Dua Lipa won’t be dancing the night away at the Oscars.
When the nominations for the 96th Academy Awards were announced on Tuesday morning, you would’ve expected the pop diva to be as much of a sure thing as Emma Stone (Best Actress for “Poor Things”), Paul Giamatti (Best Actor for “The Holdovers”) and pretty much everything “Oppenheimer.”
But Lipa’s “Dance the Night” failed to snag a nod for Best Original Song. This, despite the fact that the “Barbie” bop — which the singer co-wrote — was nominated for a Golden Globe earlier this month and is up for two Grammys, including Song of the Year, on Feb. 4.
Not to mention the fact that “Dance the Night” — which twirled all the way to No. 6 on the Billboard Hot 100 last summer as the lead single from the all-star “Barbie” soundtrack — was far and away the biggest hit to have been in contention for a Best Original Song slot.
Truth: If you asked most people if they could name that tune between “Dance the Night” or “What Was I Made for?” — Billie Eilish’s presumptive Best Original Song victor, also from “Barbie” — Lipa would win hands down.
But while Eilish’s Golden Globe winner is, as expected, nominated for what would be her second Best Original Song Oscar — following her Bond theme “No Time to Die” in 2022 — along with Ryan Gosling’s “Barbie” showstopper “I’m Just Ken,” there’s no love for Lipa because her song wasn’t even submitted.
Aside from the members of the Academy’s Music Branch, who knew that you could only submit two songs from the same movie?
That left Lipa out in the cold … which is, well, cold.
As much as Gosling chews up the screen singing “I’m Just Ken,” the actor himself was shocked when the tune beat both “What Was I Made for?” and “Dance the Night” to win best song at the Critics Choice Awards earlier this month.
“I’m Just Ken” is, ultimately, novelty. “Dance the Night” will live on long after the pink summer of “Barbie” has faded.
Certainly, some stupid rules shouldn’t have prevented “Dance the Night” from even being submitted.
Instead, other songs that nobody has even heard were nominated — including “It Never Went Away” from “American Symphony,” “Wahzhazhe (A Song for My People)” from “Killers of the Flower Moon” and “The Fire Inside” from “Flamin’ Hot.”
The latter scored songwriting giant Diane Warren — the Susan Lucci of the Oscars — her 15th nomination without a win, going all the way back to the “Mannequin” hit “Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now” in 1988.
And if you ask me, the best movie music moment of 2023 came from “Murder on the Dancefloor,” Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s disco delight that soundtracked Barry Keoghan’s nude victory boogie in “Saltburn.”
But unfortunately that wasn’t eligible because it originally came out way back in 2001. Otherwise, it would have murdered the competition.
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Chuck Arnold
