There’s A Chance That Only Two Original Song Nominees Will Perform At The Oscars

I’m not sure what kind of curse has been placed over this year’s Academy Awards but it has been rapidly declining into a horrific display of fuckery for weeks now. First, there was Kevin Hart’s failed attempt of caring about the LGBTQ community. Then there was the announcement that this year’s host will be invisible. And now it’s being reported that out of the five nominated tunes in the Best Song category the only people performing this year might be Kendrick Lamar and Lady Gaga.

I’ve got a feeling that this year’s Oscars are going to be a cavalcade of confusion, so I will most certainly be watching. One of the reasons for the other three songs getting cut is because the Academy realizes that their broadcast puts people to sleep faster than three shots of Nyquil with a Unisom chaser. They’ve decided that in the interest of time, it’s best to forego the other three to keep the broadcast at a brief three hours instead of the standard thirty hours. According to Variety, Kendrick and Sza will perform “All The Stars” from Black Panther, and Gaga will do “Shallow” from A Star Is Born. The other songs will still be featured, but just for a quick second.

The other three — “The Place Where Lost Things Go” from “Mary Poppins Returns,” “I’ll Fight” from “RBG” and “When a Cowboy Trades His Spurs for Wings” from “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs” — would likely be acknowledged only during the announcement of the song nominees. Rumors of their exclusion is already causing consternation among members of the music branch as well as among those nominees’ respective camps.

Adding to this controversy is the fact that the Black Panther and A Star Is Born soundtracks are both on Interscope Records, so this may look like their playing favorites toward bigger named acts, even though Jennifer Hudson and actress Emily Blunt sang “I’ll Fight” and “The Place Where Lost Things Go” respectively. However, the popularity of Kendrick and Gaga’s songs and the movies they’re attached to are a bigger draw, so the favoritism logic may be true. And there’s more controversy as well.

Another move that’s causing chronic eye-roll syndrome is having the statues for lesser known categories like Best Lighting or Best Craft Services Taco Dip handed out during the commercial breaks in further effort to keep the show shorter than in previous years. So I’m calling it right now, there will be tons of confused faces mixed in with fake smiles and people clapping while looking around the room waiting to see if Ashton Kutcher has returned for a special Oscars edition of Punk’d. In other words it’s going to be the hit of awards season and everyone should watch for as long as they can before they fall asleep. Because it will probably still be boring as hell.

Pics: Wenn.com, Warner Bros.