The Recording Academy announced the 2023 Grammy Award nominations this morning and there were few surprises. Beyonce led all nominees with nine nods followed by Kendrick Lamar with eight, Adele with seven, and Future and Harry Styles with six each. But for Oscar watchers, these Grammys nominations provided an intriguing sneak peek into a number of competitive music categories for the 2023 Academy Awards.
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The qualification timelines of both awards are off by a number of months, so the complimentary categories rarely line up. For instance, for Best Score Soundtrack For Visual Media, only one of the nominees, Michael Giacchino (“The Batman”), qualifies for the Oscar for Best Original Score. The other four nominees, Germaine Franco (“Encanto”), Hans Zimmer (“No Time To Die”), Jonny Greenwood (“The Power of the Dog”), and Nicholas Britell (“Succession: Season 3”), either earned Oscar or Emmy nominations this past year or qualified for 2022. Now, Best Song Written For Visual Media? That’s much more interesting.
The nominees are:
“Be Alive” [From “King Richard”] Beyoncé & Darius Scott Dixson, songwriters (Beyoncé)
“Carolina” [From “Where The Crawdads Sing”] Taylor Swift, songwriter (Taylor Swift)
“Hold My Hand” [From “Top Gun: Maverick”] Bloodpop & Stefani Germanotta, songwriters (Lady Gaga)
“Keep Rising (The Woman King)” [From “The Woman King”] Angelique Kidjo, Jeremy Lutito & Jessy Wilson, songwriters (Jessy Wilson Featuring Angelique Kidjo)
“Nobody Like U” [From “Turning Red”] Billie Eilish & Finneas O’Connell, songwriters (4*Town, Jordan Fisher, Finneas O’Connell, Josh Levi, Topher Ngo, Grayson Villanueva)
“We Don’t Talk About Bruno” [From “Encanto”] Lin-Manuel Miranda, songwriter (Carolina Gaitán – La Gaita, Mauro Castillo, Adassa, Rhenzy Feliz, Diane Guerrero, Stephanie Beatriz & Encanto – Cast)
Clearly, “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” and “Be Alive” don’t qualify, but the other four nominees do and are all in the Oscar race for Best Original Song. In fact, Lady Gaga‘s “Hold My Hand” is probably a lock for a nomination at this point. Eilish and O’Connell just won for “No Time To Die” and “Nobody Like U” is an integral part of “Turning Red’s” climax (always important when the branch is judging). Might be tougher for Kidjo, Lutito, and Wilson to get in for “Keep Rising,” but Swift’s current domination of the music scene might help her make the cut for “Carolina” (and would be a dream for this year’s Oscar telecast producers).
Other contenders in this year’s Best Original Song race include Rihanna’s “Lift Me Up” from “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,” “Naatu Naatu” from “RRR,” “This Is A Life” from “Everything Everywhere All At Once,” LCD Soundsystem‘s “New Body Rhumba” from “White Noise,” “Ciao Papa” from “Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio,” “My Mind and Me” from “Selena Gomez: My Mind and Me,” and, of course, there couldn’t be an Oscar season without Diane Warren trying to crash the party. This year she’s got “Applause” from “Tell It Like A Woman.” Will she call in enough votes to make the cut? Be afraid, be very afraid.
15 contenders will be shortlisted for the Original Song category before the final nominations are announced. The shortlists will be revealed a little over a month from now on Dec. 21. The final Oscar nominations will be announced on Jan 24, 2023.
The 2023 Grammy Awards will be held on Feb 5, 2023, and broadcast live on CBS.