Awards
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“El Mal” from Emilia Pérez won best original song at the 30th annual Critics Choice Awards, which were held at the Barker Hangar in Santa Monica, Calif., on Friday (Feb. 7).
The song, co-written by Clément Ducol, Camille and Jacques Audiard, the film’s writer, director and co-producer, also won the Golden Globe Award in that category on Jan. 5.
With these two wins, “El Mal” appears to be the front-runner in the race for best original song at the Oscars. The other Oscar nominees in that category are “El Camino,” also from Emilia Pérez; “Never Too Late” from Elton John: Never Too Late; “The Journey” from The Six Triple Eight; and “Like a Bird” from Sing Song. The latter three songs were not nominated at the Critics Choice Awards.
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Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross’ acclaimed score for Challengers won the Critics Choice Award for best original score, just as it won at the Golden Globes. But it cannot win the Oscar as it wasn’t even nominated. It’s just the third film score to win both the Golden Globe and Critics Choice Award and not even be nominated at the Oscars. The first two were Howard Shore’s score for The Aviator at the 2005 ceremony and Justin Hurwitz’s score for First Man in 2019. (Shore, Hurwitz and Reznor & Ross had all won best original score at the Oscars with previous films, making these shut-outs hard to understand.)
The other best original score nominees at the Oscars are Volker Bertelmann for Conclave, Daniel Blumberg for The Brutalist, Kris Bowers for The Wild Robot and John Powell & Stephen Schwartz for Wicked.
Emilia Pérez also won best the Critics Choice Award for foreign language film. Zoe Saldaña, who sang “El Mal” in Emilia Pérez, (with an assist from Karla Sofia Gascón) won the award for best supporting actress.
Accepting the Critics Choice Award for best original song, Camille said “This gives us such a sense of belonging. It feels so grounding. You know this awards season sometimes is so hectic, so overwhelming. I feel like saying sometimes [sings] I’m just a bird.” Thank you so much to Jacques Audiard to allow the bird in me and us to write. Thanks to the Emilia Pérez team and to Zoe, of course, for being such a great artist.”
Ducol, Camille’s romantic partner and collaborator, spoke warmly about Los Angeles in accepting the award. “We’ve been making L.A. our home over the past few months with our family and fell in love with the city and its people. We were so warmly welcomed by the community here and made lasting friendships. Of course, we were heartbroken by the fires and destruction. Now I know why I dreamed of becoming a firefighter when I was young.”
Last year’s Critics Choice Award winners in the music categories were Ludwig Göransson’s Oppenheimer for best original score (which went on to win the Oscar) and “I’m Just Ken” from Barbie for best original song (which was Oscar-nominated, but lost to fellow Barbie song “What Was I Made For?”
Chelsea Handler hosted the Critics Choice Awards for the third year in a row. The show was originally set for Sunday, Jan. 12, but was postponed to Sunday, Jan. 26, and then postponed again, because of wind-whipped wildfires in Los Angeles that began on Jan. 7. The three-hour show, which included awards for both film and television, aired at 7 p.m. ET/PT on E!. The show will also be available to stream the next day on Peacock.
Final-round Oscar voting extends from Feb. 11-18. The 97th Oscars, hosted for the first time by Conan O’Brien, will be held on Sunday, March 2, at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood. The show will air live coast-to-coast at 7 p.m. ET/4 p.m. PT on ABC and streamed live on Hulu for the first time.
Here are the Critics Choice Award nominees in the two music categories, with winners marked:
Best Song
“Beautiful That Way” – The Last Showgirl – Music by: Andrew WyattLyrics by: Andrew Wyatt, Miley Cyrus, Lykke Li“Compress/Repress” – Challengers – Music by: Trent Reznor, Atticus RossLyrics by: Trent Reznor, Luca GuadagninoWINNER: “El Mal” – Emilia Pérez – Music by: Clément Ducol, CamilleLyrics by: Clément Ducol, Camille, Jacques Audiard“Harper and Will Go West” – Will & Harper – Sean Douglas, Kristen Wiig
“Kiss the Sky” – The Wild Robot – Music & Lyrics by: Delacey, Jordan K. Johnson, Stefan Johnson, Maren Morris, Michael Pollack, Ali Tamposi“Mi Camino” – Emilia Pérez – Music & Lyrics by: Clément Ducol, Camille
Best Score
Volker Bertelmann – Conclave
Daniel Blumberg – The Brutalist
Kris Bowers – The Wild Robot
Clément Ducol & Camille – Emilia Pérez
WINNER: Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross – Challengers
Hans Zimmer – Dune: Part Two
Paramount will pause a handful of awards shows for 2025, including the CMT Music Awards, the MTV Europe Music Awards and more, Billboard has confirmed. Other awards shows being impacted are the Nickelodeon Kids’ Choice Awards Mexico and the MTV MIAWs (previously known as the MTV Millennial Awards).
As The Hollywood Reporter first reported, the news came as part of a memo from the office of Bruce Gillmer, Paramount Global’s president of music, music talent, programming and events, media networks/chief content officer, music, Paramount+. According to the memo, the changes come as the company seeks “to reimagine and optimize our events slate going forward.”
Gillmer’s memo added, “Our world-class events remain a key component of Paramount’s music offering as we continue to raise the bar in delivering iconic, unforgettable performances and moments that drive pop culture.”
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In 2022, the CMT Music Awards shifted from CMT to CBS; the annual event had aired on CMT since 2002. In 2023, the show relocated from Nashville to Austin. Last year’s big winners during the CMT Music Awards included Jelly Roll, Lainey Wilson and Dan + Shay.
At the 2024 MTV EMAs, held in November, artists including Taylor Swift and Sabrina Carpenter emerged as top winners.
The memo follows rounds of layoffs that began last year after Paramount Global co-CEO Chris McCarthy noted plans for the company to reduce its U.S.-based workforce by approximately 15%, including at CMT. In August, Paramount also shuttered Paramount TV Studios amid the restructuring and layoffs. The shifts came after Paramount Global agreed to a merger with David Ellison‘s Skydance in July 2024.
See Gillmer’s memo to staffers below.
Team,
We want to share some news. We are pausing a few events for 2025, as we look to reimagine and optimize our events slate going forward. These include the MTV EMAs, MTV MIAWs, Nickelodeon Kids’ Choice Awards in Mexico, and CMT Music Awards.
Our world-class events remain a key component of Paramount’s music offering as we continue to raise the bar in delivering iconic, unforgettable performances and moments that drive pop culture. We have the best team in the business, and we are grateful for your hard work and dedication in bringing these events to life.
Thank you,
Bruce
Contemporary Christian music stars Matthew West, Jeremy Camp, Mac Powell and Bart Millard are set to host the 12th annual K-LOVE Fan Awards on May 25 at the iconic Grand Ole Opry House in Nashville. West and Camp, both 47, have each had six No. 1 hits on Billboard’s Hot Christian Songs chart. Powell and […]
From the lounge staple “Volare” to the hip-hop smash “Not Like Us,” here are all the hits that won both of these top prizes.
“It’s like an overnight life change, kind of,” says Robbie Blue. It’s two days after the Grammy Awards, and the 24-year old choreographer still sounds like he’s in disbelief. “It’s really, really special. I guess I just didn’t know how big this was going to be.”
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Blue’s choreography for Doechii’s stunningly inventive, meticulously realized performance of her “Denial Is a River” and “Catfish” made for a moment that most observers considered the best of the night — and perhaps one of the best in Grammy history. Astonishingly, it was the first-ever live performance – and first Grammy appearance, period – for Blue as a choreographer. Among the flood of overwhelmingly positive reactions he’s received since that night are Doechii’s own: Blue says that the two have been “gushing over each other back and forth on text, talking about how epic this performance was.”
For Blue, whose complex, ultra-physical choreography has attracted talented dancer-artists like Tinashe, fka twigs and Tate McRae, Doechii’s Grammy performance was his biggest stage yet, and a long way from where he started out. Growing up in a small town in Ohio “in the middle of nowhere,” he was lucky to train at a “brilliant, epic queer dance studio” situated, as he puts it, “between a prison and like, the largest statue of Jesus in the world.” At 16, Brian Friedman — the “jazz funk legend” known best for his choreography for Britney Spears — took Blue under his wing as an assistant; by age 18, Blue was dancing professionally for major artists.
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Robbie Blue
Desiree Reed
In fact, he technically still was on Grammy night: he’s one of the performers in Lady Gaga’s “Abracadabra” video, which he watched “on a small hotel TV” after wrapping Doechii’s performance (he calls Gaga a bucket list collaborator: “I would die”). But as Blue puts it, choreography is now where he feels most at home. “I feel like through choreography I can truly speak,” he says with a smile. “I think I don’t want to do anything else right now.” He spoke to Billboard about Doechii’s exceptional taste and work ethic, their cast of Doechii “clones,” and precisely how that onstage conveyer belt worked.
It felt like the minute the performance ended the internet was going crazy calling it iconic, one of the great Grammy performances of all time, going down in history. It reminded me of the heyday of Missy Elliott performances. When you were working on it, did you have a sense that it was going to have that kind of impact?
This was my first time ever doing a live performance. It was my first time ever doing the Grammys — even as a dancer, I’d never done the Grammys. So really, I was not expecting it to be this great, to be honest! I knew it was good. I knew that we had ample time to rehearse and create and cultivate and really figure out all of the logistics of the performance. So I knew that every moment had been looked at, and that every moment was iconic and major.
But it wasn’t until we got there that I think I realized, “Holy shit, this is going to be legendary.” But all along [leading up to it], I’m so in it, it’s Doechii’s first Grammys too so she’s so in it and involved, we’re not even thinking “Oh my gosh, this is going to gag everybody.” We are just looking at it like, “Okay, this needs to be changed. This needs to be fixed.” We wanted it to be perfect for the first time out. That’s kind of what drove us to have this performance that was essentially flawless.
What kind of timeline did you have to put it all together?
We actually had a ton of time, four weeks in total of rehearsal. The first week was just me and some dancers, getting an idea of what the choreography was going to be like, what references we’re using, how I’m going to pump myself into this. Then we had three full weeks with the full stage — tech rehearsal, essentially, with conveyors, the lift, the whole stage set-up. The conveyor belts in particular, we got them on the first day. That’s definitely part of the reason that everything looked so amazing, because we had so much time to really look at every single moving aspect.
Robbie Blue with Doechii’s dancers
Eli Raskin
How would you describe your style of movement and your own influences?
I think my calling card has been kind of like, a f–ked-up Fosse. That is what I’m sought after for. The last five months is when I’ve really just started choreographing for major artists, and every time I get an inquiry that’s kind of where they’re coming from — they’re wanting something that feels Fosse, something that feels abstract. And when I talked to Doechii on the first day she said the same thing — she was like, “I want your Fosse element, but I also want it to be hip-hop and grounded and nasty and dirty.”
So that was kind of our jumping off point. Fosse is a master and he is everything to me, so that that is always my inspiration going in, and then I start to fuse that with my background in contemporary dance, modern dance, hip-hop. I try to take what I know of those Fosse references and basically just make it, like, nasty, if that makes sense.
Doechii performs onstage at the 67th GRAMMY Awards held at the Crypto.com Arena on February 2, 2025 in Los Angeles.
Christopher Polk
How did you two first link up? Did Doechii seek you out?
I’ve been a fan forever, but when I started to kind of gain some traction with my choreo [a couple years ago], she followed me on Instagram. I died, dead. So in the back of my head, I was like, maybe one day she’ll be like, I need you for this. And it happened so quickly. The same day that I got a call from my agent saying that Doechii was wondering about me for the Grammys, I was in the studio that night. Like, “Here we go!”
Artists like Doechii, fka twigs, Tinashe, who you’ve worked with — these are girls who can dance. And your choreography seems quite complex and rigorous, like it demands an artist who has significant dance background to begin with.
100%. I think the artists that seek me out are mostly artists that are willing to push themselves and really want to dance and love to dance. For me, the perfect artist is a Doechii, it’s Twigs, it’s Tinashe, it’s Tate [McRae], it’s somebody who really is willing to get in a studio and work really hard. Doechii was in the studio every single day, eight hours, beginning to end dancing — and that’s why she looks so good. She is naturally an amazing dancer, but on top of that she was willing to try all of these things. She was just fearless – and some of that s–t is really hard!
Yeah, like that lift where she’s in a full center split — did she tell you she was capable of doing that?
So I had actually created a vignette of five boys with her in some kind of shape [above], but I did not originally have her up there in the splits. That was her idea. It was our first day, basically, and and she was like, “Can I just try to hop up there in a center split?” And I was like, yeah, totally. Like, you can do that if you want to! [Laughs.] It was that moment of oh, she’s really willing to take it there.
Are there particular collaborative moments in the studio you remember where she had an idea that really inspired the final product?
For sure. When it came down to designating jobs, I really wrangled the dancers, the movement I created from scratch, that was all me. And then when we started working on her track, I started teaching it to her, and that’s when things got really collaborative, when I started to see, really, what she was capable of – like, she doesn’t want to just stand there, she wants to dance, she wants to do all this crazy stuff. She’d be like, “ I feel like I could do a lot more here.” And I’m like, great, let’s do it. Let’s take it there.
So I think some key moments that were super collaborative were that specific straddle lift moment, that center split. And the lift in “Denial,” where she walks up the staircase– that Chicago-esque thing was something she mentioned from the very beginning. She was like, I really want to feel like I am Roxie Hart, you know, walking along these people. I want to have that moment in there. And we all loved that idea. She knows exactly what she wants and she knows exactly the vibe.
What were conversations like with her about casting? The ensemble of dancers with Doechii seemed really intentionally chosen, especially after hearing what Doechii had to say about representation in her acceptance speech.
The concept from the beginning was clones: we wanted it to feel like Doechii was cloned. And so from the beginning of casting, it was, who looks the most like Doechii, who has her complexion, her features, that’s exactly what we’re looking for. It took a second to be that specific with each individual person, and all of us had our hands in it – it would get sent to me, it would get sent to [C Prinz, Doechii’s creative director], it would get sent to Doechii, to make sure that every single person fit that clone narrative. And it ended up just being so beautiful.
Doechii at the 67th GRAMMY Awards held at the Crypto.com Arena on February 2, 2025 in Los Angeles.
Christopher Polk
How and when did the idea of the conveyor belt happen?
By the time I got onto the project, I was already sent a treatment with conveyor belts. I believe the idea for them came straight from her — she wanted the whole stage to be a conveyor belt, constantly be sliding. But I guess the Grammys was like, that’s a hazard? [Laughs.] So she ended up doing three conveyor belts. It did take a lot of time to figure out exactly when they start, stop, how fast they go down to, like, point one seconds, when they reach center….things like that were very meticulous. But the conveyor belts were just fucking fun. Everybody wanted to be on the conveyor belt.
In the short time since the Grammys, have you already seen an uptick in interest in you and your work?
I have never received so much love, I think, in my life, from everybody that’s in my circle, and then also from choreographers that are my mentors, major celebrity choreographers I have looked up to forever who have reached out and commended me on the performance. I don’t even know what to say. I’m like, thank you so much. And when it comes to the work, I’ve never got this much inquiry from artists about upcoming projects, like almost immediately after the performance, that next morning. It’s really wild.
Looking back, because it is my first Grammys — she really did take a chance on me for this one. She kind of pulled me out to do this, and I appreciate her for that.
Besides Gaga, who else is on your artist collaboration wish list? I feel like you’d be great with Charli XCX, too…
I toured with Charli as a dancer when she did Crash — I’ve been a Charli fan since the beginning of time, she will always be on the list! Ashnikko is always on the list. Tate is on the list. FKA is always on the list. Gaga would be like, out of this world. But I love gay icons. I love powerful women artists. So to have done Doechii…. I’m still, like, processing that. [Laughs.] She. Is. The. Girl.
Music played an outsize role in the nominations for the 97th annual Academy Awards, which were announced Jan. 23 (six days later than originally planned due to the Los Angeles wildfires). Emilia Pérez and Wicked are among the 10 films nominated for best picture — the first time that two musicals have been nominated in that category in the same year since the 1969 ceremony, when Oliver! and Funny Girl both vied for the award. Emilia Pérez received 13 nods (more than any other film this year), while Wicked amassed 10. This is the first time in 60 years that two musicals received 10 or more nominations in the same year. At the 1965 ceremony, Mary Poppins had 13 nods and My Fair Lady had 12.
Plus, three actors from the Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown — Timothée Chalamet (who plays Dylan), Edward Norton (Pete Seeger) and Monica Barbaro (Joan Baez) — were nominated for acting honors. It’s the first time in Oscar history that three actors from a music biopic have been nominated.
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The Oscar telecast is set for March 2. Here’s a closer look at the two music categories.
Best Original Song
Diane Warren is nominated for the eighth year in a row, which ties her with Sammy Cahn for the longest continuous streak of nominations in this category’s 91-year history. Cahn was nominated eight years running from 1955 to 1962. Clément Ducol and Camille are nominated for best original score for Emilia Pérez and have two songs in the running for best original song. They’re the first composers to land three nods in music categories in one year since Justin Hurwitz achieved the same feat with La La Land eight years ago.
“El Mal”Emilia Pérez (Netflix)Music by Clément Ducol and Camille; lyric by Clément Ducol, Camille and Jacques Audiard
Zoe Saldaña takes the lead on this big production number in the film, with an assist from Karla Sofía Gascón. Both are nominated for their performances — Saldaña for best supporting actress and Gascón for best actress.
Audiard, who is nominated for directing Emilia Pérez and for co-writing the lyrics to this song, is only the third person in Oscar history to be nominated in both the directing and original song categories and the first to be so honored in the same year. Leo McCarey and Spike Jonze received their nominations in separate years.
Ducol and Camille are vying to become the sixth romantic couple to win in this category following Alan and Marilyn Bergman, Burt Bacharach and Carole Bayer Sager, Jack Nitzsche and Buffy Sainte-Marie, Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova, and Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez.
This is the fifth year in a row that one or more non-English-language songs has been nominated in this category. This streak started in 2021 with “Io Sì (Seen)” from The Life Ahead (La Vita Davanti a Se) and continued with “Dos Oruguitas” from Encanto, “Naatu Naatu” from RRR (which won), “Wahzhazhe (A Song for My People)” from Killers of the Flower Moon and now two songs from Emilia Pérez.
“The Journey”The Six Triple Eight (Netflix)Music and lyric by Diane Warren
This inspirational ballad gives Warren her 16th Oscar nomination for best original song — a total equaled by only three other songwriters. Sammy Cahn leads with 26 nods, followed by Johnny Mercer with 18 and Paul Francis Webster, also with 16. (This makes Warren the most-nominated woman in this category, topping the late lyricist Marilyn Bergman, who received 15.)
Making Warren’s tally all the more impressive is that she has rarely been part of an Oscar-magnet film that racked up multiple nominations. “The Journey” is her 11th nominated song from a film that received no other nominations besides hers.
“The Journey” is the 12th of Warren’s best original song contenders that she wrote herself. Only Randy Newman has been nominated with as many songs that he wrote himself. He has been the sole writer of all 13 of his best original song nominees to date.
H.E.R. sings “The Journey” over the end credits to the Tyler Perry film The Six Triple Eight, which stars Kerry Washington. H.E.R. and Warren squared off in this category four years ago, when the R&B star’s “Fight for You” from Judas and the Black Messiah beat Warren’s “Io Sì (Seen)” from The Life Ahead (La Vita Davanti a Se).
“Like a Bird”Sing Sing (A24)Music and lyric by Abraham Alexander and Adrian Quesada
This soulful, midtempo ballad echoes the style of the late folk-rock musician Richie Havens. These are the first Oscar nominations for Alexander and Quesada, who wrote and performed “Like a Bird.”
Quesada has received seven Grammy nominations (but no wins as yet) as a member of Black Pumas. The psychedelic soul band has been nominated in three of the top general-field categories — album and record of the year and best new artist. Quesada previously received two Grammy nods as a member of the Latin funk orchestra Grupo Fantasma, winning best Latin rock, alternative or urban album in 2011 for El Existential.
Alexander is a Texas-based musician, songwriter and guitarist. His nod makes this the eighth year in a row that one or more Black songwriters has been nominated in this category. This represents the longest streak of nominations by Black songwriters in the category’s history.
This was one of three nominations for Greg Kwedar’s film Sing Sing, along with best actor for Colman Domingo and best adapted screenplay. Bryce Dessner of The National scored Sing Sing. He was shortlisted for best original score but not nominated.
“Mi Camino”Emilia Pérez (Netflix)Music and lyric by Camille and Clément Ducol
Selena Gomez sings this sensuous ballad in a sexy scene with co-star Édgar Ramírez. Camille and Ducol had composed several songs for Gomez’s character before the star was cast. Once she was, director Jacques Audiard told the composers he needed another song for the character. They watched the 2022 documentary Selena Gomez: My Mind & Me, which explored the singer’s mental health struggles and inspired them to write “Mi Camino.”
“We didn’t have the opportunity to meet her in person [before writing the song] but did meet her through her documentary,” Ducol told The Los Angeles Times. “Her sensitivity was so engaging and so strong that the song was created very quickly. We wrote it in the space of a few hours. For some songs, like ‘El Mal,’ we had dozens of different versions. ‘Mi Camino’ just came to the surface.”
Ducol and Camille have two of the five nominees in this category. This marks the first time that a songwriter or team of songwriters has had two nominated songs in the same year since 2017, when Justin Hurwitz and the EGOT-winning team of Benj Pasek and Justin Paul had two nominated songs from La La Land.
“Never Too Late”Elton John: Never Too Late (Disney+)Music and lyric by Elton John, Brandi Carlile, Andrew Watt and Bernie Taupin
This is John’s fifth nomination in this category and Taupin’s second. They won five years ago for “(I’m Gonna) Love Me Again” from Rocketman. John first won in this category in 1995 with “Can You Feel the Love Tonight” from The Lion King, which he co-wrote with Tim Rice. If John wins this year, he’ll become just the 10th songwriter in Oscar history — and only the second non-American (following Rice) — to win three or more times in this category. (Fun fact: John has never gone home without an Oscar in the years he has been nominated.)
This is the first Oscar nod for both Carlile and Watt. Watt also earned a nod for song of the year at this year’s Grammys for co-writing the Bruno Mars-Lady Gaga ballad “Die With a Smile.”
John and Carlile perform “Never Too Late” in Elton John: Never Too Late, which was co-directed by R. J. Cutler and John’s husband, David Furnish. During production, Carlile saw an early cut of the film and wrote the first set of lyrics before sending to John to compose. Watt and Taupin later pitched in. This is vying to become the second song from a documentary to win in this category following Melissa Etheridge’s “I Need to Wake Up” from An Inconvenient Truth (2007).
From left: Brandi Carlile, Zoe Saldaña in Emilia Pérez and Kerry Washington in The Six Triple Eight.
Illustration by Nate Kitch
Best Original Score
This category continues to be populated by composers from all over the world. Of this year’s nominees, only Stephen Schwartz and Kris Bowers are Americans. In the last 20 years, the only Americans to win in this category are Michael Giacchino (Up), Trent Reznor (The Social Network, Soul), Justin Hurwitz (La La Land) and Jon Batiste (Soul).
The BrutalistDaniel Blumberg (A24)
This was one of 10 nominations for Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist, which stars Adrien Brody as a Hungarian Jewish architect who survives the Holocaust and builds a new life in America. Brody is nominated for best actor; Guy Pearce and Felicity Jones are up for supporting actor and actress, respectively. The film is also nominated for best picture, cinematography, directing, film editing, production design and original screenplay.
The film is dedicated to the memory of Scott Walker, who scored Corbet’s films The Childhood of a Leader and Vox Lux (the latter also featured music by Sia).
Blumberg, 35, is an English artist, musician, songwriter and composer. In May 2022, he won an Ivor Novello Award for best original film score for The World To Come.
The Brutalist soundtrack opens with an overture in three parts, as Blumberg and Corbet wanted the first 10 minutes of the film to have continuous music. In addition to composing all the music, Blumberg served as producer and recording engineer and played piano, harmonica, keyboards and synthesizer. Pianist John Tilbury is featured on the 11-minute track “Intermission,” while a Brody speech from the film is featured on the track “Monologue.”
ConclaveVolker Bertelmann (Focus Features)
This is the third nomination for the German composer, who performs and records under the name Hauschka. He was first nominated at the 2017 ceremony for Lion, which he scored in tandem with Dustin O’Halloran. He won two years ago for his score to All Quiet on the Western Front. If Bertelmann wins for Conclave, it would mark the quickest return to the podium in this category since Gustavo Santaolalla won back-to-back Oscars in 2006-07 for scoring Brokeback Mountain and Babel.
Conclave director Edward Berger also directed All Quiet on the Western Front. The director and composer are collaborating again on The Ballad of a Small Player, an upcoming psychological thriller drama starring Colin Farrell and Tilda Swinton.
This was one of eight nominations for Conclave. The film’s other nods are for actors Ralph Fiennes and Isabella Rossellini, best picture, costume design, film editing, production design and adapted screenplay. Berger was passed over for a nod for best director.
“The collaboration with Edward Berger is for me a big gift,” Bertelmann, 58, said in a statement, “and allows me to search and discover a lot of possibilities.”
Emilia PérezClément Ducol and Camille (Netflix)
Emilia Pérez is one of only four musicals in Oscar history to land as many as 13 nods. La La Land leads the pack with 14. Chicago and Mary Poppins matched Emilia Pérez’s total of 13.
Ducol and Camille, 43 and 46, respectively, are vying to become the second couple to win in a scoring category following lyricists Alan and Marilyn Bergman, who won in 1984 for their original song score for Yentl, on which they collaborated with Michel Legrand.
Ducol and Camille are also vying to become the first French composers to win in this category since Alexandre Desplat triumphed seven years ago for The Shape of Water. Five other French composers have won in scoring categories: Legrand, Maurice Jarre, Francis Lai, Georges Delerue and Ludovic Bource.
“We are overwhelmed by these nominations,” Ducol and Camille said in a joint statement. “Music and community is our life, and to be nominated in two music categories by our film music community surpasses anything we could have possibly imagined.”
Clockwise from left: Jonathan Bailey in Wicked, Clément Ducol and Camille, Bowers and Adrien Brody in The Brutalist.
Illustration by Nate Kitch
WickedJohn Powell and Stephen Schwartz (Universal)
This is Schwartz’s fourth nomination in a scoring category following three nods in the defunct best original musical or comedy score category for Pocahontas, The Hunchback of Notre Dame and The Prince of Egypt. (The film academy last presented that award in 1999.) Schwartz, 76, is a two-time winner for best original song, for “Colors of the Wind” from Pocahontas (which he co-wrote with Alan Menken) and “When You Believe” from The Prince of Egypt (which he wrote himself).
This is Powell’s second nod in this category following one for the 2010 film How To Train Your Dragon. The Englishman has also composed scores for films such as Face/Off, Drumline and Bolt.
This was one of 10 nominations for Wicked, which has become the top-grossing film ever adapted from a Broadway musical. A sequel, Wicked: For Good, is due in November. Jon M. Chu directed both films.
The Wicked soundtrack album entered the Billboard 200 at No. 2, the highest debut in history for a soundtrack based on a stage musical. Highlights include “Popular” (sung by Ariana Grande, a best supporting actress nominee for her role as Glinda) and “Defying Gravity” (sung by Cynthia Erivo, a best actress nominee for her role as Elphaba, with an assist from Grande).
The Wild RobotKris Bowers (Universal)
This is Bowers’ first scoring nomination. He has been nominated twice in documentary categories — as a director of A Concerto Is a Conversation and as a director-producer of The Last Repair Shop (both collaborations with Ben Proudfoot). The latter film won last year for documentary short film. Bowers, 35, is the first Black composer to be nominated for best original score in four years. At the 2021 ceremony, both Terence Blanchard (Da 5 Bloods) and Jon Batiste (Soul, a collaboration with Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross) were nominated.
This was one of three nominations for Chris Sanders’ The Wild Robot, which is also competing for best animated feature and best sound. The Wild Robot is the first animated film to receive a nod for best original score since Encanto three years ago.
The Wild Robot soundtrack includes “Kiss the Sky,” which was co-written and performed by Maren Morris. It was shortlisted for best original song but wasn’t nominated.
This is Bowers’ first score for a fully animated film. His previous scoring assignments include the live-action dramas Green Book, The United States vs. Billie Holiday, Respect, King Richard, The Color Purple and Bob Marley: One Love.
This story appears in the Feb. 8, 2025, issue of Billboard.
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Univision announced on Wednesday (Feb. 5) a wave of artists set to perform at the 2025 Premio Lo Nuestro ceremony, including Ángela Aguilar, Arthur Hanlon, Camilo and Carín León. The awards show is set for Thursday, Feb. 20 with other confirmed performances by Danny Ocean, Darell, Kapo, Natti Natasha, Yami Safdie and Yotuel.
The ceremony will air at 8 p.m. ET via Univision, UNIMÁS and Vix.
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Becky G and Carin León lead the list of nominations at this year’s Premio Lo Nuestro, with 10 nods each. The two hitmakers are followed by Shakira and Myke Towers with nine nominations each, then the eight-time nominees Ángela Aguilar, Emilia, Grupo Frontera and Leonardo Aguilar.
Nominations “are based on airplay on Uforia stations and take into account airtime on Univision Radio, streaming data, and evaluation by a Television Committee composed of music and entertainment industry experts,” according to a press statement.
As previously announced by Billboard, La India, Alejandro Fernández and Manuel Alejandro will receive special honors at the show.
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Co-hosted by Laura Pausini, Thalia and Alejandra Espinoza, this year’s theme is Uniendo Generaciones (Uniting Generations), honoring the artists, songs and albums that connect the past, present and future of Latin music.