Lady Gaga Might Be Competing For Two Oscars With Her New Music
Gaga co-composed the entirety of the score that's set to be used in Top Gun: Maverick, as well as writing a specific song for it.
On May 3, Lady Gaga released her new single “Hold My Hand,” having announced the track just a few days prior.
The tune, which blends adult contemporary, pop, and arena rock into a powerful and explosive ballad, was written and produced specifically for the upcoming film Top Gun: Maverick.
As she begins properly promoting the cut, it’s become clear that the singer was more involved in the title than was first made clear, and all her work may put her in the running for not one, but two Academy Award nominations later this year.
In addition to writing and co-producing “Hold My Hand,” Gaga also co-composed the entirety of the score that’s set to be used in Top Gun: Maverick.
According to the soundtrack’s track listing (available to view on Amazon ahead of its release on May 27, the same day the film hits theaters), the “Bad Romance” chart-topper is credited as one of the composers of the score. She is joined in the job by Harold Faltermeyer and Hans Zimmer.
At the San Diego premiere of Top Gun: Maverick – which just happened to take place on an actual aircraft carrier – star of the film Tom Cruise praised Gaga’s talents and her contributions to the action movie.
He told a story of how they’d been working on the songs and score for years (something she also referenced in her announcement tweet), and he went on to say, “The story of how her score is laid in to just build to that moment, I feel grateful to her for that.”
Since Gaga is credited as a composer of the film’s score, she will almost surely be eligible for the Best Original Score Oscar.
It’s not common that the prize goes to more than one person, but it’s also not unprecedented.
In 2021, Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross, and Jon Batiste shared the trophy for the music from the movie Soul.
Before that, the last time more than a single musician earned the honor was in 2010, when Reznor and Ross’s The Social Network score won. In early 2022, Zimmer collected his second Oscar (on his own) for his work on Dune.
In addition to potentially competing for Best Original Score, Gaga is also eligible for Best Original Song with “Hold My Hand”, and she’s won that Academy Award before.
She grabbed her first Oscar in 2018 for “Shallow,” featured in the film A Star Is Born. Gaga also starred in that musical film, and earned a nod in the Best Actress category, though she didn’t end up on top in that field.
The pop superstar shared her prize that year with fellow songwriters and producers Mark Ronson, Anthony Rossomando, and Andrew Wyatt.
Before winning with “Shallow,” Gaga was nominated for Best Original Song in 2015 for co-writing the track “Til It Happens to You” from the documentary The Hunting Ground, though she and collaborator Diane Warren lost to Sam Smith and Jimmy Napes.
Those two talents collected the coveted award for the James Bond tune “Writing’s on the Wall.”
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