The Oscars Will Now Feature All Five Best Original Song Nominees During Its Broadcast

Last week, as a way of keeping the 91st Academy Awards broadcast under three hours, the decision was made to only include performances from two out of the five Best Original Song nominees. Well, the Academy changed their minds and are going to allow all five songs to perform. But the performers better sprinkle some Red Bull on their vocal cords, because they only have 90 seconds to deliver their song.

This truly is the year the Oscars turned into a three ring circus but all of this hype is certain to make people tune in. Variety reports that in addition to “Shallow” from A Star Is Born and “All The Stars” from Black Panther, the three remaining tunes “I’ll Fight” from RGB, “The Place Where Lost Things Go” from Mary Poppins Returns, and “When a Cowboy Trades His Spurs for Wings” from The Ballad of Buster Scruggs will also be in the show. However, there’s a bit of a catch. This new decision means that, if the artists agree,  all of the songs would be shortened from their original length to 90 seconds, which is perfect since most people’s attention span barely last for nine seconds. So far the only artist who agreed to perform is Jennifer Hudson, who sings “I’ll Fight“. The Academy took to their Twitter page to announce the good news.

Things we'd like to announce today:

1. @IAMJHUD will perform the nominated song "I'll Fight" on the #Oscars!

2. This has been our favorite tweet of the day.

— The Academy (@TheAcademy) January 31, 2019

The Academy also tweeted out news about “The Place Where Lost Things Go” as well, but were very cryptic about whether or not Emily Blunt will sing live.

Spoiler Alert: "The Place Where Lost Things Go" from "Mary Poppins Returns" will be performed on the #Oscars.

BONUS SPOILER ALERT: It will be performed by a surprise special guest!

— The Academy (@TheAcademy) January 31, 2019

I like how they’re trying to be all cute with their announcements like we don’t already know the real story behind the scenes. Y’all, this entire buildup has been messier than a three month old’s diaper and we still have a few weeks before the actual broadcast on February 24th. Plus, there still has been no word as to whether or not the remaining artists Kendrick Lamar and SZA (“All The Stars“), Lady Gaga (“Shallow“) or Willie Watson and Tim Blake Nelson ( “When a Cowboy Trades His Spurs for Wings“) have agreed to perform on the show.

Sources say that the nominees were talking among themselves last week and that some agreed that solidarity was important, and that a united front of “perform them all” or “perform none of them” might work as a tactic. Whether that happened is not clear.

I think that this year’s Oscars is going to go down as one of the worst in history and that’s saying a lot.

However the decision to whittle the songs down to 90 seconds a piece is a genius move because that’s only 7 1/2 minutes. I say throw them all up on stage at the same time with one microphone and turn that shit into a cypher where they do their 90 seconds, pass the mic and get that shit out of the way. Hey, actually, do that with the entire ceremony.

Pics: Wenn.com, Disney