems once you realize how many blockbusters are still to come during the holidays.
Enter Cats and Frozen 2.
Last month, Taylor Swift and Andrew Lloyd Webber announced in a very solemn featurette that they had written an original song for Cats called “Beautiful Ghosts.” While I’m not sure anyone is dying to see Webber—already a winner in this category— receive another, Swift is a more intriguing case considering how many times she’s thrown her hat in the Oscars ring and gotten zip. There was “Safe and Sound” from The Hunger Games, “Sweeter Than Fiction” from One Chance and the remarkably unsexy “I Don’t Wanna Live Forever” from Fifty Shades Darker, all of which received nominations for other awards but were ignored by the Academy. It will be interesting to see whether Academy voters will finally acknowledge the clearly yearning pop star.
[Side note: How fun would it be if Beyoncé, Taylor Swift, and Elton John (Rocketman), all went head to head in this category? The Twitter war between the Beyhive and the Swifties would be unbearable but it would make for a night of dazzling performances and maybe an increase in Oscars viewership. ]
Then there’s Frozen 2, due at the end of November, which will inevitably produce one, if not several critically acclaimed tunes performed by Adele Dazeem and/or Kristen Bell. The Academy loves a cute, earnest Disney song, particularly from a franchise as popular and lucrative as Frozen. So, despite having no information about the film’s soundtrack, I’m locking it in as Beyoncé’s biggest challenger. We also can’t forget about Disney’s other big summer blockbuster Aladdin, which is likely to earn a nomination for the Princess Jasmine ballad “Speechless.” There’s also “The Ballad of the Lonesome Cowboy” from Toy Story 4. Needless to say, Disney will be doing a lot of competing against itself this year.
Somehow "Homecoming: A Film by Beyoncé:" lost all 6 of its Emmy categories in September.
Maybe the most important thing to consider is that the big award shows haven’t been that nice to Beyoncé in recent years, nominating her in all the major categories but giving Grammys and Emmys to her white peers instead. If she’s nominated and wins, Black Twitter constituents like myself will be very pleased. And after giving Green Book Best Picture last year, the Academy owes us!
Related: Oscar Charts, Sound & Music