All Songs Considered: Cruelly ranking the best original song Oscar nominees
NPR Music
NPR
4.3 • 3.3K Ratings
🗓️ 10 March 2026
⏱️ 42 minutes
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Summary
Host Robin Hilton is joined by New Music Friday’s Stephen Thompson to cruelly rank those nominees along with “Train Dreams” from Train Dreams and “Sweet Dreams of Joy” from Viva Verdi!.
(00:00) Intro
(02:37) Fifth place
(08:45) Fourth place
(16:55) Third place
(24:25) Second place
(33:31) First place and our pick to win the Oscar
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This episode of All Songs Considered comes to you from the NPR Music Podcast, where you will also find new music Friday every Friday with your host, Stephen Thompson. |
| 0:09.5 | Hello, Robin. |
| 0:10.9 | Stephen, you're also a host for Pop Culture Happy Hour. |
| 0:14.8 | You report on the Billboard charts. |
| 0:16.5 | I was going to try to promote some of your stuff. |
| 0:18.5 | I was like, you really actually do quite a lot. |
| 0:20.6 | It's alarming. I thought this guy was, like, didn't actually work here. Yeah. Every day I'm like, how is he still here? Does he get a check? Are we paying him for this? You've also been known to write the occasional feature for NPR, including one that you have been doing for a number of years now. |
| 0:39.0 | Every year around this time of year, you have been ranking the best song nominees for the Oscars. |
| 0:47.3 | Yeah, I've been doing this since 2019. |
| 0:49.6 | Every single year that I have written this feature, Diane Warren has been nominated. |
| 0:56.0 | I think she's like on her ninth year in a row now. |
| 0:58.2 | In this category, she is on her ninth year in a row being nominated from her total 17 nominations. |
| 1:05.6 | It's mind-boggling. |
| 1:07.6 | It would be, in a way, it would be more mind-boggling if most of the songs |
| 1:12.5 | were any good. You're going to get into on this episode, because that's what we're going to do. |
| 1:18.3 | We're going to, in your own words, cruelly, cruelly rank the best song nominees for this year's |
| 1:25.3 | Oscars. What is it? What's your criteria? Is this like, do you rank |
| 1:29.4 | these based on just the quality of the song or what you think the chances are that it's going to |
| 1:33.4 | win? It's definitely never based on odds of victory, though usually at some point in the |
| 1:39.4 | article I will say, like, expect this one to win. You know, this is the odds on favorite or |
| 1:44.1 | whatever. But I'm really trying to rank them just in order of quality. I actually think say, like, expect this one to win. You know, this is the odds on favorite or whatever, |
| 1:44.5 | but I'm really trying to rank them just in order of quality. And I actually think this is a |
... |
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