This year's Academy Award nominees for Best Original Song are a mix of old and new songs

by Beyoncé, Billie Eilish and Lynn Manuel Miranda are squaring off against tunes by Boomer

Mainstays, Van Morrison and Diane Warren.

They're all emotional songs which is no surprise though some are more anthemic than others,

but whichever original song takes home the Academy Award this year, it stands to make

some kind of Oscars history, including a possible E-Gott.

I'm Stephen Thompson.

And I'm Glenn Weldon and today we're talking about this year's Oscar nominated original

songs on pop culture happy hour from NPR.

Okay, it's just the two of us today.

Original songs always been kind of a weird category because a lot of the time the songs

can seem kind of shoehorned into a movie, especially if they play over the closing credits

as they do in a couple instances here.

So that can't help but feel a little thirsty like the melodic equivalent of a four-year

consideration billboard.

Stephen, what do you make of this year's original songs category overall?

Well, this was bound to be a highly competitive category this year in part because so many

major best original song type movies didn't come out last year.

Usually this category has at least one big Disney heavy hitter.

It has a big blockbuster and we didn't get very many of those last year.

So for example, what would have been last year's front runner no time to die by Billie

Eilish came out in February 2020 as a single.

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