Soundtracking: The 2019 Original Song Nominees
Tuesday, January 14, 2020 at 10:33AM by Chris Feil
Right on schedule, the "why do we still have Best Original Song?" responses have arrived. While this year doesn't rank high among the greats in terms of quality, I, your resident Best Original Song obsessive, would argue that this year's crop of nominees is far from the worst. The most expected (or at least predicted) nominee left off the list was The Lion King's "Spirit", though we can all rest on the certainty that Beyoncé will one day be a nominee here. And then there is many folks saddest omission, Wild Rose's "Glasgow (No Place Like Home)", sadly from a small film that couldn't ultimately battle against bigger names and titles.
Let's break down the nominees and their potential to win...
Breakthrough - "I'm Standing With You" - Written by Diane Warren
Folks who weren't predicting this were probably blinded by the song's dreadfulness (not to mention the film's cringe factor), but they were also forgetting one of Oscar's favorite past-times: offering up the spread's most WTF nomination AND nominating one of our greatest songwriters for her worst work. Look, even if her (long, un-trophey-ed) Oscar history might not reflect it, Warren is a still an icon that we shouldn't be surprised to see show up come nomination morning. But that doesn't mean she's winning.
Frozen 2 - "Into the Unknown" - Written by Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez
Surely Frozen 2 missing out in Animated Feature takes some wind out of the sails of the chances for the Lopezes to be again rewarded for their efforts for this franchise. Though maybe not - while enthusiasm for the film as a whole is considerably milder than the original, this will easily be the song voters are most familiar with thanks to children slamming it on repeat over the holiday season. It's the earworm of the lineup, which in recent years for the category makes it more of a wild card to win than a safe bet. More importantly: let John Travolta present the performance by Adele Dazeem again, you cowards!!
Harriet - "Stand Up" - Written by Cynthia Erivo and Joshuah Brian Campbell
The double acting-songwriting nominee trend continues! I'm feeling shakier on my early prediction that this would be our eventual winner, thanks to a certain Globe winner's "we've never won a prize together!" narrative. But Erivo's acting nomination does present a unique leg up on her competition here, one that I think still could make for a possible winner. With no Best Picture nominees in the lineup, an acting nomination surely helps a song contender be seen and heard when all branches are voting.
Rocketman - "(I'm Gonna) Love Me Again" - Written by Elton John and Bernie Taupin
While the Golden Globes' Original Song winners cannot blithely be trusted to translate to Oscar wins, this contender got a massive jolt of needed narrative when John mentioned in his speech that their legendary pairing had never received a major award together. Considering craft categories can soar with the faintest hint of an isolated narrative and that Rocketman has led one of the most earnest campaigns overall this year, this may be all wrapped up.
Toy Story 4 - "I Can't Let You Throw Yourself Away" - Written by Randy Newman
Honor the Forky, honor the film. I knew I should have predicted this, given that Randy Newman has never missed a nomination for this series and his history with Disney has made him one of Oscar's most nominated living artists. And hey, Cynthia Erivo isn't the category's only double nominee, as Newman was also nominated for Marriage Story's original score. While he probably has better chances in that other category, he'll likely leave the ceremony empty handed.
All Soundtracking installments can be found here!
Reader Comments (28)
I always give this category the benefit of the doubt, especially after the well-deserved nomination for Sufjan Stevens a couple of years ago, but most of the time it always makes me look foolish. This category favors cheesy songs. None of the songs here will be remembered, even the Frozen one.
"We can all rest on the certainty that Beyoncé will one day be a nominee here."
don't hold your breath
Kelli O'Hara?
I'm easily rooting for Elton John here. It's the only memorable song in the category and the best movie represented.
love her! too much voice. This is almost a Sally Bowles song.
If voters are sent Panic! at the Disco's brilliant end credits version of "Into the Unknown" along with the one with Menzel/Aurora and an appearance by both is announced for the ceremony, the song should walk away with the Oscar.
But it's more likely to go to Erivo or Elton and Bernie, even though he misspoke at the Globes. They may not won any international prizes together, but they have won several Ivor Novello Awards, a prestigious and globally respected UK songwriting prize.
I'm betting Erivo completes her EGOT with the Best Song win.
Show Yourself was the best Frozen song in my opinion but Into the Unknown was most promoted so no surprise it was nominated, however Disney could promote more than one song form a same film, they did have multiple songs nominated from the same film in the 90.
I am glad Spirit wasn’t nominated.
If Taron doesn't want to sing I'll be happy to lip sync.
After listening to these songs, I'm more than ever convinced that the category ought to be scrapped completely. The Harriet and Toy Story 4 songs are forgettable, making them infinitely preferable to the 3 others, which are worse than godawful.
Wanker!
Errivo for the EGOT!
Will Chrissy Metz perform at the cerimony?
Elton and Bernie will probably win.
I love how three of the songs have titles that are first-person declarations. That's got to be unprecedented.
With FROZEN II and ROCKETMAN otherwise ignored by voters, this really could've been an ideal scenario for Diane Warren...had she been nominated for a listenable song.
@ Jonathan
1996: "You Must Love Me," "I Finally Found Someone," "Because You Loved Me"
1944: "I'll Walk Alone," "I Couldn't Sleep a Wink Last Night," "Remember Me to Carolina," "I'm Making Believe," "Now I Know" (12 nominees that year)
The nominees in 1940, 1940, 1942, 1974, 1999, 2006 and 2010 also included three or more first-person titles, but they weren't necessarily declarations (e.g., "Who Am I?" "Wherever Love Takes Me," "Our Town," "The Last Time I Saw Paris," "Since I Kissed My Baby Goodbye" etc.)
I would have LOVED to see Catchy Song performed live. Like really, just imagine it...
The Rocketman song feels like a bunch of John/Taupin songs got poured into a blender and someone pressed "High".
We must always preserve this fun category. It must remain en eternum. If for any reason, until we get this shit right!
My problem with this category at the moment is they they seem to have abandoned their preference for songs performed in film and not just end credits tracks. Only the animated flicks have that, right? Harriet, Rocketman and Breakthrough (I assume; I haven’t seen it) are all end credits tracks. And when WILD ROSE was right there. Where were the voters who gave us PARIS 36 and that Canadian choir flick just because their songs were performed in the movie?
That being said, my favourite is far and away the HARRIET tune. It’s a great song with really interesting production great vocals and lyrics that are actually from its character’s POV and not just some bland sentiment about looking into yourself and finding love or something.
That song from Breakthrough is ugh... I hate Christian music. It's so pandering and unimaginative. Just like today's music.
I'm going with Sir Elton John and Bernie Taupin.
Diane Warren needs to slow down and work on getting her work into actual good movies instead of writing songs for every weird-ass movie that will have her.
Yikes. This is dire. The inclusion of that Randy Newman song is truly a sign of the endtimes. Now I’m even more mad that “Glasgow” got overlooked, and I didn’t think that was even possible.
Is it worth having Peggy Sue back if ‘her’ versions of funny (commenters ‘Rami’ and ‘Taron’) come hauled along? We only seem to get them when she is buzzing around. Plus she was the relenter of the amicable rebranding that bought peace to early 2020.
The exclusion of "Glasgow" despite the poor quality of the competition is quite disappointing. I can only think to chalk it up to the music branch being so insular. I'm assuming at least four of these songs come from members of the branch. I assume that The Lopezes, Diane Warren, Randy Newman, and Elton John are all members since they're former nominees/winners. If Cynthia Erivo was invited after Beyond the Lights, that'd complete the set.
Kennedy D -- the only reason peggy sue (the real one) was brought into that rebranding argument was because someone was imitating. so i've just deleted the impostor again. whoever is imitating people also pretended to be me on occassion and the only way i ever got involved was to ask people to stop being childish... the whole thing is so idiotic including all these "peace" deals between people we dont even know were necessearily arguing given that people were using each others names to cause infighting makes some sort of stupid point or try to force my hand to spend hours I do not have to recode the site or install some new commenting system.
Was Beyoncé not a part of the nominated songwriters for "Listen"?
Yeah, can't see how the Elton Song doesn't take it. It's the clear ear worm AND the sentimental favourite AND the one of these that's most obviously deserving of broader support. Frozen II? If they went for the "super blatant subtext scene song", Show Yourself, I'd see that as a possible upset, where the Academy would be voting to support dropping the pretence (official gay Disney Princess) more so than the song itself. Into the Unknown, though a slightly catchier (but also, honestly, not as good) song, isn't nearly overt enough to fit that narrative. Harriet? The closest winner to this would actually be Selma. And that was...let's say...special. Selma was a Best Picture Nominee that ONLY got a Song Nomination (which means it obviously had A BUNCH of 6th place positions), so the Academy had to give it the win or that BP nomination would look EXTREMELY fishy. If Selma was more nominated (even 2-3 other nominations), Everything Is Awesome probably would have taken that, easy. Yeah, Harriet's probably not winning. The other two? Just be happy with the nom.