In little over a week, the winner of this year's Oscar for Best Original Song will be announced and the nominees are a particularly strong group of songs. Beyoncé performs a moving ballad, "Be Alive" for the Venus and Serena Williams bio-pic, "King Richard" which she co-wrote with DIXSON. The only song nominated from the hit soundtrack of the Disney animated feature, "Encanto" is the Spanish language tune, "Dos Oruguitas", written by Lin-Manuel Miranda and performed in the film by Colombian singer-songwriter, Sebastián Yatra. For Kenneth Branagh's semi-autobiographical drama, "Belfast", Van Morrison (a native of the Irish city) composed the score, which uses eight of his classic songs, and wrote a new song, "Down For Joy". Billie Eilish and her brother Finneas wrote the haunting theme song for Daniel Craig's final turn as James Bond with the title track, "No Time To Die". The song was originally released in February 2020 with the film due in May but the pandemic changed those plans. "No Time To Die" finally reached theaters in September 2021, becoming the fourth-highest-grossing film of the year. And country legend, Reba McEntire performs "Somehow You Do", the inspirational song by Diane Warren for the film, "Four Good Days" that features Glenn Close and Mila Kunis. This is Warren's thirteenth nomination in this category without a win and while she is greatly admired, I don't think this will be her year.
I would love to see Beyoncé win the award but I think it's likely that Billie Eilish will take home the Oscar since the Academy really loves a James Bond theme. Here are the five nominated songs to hear and judge for yourself:
"Be Alive" from "King Richard" (music and lyric by DIXSON and Beyoncé Knowles-Carter)
"Dos Oruguitas" from "Encanto" (music and lyric by Lin-Manuel Miranda)
"Down to Joy" from "Belfast" (music and lyric by Van Morrison)
"No Time to Die" from "No Time to Die" (music and Lyric by Billie Eilish and Finneas O’Connell)
"Somehow You Do" from "Four Good Days" (music and lyric by Diane Warren)
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, took some time but I have finally begun to appreciate (The rocking music video has certainly contributed to that) but the other songs released, the ballads, "
Despite the old-school r&b flavor and the fresh beats, nothing really stands out as it should although you can tell there was much thought and effort put in to this album.
, named after the city where they did most of the recording. The duo enlisted the help of Jack White, formerly of The White Stripes and jazz/pop artist, Norah Jones to provide vocals and lyrics on some of the tracks. The music has a familiar feeling, since they used some of the musicians that actually worked with Morricone when he recorded his scores, yet seems very modern with lush instrumentals and haunting rock guitars.
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. Four songs they collaborated on ended up on the album including my favorite track, "
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" where he has seemed to have used his experience with Mr. West to progress his own musical endeavor which has this new work feel sonically larger. The results are eerie and beautiful.
" climbed to number one on the Billboard Alternative Song Chart.
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and her first under her own label, Blues Babe Records (named after her grandmother) which is distributed by Warner Bros. Records. She was part of the original neo-soul movement in the late 90's that blended together classic soul with hip-hop and her music remains warm, sensual, thoughtful and positive which is very refreshing in today's musical landscape.
". This is the first song off the new album that I really like and this video is great because of it's simplicity. No meat dresses, giant eggs or any other grand theatrics, just Gaga dancing in the city streets, wearing a demure (for her) leather bondage gear. This video is also bittersweet as it also marks the last musical appearance of the late Clarence Clemmons:
" and I LOVE THIS SONG! I just don't understand why it's not getting any proper airplay on US pop radio. This is much better than a lot of the crap that is getting played.
" and what I've heard, I have really liked,.however, after seeing her HBO special, "The Monster Ball Tour", it made it even more clear that I much more enjoy just listening to her music as I'm far less enamored of watching any of her theatrical antics on display on stage. I really appreciate that she is giving every ounce of her being to all of her "little monsters" but one overly elaborate, overly choreographed production number after another, it all grew tiresome and just came across as clunky and amateurish. 
" seem subtle as Gaga feels more comfortable to push her quirky Eurodisco sound even more aggressively forward with echoes of eighties rock as well as shamelessly following the lead of the Material Girl.when she courted controversy by using religious images in her music.
