If an awards show had Billie Eilish, Becky G, Jon Batiste and Mark Ronson scheduled to perform, you’d think it was the Grammys. But, no – these stars are coming together to light up the stage of the 2024 Academy Awards.
Following a year full of Barbie, bombs (atomic, in the case of Oppenheimer) and Bradley Cooper, the March 10 ceremony will celebrate some of the original music accompanying these cinematic wonders. Not surprisingly, the Best Original Song category has two nominees from the Barbie soundtrack after it nearly dominated in the category of Best Song Written for Visual Media at the 2024 Grammys.
Eilish’s “What Was I Made For?” won the Grammy and is a heavy favorite to give her and Finneas O’Connell their second Oscar. ( The duo won in 2022 for the theme to No Time to Die).
Although Ryan Gosling did an incredible performance of “I’m Just Ken,” in Barbie, he would not claim the prize if it won. The Best Original Song celebrates songwriters and not performers (unless they have contributed in some way with music or lyrics). Instead, if the song is “Kenough” to win, the award will go to Mark Ronson and Andrew Wyatt (the latter of which won the Best Original Song award in 2019 for “Shallow” from A Star is Born).
Scroll on to get a full rundown of this year’s nominees and who’s performing wat at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood on March 10.
Diane Warren, ‘The Fire Inside’
Flamin’ Hot didn’t set critics ablaze, and its accuracy was scorched after the LA Times and NPR disputed the film’s claim that Richard Montañez (played by Jesse Garcia) invented Flamin’ Hot Cheetos. However, the song “The Fire Inside” had the Academy feeling the heat, thanks to Becky G’s performance of Dianne Warren’s original track.
Warren is one of modern music history’s most successful and renowned songwriters. She is best known for penning Aerosmith’s “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing” (another tune previously nominated for Best Original Song). Going into the 2024 Oscars, Warren has 15 nominations to date but 0 wins. However, in 2022, the Academy celebrated her work with an Honorary Award.
Becky G will appear at the show to perform “The First Inside.”
Mark Ronson and Andrew Wyatt, ‘I’m Just Ken’
Ken keeps causing trouble. Fans were livid when Greta Gerwig didn’t score a Best Director nomination and Margot Robbie didn’t get nominated for Best Actress. Meanwhile, Gosling got nominated for Best Supporting Actor, and his performance helped Ronson and Wyatt get a Best Original Song nod.
Though Gosling’s performance of the song (with Ronson) at the Oscars will be a moment for Kens everywhere, Eilish is the favorite to win Best Original Song.
Jon Batiste and Dan Wilson, ‘It Never Went Away’
American Symphony is a biographical documentary that details Jon Batiste’s rise as one of the biggest names in music while helping his wife, writer and advocate Suleika Jaouad, battle acute myeloid leukemia. Critics gave the Netflix film mostly positive reviews, and it picked up a handful of accolades — including a Critics’ Choice Award for Best Score for Batiste. He will perform the song “It Never Went Away” during the 2024 Oscars.
Scott George, ‘Wahzhazhe (A Song for My People)’
Scott George made history when he scored a nomination for “Wahzhazhe (A Song for My People),” a song from Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon. The film depicts a series of murders of Osage members after oil was discovered on tribal land.
George’s nomination made him the first person of Osage descent to be nominated for an Academy Award. “The words are fairly simple,” he told Osage News after the nomination came out. “This one is just telling you ‘stand up,’ and ‘God made it for us.’ But in reality, my thoughts behind it are we’ve gone through all this, and this is showing what we’ve gone through, this movie — what our people went through and still go through today, in some form or another. If it wasn’t for God, Wakanda, we wouldn’t be here. So, I’m asking our people to stand up, basically, and be proud of the fact that God created a way for us. So that’s the thought behind it, anyway.”
George and the Osage Singers will perform the song during the 2024 Academy Awards.
Billie Eilish and Finneas O’Connell, ‘What Was I Made For?’
After they were given a private showing of Barbie’s rough footage, Eilish and her brother, Finneas, penned the haunting “What Was I Made For?” The song’s Oscar nomination seemed a sure bet; it racked up multiple nominations and awards, winning both Best Song Written for Visual Media and Song of the Year at the 2024 Grammys.
“Any recognition that this song gets, I just want to dedicate to anyone who experiences hopelessness, the feeling of existential dread and feeling like, ‘What’s the point? Why am I here? And why am I doing this?’” said Eilish when accepting the Chairman’s Award at the Palm Springs Film Awards in January. “Be patient with yourself,” she added. “And know that it is, I think, worth it all. And I think that it’s good to be alive now. I didn’t feel like that for a very long time.”
Eilish and O’Connell will perform the song at the 2024 Academy Awards.
