OSCARS
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With the 2023 Oscars just weeks away, Son Lux is in rarified company. They are the first band to receive a scoring nomination, credited as a band, since The Beatles won best original song score in 1971 for Let It Be.
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Son Lux, which consists of Ryan Lott, Rafiq Bhatia and Ian Chang, is nominated for best original score for Everything Everywhere All at Once. This is their first film score as a band.
Son Lux originated as a solo project of Lott’s, but became a three-piece band with the addition of Bhatia and Chang. It was as a band that they released the studio albums Bones (2015) and Brighter Wounds (2018) and the Everything Everywhere All at Once soundtrack.
The Beatles, who had broken up a year earlier, weren’t present at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles on April 15, 1971 when they won the Oscar. The award was accepted on their behalf by Quincy Jones, who was the music director for that year’s Oscar telecast.
In addition, Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, the two current members of Nine Inch Nails, have been nominated three times for best original score, but under their own names, not as NIN. They won in 2011 for The Social Network and again in 2021 for Soul (shared with Jon Batiste). They were also nominated for Mank in 2021.
Several other band members have been nominated for – and in some cases have won – scoring Oscars, but not in collaboration with other members of their bands. These include Pete Townshend of The Who (Tommy, 1976), Prince of Prince and the Revolution (Purple Rain, 1985), David Byrne of Talking Heads (The Last Emperor, 1988), Will Butler of Arcade Fire (Her, 2014) and Jonny Greenwood of Radiohead (Phantom Thread, 2018 and The Power of the Dog, 2022).
Lott shares a second Oscar nomination for best original song with David Byrne and Mitski for “This Is a Life.” It is performed in the film by Son Lux, Byrne and Mitski.
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The president of the body responsible for the Oscars recently said that its response to Will Smith’s slapping of Chris Rock last year was sub-par.
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences President Janet Yang made the remarks at the 2023 Oscars Nominees Luncheon held on Monday (Feb. 13th). “As I’m sure you all remember we experienced an unprecedented event at the Oscars,” she began, referencing the incident where Will Smith stepped onstage and slapped Chris Rock after the comedian made a joke about his wife, Jada-Pinkett Smith at last year’s ceremony.
“What happened on stage was wholly unacceptable and the response from the organization was inadequate. We learned from this that the Academy must be fully transparent and accountable in our actions and particularly in times of crisis.”
Yang went on to declare that “we must act swiftly, compassionately and decisively for ourselves and for our industry. You should and can expect no less from us going forward,” finishing her comments on the subject before pivoting to her thoughts on an expanded vision for the Academy.
“I want to remind us of the deep respect and love we have for our fellow colleagues and for the art of filmmaking. I invite us to grow together because the collective power of this room and this industry are unstoppable,” she concluded in front of a packed audience.
Yang’s remarks are a reiteration of the stance the Academy held in the wake of the infamous moment. “This was an opportunity for us to set an example for our guests, viewers and our Academy family around the world, and we fell short — unprepared for the unprecedented,” they said in a statement.
The Academy had spent several weeks after the situation at the 94th edition of the Oscars deciding what to do before announcing that it would bar Smith from appearing at any of its events for a period of 10 years. The Oscar-winning actor would go on to resign from the Academy and issue several public apologies online.—Photo: Robert Gauthier / Getty
Rickey Minor will serve as music director of the 2023 Oscars, airing live Sunday, March 12, on ABC. Minor last served as the show’s music director in 2020.
Raj Kapoor, who has been associated with the Oscars telecast for six years, returns as a producer. Kapoor has been one of three executive producers (along with Ben Winston and Jesse Collins) of the Grammy Awards the last two years.
These were two of the key announcements on Thursday (Feb. 9) as Glenn Weiss and Ricky Kirshner, executive producers and showrunners for the 95th Oscars, unveiled members of their production team.
Minor has received 14 Emmy Award nominations for outstanding music direction, winning twice. He has been nominated three times for his work on the Kennedy Center Honors, twice for the Oscars, twice for the Grammy Awards and twice for “Grammy Salutes” specials to the Bee Gees and Aretha Franklin. He has also been nominated for the following specials: Genius: A Night for Ray Charles, An Evening of Stars: Tribute to Chaka Khan, Smithsonian Salutes Ray Charles: In Performance at the White House, Taking the Stage: African American Music and Stories That Changed America and Celebrating America – An Inauguration Night Special.
Minor’s other television credits include We Love NYC: The Homecoming Concert, The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, American Idol and The Primetime Emmy Awards. Minor has also worked with Adele, Jon Batiste, Beyoncé, John Legend, Ed Sheeran and many more.
Kapoor won his first Primetime Emmy last year as an executive producer of Adele: One Night Only, which won as outstanding variety special (pre-recorded). He has also been nominated three times for outstanding variety special (live) for the Grammys.
Kapoor’s recent credits include Beauty and the Beast: A 30th Celebration, Norman Lear: 100 Years of Music and Laughter, The Latin Grammys, several The Disney Family Singalong specials and Stand Up to Cancer. Returning members of the production team are Rob Paine, co-executive producer; Taryn Hurd, talent producer; Agathe Panaretos, writer; Dave Boone, writer; and Robert Dickinson, lighting designer.First-time members of the production team are Sarah Levine Hall, producer; Erin Irwin, producer; Jennifer Sharron, producer; and Nefetari Spencer, writer. Irwin and Sharron are both executive producers of Jimmy Kimmel Live!. Kimmel is hosting the Oscars for the third time.
The 95th Oscars will be held on Sunday, March 12 at the Dolby Theatre at Ovation Hollywood and will be televised live on ABC and in more than 200 territories worldwide.
Burt Bacharach, who died on Wednesday (Feb. 8) at age 94, was one of America’s finest composers and arrangers. He most deservedly won a lot of awards over the years, and just missed out on a couple of others.
Bacharach won six Grammys, three Oscars and an Emmy. He and his long-time collaborator Hal David were nominated for a Tony for best musical in 1970 for the musical comedy Promises, Promises, on which they teamed with playwright Neil Simon. Promises, Promises was nominated in that category the same year as the smash Hair, which brought rock rhythms (and full-frontal nudity) to Broadway. Surprisingly, neither of these shows won. The award went to 1776, also a long-running hit, but one that is less well-remembered today.
If Promises, Promises had won, Bacharach would have become an EGOT the following year when he won a Primetime Emmy for his special Singer Presents Burt Bacharach. That would have made Bacharach just the second person to achieve the EGOT, following Richard Rodgers, who completed the sweep of Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony Awards in 1962.
Another miss: Bacharach never received the Kennedy Center Honors. True, he and David received the Gershwin Prize for Popular Song, but many others have received both awards. It’s the Kennedy Center’s loss: Bacharach would have added luster to their roster of recipients.
Fortunately, Bacharach achieved so many awards feats that we don’t need to dwell on the shoulda-woulda-couldas. He had a 58-year span of Grammy nominations, from 1963 (a song of the year nod for the suave, if sexist, “Wives and Lovers”) to 2021 (a nod for best musical theater album for Burt Bacharach and Steven Sater’s Some Lovers).
Here are 11 times Burt Bacharach made awards show history.
After a year away from his annual charity event, Sir Elton John is ready to return to his Oscars party — and he’s bringing along the perfect guest to join him.
On Thursday (Feb. 9), the Elton John AIDS Foundation announced that pop singer-songwriter Rina Sawayama would serve as the headline performer at the organization’s annual Academy Awards viewing party. John and his husband, David Furnish, will serve as the evening’s hosts, while stars such as Eric McCormack and Michaela Jaé Rodriguez are set to make appearances as special guests.
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In a tweet celebrating the news, Sawayama thanked John for the opportunity, and touted the organization’s stated goal of ending the stigma surrounding HIV/AIDS. “Beyond excited to be performing at #EJAFOscars on March 12 in support of @EJAF,” the singer tweeted. “Founded by my wonderful friend @eltonofficial, they’re on an incredibly important mission to end HIV stigma and inequalities around the world, and to spread more love and compassion.”
In his own statement, John shared his excitement at getting to attend the party this year after he was unable to do so in 2022 due to scheduling conflicts with his record-breaking Farewell Yellow Brick Road tour. “I am overjoyed to be reuniting with old and new friends on one of my favorite nights of the year,” the “Rocket Man” singer said. “As always, I am so appreciative of every attendee, donor and sponsor who continues to support the Foundation’s work across the globe in the fight to end AIDS. With such meaningful generosity, we can make a healthier and more inclusive world.”
While John may not have been present for last year’s festivities, the star had good reason. Earlier this month, Billboard Boxscore announced that John had broken the record for the highest grossing tour of all time, with his Farewell Yellow Brick Road tour raking in a stunning $818 million thanks to a recent leg of Australian shows from the pop icon.
The Songwriters Hall of Fame’s seventh annual “A Conversation With Oscar-Nominated Songwriters for Best Original Song” will premiere on Monday, Feb. 13, at 9 a.m. PT. The SHOF corralled writers or co-writers of four of the five nominated songs to participate in the panel, which was taped on Tuesday, Feb. 7.
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The virtual event is free to the public with advance registration required via Eventbrite. It will also be available to watch for a limited time on the Songwriters Hall of Fame website, songhall.org.
The panel features Chandrabose, co-writer of “Naatu Naatu” from RRR; Ludwig Göransson, co-writer of “Lift Me Up” from Black Panther: Wakanda Forever; Ryan Lott and David Byrne, co-writers of “This Is a Life” from Everything Everywhere All at Once; and Diane Warren, the sole writer of “Applause” from Tell It Like a Woman.
The songwriters converse on such topics as how they got here, their writing process and the challenges of writing for a film.
The only best original song contender not represented by at least one of its writers is “Hold My Hand” from Top Gun: Maverick (co-written by Lady Gaga and BloodPop).
Warren, who is in the Oscar race for the 14th time, is the only one of this year’s best original song nominees who is in the Songwriters Hall of Fame. She was inducted in 2001.
The event is once again moderated by songwriters and SHOF inductees Nile Rodgers, who currently serves as SHOF chairman, and Paul Williams, a 1977 Oscar winner for co-writing “Evergreen” from A Star Is Born with Barbra Streisand.
The annual Oscar nominees luncheon is set for Monday, Feb. 13. Final-round voting extends from March 2 at 9 a.m. PT to March 7 at 5 p.m. PT. The 95th Oscars will be held on Sunday, March 12.
Talk about good timing! Rihanna’s performance at this year’s Super Bowl halftime show on Sunday (Feb. 12) comes just 18 days before final-round voting begins for the 2023 Oscars. Rihanna, of course, is nominated for best original song for co-writing “Lift Me Up,” her soulful ballad from Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.
While it’s not yet known if “Lift Me Up” will be in Rihanna’s setlist during her halftime show, it’s very likely that it will be. You don’t get to be one of the biggest music stars on the planet without seizing golden opportunities. If Rihanna does perform the song during her set, this will amount to the most-viewed “For Your Consideration” ad of all time.
The annual Oscar nominees luncheon is set for Monday, Feb. 13, the day after the Super Bowl. Final-round voting extends from March 2 at 9 a.m. PT to March 7 at 5 p.m. PT.
This exquisite timing makes up for a rare bit of bad timing in Rihanna’s gilded career last fall when “Lift Me Up” was released. The song debuted and peaked at No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 dated Nov. 12, 2022, kept out of the top spot by Taylor Swift’s megahit “Anti-Hero,” then in its second week on top. “Lift Me Up” just missed becoming Rihanna’s 15th No. 1 on Billboard’s flagship songs chart.
Rihanna co-wrote “Lift Me Up” with Tems, Ryan Coogler and Ludwig Göransson. This year’s other nominees for best original song are “Applause” from Tell It Like a Woman (Diane Warren), “Hold My Hand” from Top Gun: Maverick (Lady Gaga and BloodPop), “Naatu Naatu” from RRR (M.M. Keeravaani and Chandrabose) and “This Is a Life” from Everything Everywhere All at Once (Ryan Lott, David Byrne and Mitski).
The 95th Oscars will be held on Sunday, March 12.
Diane Warren is getting up there on the all-time list of top Oscar nominees for best original song. Her nod this year for “Applause,” sung by Sofia Carson in Tell It Like a Woman, is her 14th — a tally equaled by only seven other songwriters in the 89-year history of the category).
Moreover, this is the sixth year in a row she has been nominated, the longest continuous run streak of nominations in this category since Alan Bergman and his late wife Marilyn Bergman were nominated six years running from 1968-73. (Their streak was bookended by two winners – “The Windmills of Your Mind” and “The Way We Were.”)
Only two other songwriters in Oscar history have had six or more consecutive nods. Mack David, the older brother of Hal David (of Bacharach & David fame), was nominated every year from 1961-66. He never won. Sammy Cahn holds the all-time records both for the most consecutive years with a best original song nod (eight, from 1954-61) and most total nods in that category (26). Cahn won a record-tying four Oscars in the category.
If you’re looking for a common denominator among Warren’s best original song nominees – besides quality – good luck. Three of them reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, but several others didn’t even crack the chart. Three are from blockbuster action films, but several others are from smaller indie films that barely made a dent at the boxoffice.
Four of the 14 songs, including the current one, are from films directed by women. That’s far higher than the industry-wide percentage of films directed by women. The only director Warren has worked with on two nominated songs is Michael Bay. She wrote songs for his blockbusters Armageddon (“I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing”) and Pearl Harbor (“There You’ll Be”).
Warren received an honorary Oscar in November. She’s only the fifth person in Oscar history – and the first person from the world of music – to receive an honorary Oscar and a competitive Oscar nomination in the same awards year. Warren, 66, has the work ethic of a songwriter half her age, one still trying to make her mark. That could be her secret.
Let’s take a closer look at Warren’s best original song nominees. The films’ worldwide box-office receipts are taken from boxofficemojo.com (rounded off to the nearest million). In two cases where the film grossed less than $1 million, we show the exact tally.
When the nominations for the 2023 Oscars were announced on Tuesday (Jan. 24), just one Black woman was among the 10 women nominated in acting categories – Angela Bassett for best supporting actress for her role in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.
Viola Davis in The Woman King and Danielle Deadwyler in Till were thought to have a strong chance of being nominated for best actress, but both were passed over – a fact that has stirred some controversy, such as this pointed commentary in The Los Angeles Times on Thursday (Jan. 26).
Black women fared much better in the marquee categories in the 2023 Grammy nominations, which were announced on Nov. 15. Three Black women were among the 10 lead artists nominated for album of the year, widely viewed as the most prestigious Grammy Award – Beyoncé for Renaissance, Lizzo for Special and Mary J. Blige for the deluxe edition of Good Morning Gorgeous.
Beyoncé is regarded as the front-winner to win in that category, after having lost in her three previous bids. I Am…Sasha Fierce lost to Taylor Swift’s Fearless; Beyoncé to Beck’s Morning Phase; and Lemonade to Adele’s 25.
Oscar and Grammy voters have not always been generous to Black women. Only one Black woman has won the Oscar for best actress – Halle Berry for Monster’s Ball (2001). Amazingly, you have to go back even further than that to find the last Black woman to win the Grammy for album of the year as a lead artist. It hasn’t happened since Lauryn Hill took the 1998 prize for The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill.
Black women have fared far better at the Oscars in supporting roles than in lead roles, with nine Black actresses winning best supporting actress – Hattie McDaniel in Gone With the Wind (1939), Whoopi Goldberg in Ghost (1990), Jennifer Hudson in Dreamgirls (2006), Mo’nique in Precious (2009), Octavia Spencer in The Help (2011), Lupita Nyong’o in 12 Years a Slave (2013), Davis in Fences (2016), Regina King in If Beale Street Could Talk (2018) and Ariana DeBose in West Side Story (2021).
It’s worth noting that Davis played the female lead in Fences. She had won the Tony for best lead actress in a play for the same role in 2010, but agreed to be slotted in the supporting category at the Oscars to boost her chances of winning. (The lead actress winner that year was Emma Stone – Davis’ former costar in The Help – for the blockbuster La La Land.)
If Beyoncé wins album of the year, she’ll become the fourth Black woman to take that award as a lead artist. Natalie Cole was the first for Unforgettable With Love, a tribute to her late father Nat King Cole (1991), followed by Whitney Houston two years later for The Bodyguard soundtrack and then Hill five years after that.
The perception of disrespect for Black women in this year’s best actress nominations will probably work to Bassett’s advantage in the voting. She is seen as the front-runner to win best supporting actress, 29 years after she was nominated for best actress for playing Tina Turner in What’s Love Got to Do With It. She would become the 10th Black woman to win best supporting actress; the eighth in the past two decades.
The way that Black women can fairly easily win Oscars in the supporting category, but have a hard time winning in the lead category, is analogous to a situation at the Grammys, where Black women (and men, for that matter) do very well in terms of numbers of overall awards, but less well in the vaunted Big Four categories.
Beyoncé is one of only three artists in Grammy history to amass 28 or more Grammys, but just one of those awards has come in a Big Four category – her 2009 song of the year win for “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It).”
At this year’s Grammys, she is likely to tie or surpass Sir Georg Solti for the most wins by anyone in Grammy history. (The late classical conductor won 31 awards.) While that statistic is likely to grab the headlines, her expected win for album of the year – the biggest of the Big Four categories – may be even more significant.
Lady Gaga took to her Instagram on Wednesday (Jan. 25) to thank the Motion Picture Academy for her fourth Oscar nomination, for co-writing “Hold My Hand” from Top Gun: Maverick with BloodPop. The power ballad is nominated for best original song.
“Thank you so much to the Academy for nominating my song ‘Hold My Hand’ for an Oscar this year!” Gaga wrote. “Writing this song for the film Top Gun: Maverick was a deep and powerful experience that I will never forget. So grateful for the magic of music and cinema. Love you my co-writer @bloodpop I’m on set filming now big love to little monsters!”
This is Gaga’s third nomination in the category. She and Diane Warren teamed to write “Til It Happens to You” from the 2015 doc The Hunting Ground. She teamed with Mark Ronson, Anthony Rossomando and Andrew Wyatt to write “Shallow” from the 2018 remake of A Star Is Born, which won the award. Gaga was also nominated that year for best actress for starring in the film alongside Bradley Cooper.
Gaga’s Instagram came one day after her friend and collaborator Tony Bennett issued a tweet congratulating her. “Congratulations to the amazingly talented @ladygaga on her 4th Oscar nomination! Today, Lady Gaga makes history as the first artist to receive three nominations in the Best Original Song category at the #Oscars. So proud of you!”
It’s unclear what Bennett meant by the comment about Gaga’s record-setting achievement. Other artists, such as Randy Newman and Lionel Richie, have received three or more nominations in that category.
“Hold My Hand” is one of six nominations that Top Gun: Maverick received, including best picture. The film fared better with Oscar voters than the initial Top Gun in 1986, which received four Oscar nods. It’s unusual for a sequel to outpace the original in the esteem of Oscar voters.