OVP: Best Original Song (2018)
The Nominees Were...
"All the Stars," Music & Lyric by Kendrick Lamar, Mark Spears, SZA, & Anthony Tiffith, Black Panther
"I'll Fight," Music & Lyric by Diane Warren, RBG
"The Place Where Lost Things Go," Music & Lyric by Marc Shaiman & Scott Wittman, Mary Poppins Returns
"Shallow," Music & Lyric by Lady Gaga, Mark Ronson, Anthony Rossomando, & Andrew Wyatt, A Star is Born
"When a Cowboy Trades His Spurs for Wings," Music & Lyric by Gillian Welch & David Rawlings, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs
My Thoughts: We are moving into the aural categories at the 2018 Oscars this week, specifically our two music categories. Best Original Song throughout the 2010's has been a strange combination of Disney-Pixar, documentary credit songs, & random added-on tunes to established stage musicals. As a result, you'd be warranted to argue that the Best Original Song category might not be needed anymore in the modern-day Oscars. After all-if songs aren't essential to the movies, but merely ways for someone to pad their Oscar count, what's the point?
2018 offered up an answer with not one, but two major hits from the year, both of which hit the Billboard Top 10. Perhaps the best-known was "Shallow," a major musical comeback for Lady Gaga, and the centerpiece to A Star is Born, one of two original musicals in this collection. I've discussed on this blog some of my struggles with Lady Gaga as a celebrity, but that doesn't mean that I'm blind to when she does something extraordinary, and "Shallow" is very much that. A total triumph both in the movie (by far A Star is Born's finest scene), as well as if you're just listening to it, "Shallow" is a great song on an album where Gaga obviously knew what she had & went all-in.
Kendrick Lamar's "All the Stars" was also a huge hit in 2018, and the song is very much a "bop" to use probably-dated parlance. The movie feels like a new chapter for the Marvel Cinematic Universe (which does not frequently indulge in songs over its end credits), indicating that it can match a specific film's aesthetic. Lamar's cool, melodic beats are the perfect partner to the groundbreaking Black Panther. My only problem here is that this is an end credits song-it's an end credits song that does a brilliant job mirroring the film it's representing, but it's still an end credits song, and as a general rule I take away a point from any end credits songs because they aren't really organic to the actual movie itself. Otherwise, though, this is a winner.
This is the case for "I'll Fight" from RBG, one of the many consecutive songs that Diane Warren has scored a nomination for in the past decade, the music branch desperately trying to get the Academy at large to give the woman an Oscar. I remember when Jennifer Hudson performed this at the Oscars someone on Twitter cheekily proclaimed "there are a lot of notes out there, and Jennifer Hudson is going to make sure she sings all of them." "I'll Fight," is one of those songs-it's a big, boisterous ballad that feels filled with pablum in terms of its lyrics. Hudson is a good enough singer for you to not care that this is not a lyrically-challenging tune, but once you put it up against something as strong as "Shallow," that becomes apparent pretty quickly.
Our last two songs are not end credit songs, but they hit me in different ways. "When a Cowboy Trades His Spurs for Wings" underlines for me one of the bigger problems with The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, that its tone is far too inconsistent (in general, a problem I have with anthology pictures). The movie itself is comedic in one corner & deeply dramatic in the next, without enough thorough line connecting it for my sake. This song feels off-place, and a bit of a joke, when you examine it in connection with some of the movie's better moments, and even if the lyrics have some humor, when a song takes you out of a picture it isn't doing its job.
This is the opposite of "Place Where Lost Things Go," which was my favorite of the Mary Poppins Returns songs. Here, the song is honestly doing more good than it should, giving us a sense of what the filmmakers wanted Mary Poppins Returns to be (a children's classic similar to the 1964 original) rather than what it is (a pleasant, if predictable remake of the Julie Andrews masterpiece). Emily Blunt is in full-throated glory here, and gives us the bittersweet bite that is Mary Poppins-tough, but loving. Plus, it establishes much of the rest of the picture to come, so bonus points for the song being pivotal to the plot.
Other Precursor Contenders: The Golden Globes couldn't deny "Shallow," with both its omnipresent radio play and a star to accept it. The song beat "All the Stars," "Girl in the Movies" (from Dumplin), "Requiem for a Private War," (Private War), and "Revelation," (Boy Erased), so literally every single one of these were music stars up for the awards considering these are penned by Kendrick Lamar, Dolly Parton, Annie Lennox, and Troye Sivan, respectively. The Grammys split theirs over two years, but proving that the Grammys have the backbone of a lemon when it comes to eligibility, both 2019 and 2020 went to songs from A Star is Born (first "Shallow" and then "I'll Never Love Again"), with "All the Stars," "Girl in the Movies," and "Suspirium" (from Suspiria) nominated for 2018 films. All-in-all, I think Dolly Parton was probably sixth place, and suspect if her movie had come out a year or two later she'd have gotten the nomination, or maybe the win, based on her current goodwill.
Songs I Would Have Nominated: I know that it wasn't eligible, because the writers of A Star is Born were worried about a vote split costing Gaga her trophy, but "Maybe It's Time" would've been a surefire nominee for me if every original song from 2018 had been eligible.
Oscar’s Choice: "Shallow" won, perhaps getting every vote in the Academy save Diane Warren's.
My Choice: I yield-this is an easy call for Gaga. I'll follow her with Mary Poppins, Black Panther, RBG, and Buster Scruggs.
Those are my thoughts-how about yours? Does anyone want to go against "Shallow" here? How many A Star is Born songs make your personal lineup? And will Dolly Parton ever get her third Oscar nomination? Share your thoughts below!
Also in 2018: Production Design, Cinematography, Costume, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup & Hairstyling, Previously in 2018
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