How Music Took Over This Year’s Oscars

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In seemingly every crevice of the 97th Academy Awards, there was music, or a reminder of it. It was a song from a nominated film being performed, like Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande delivering one of their “Wicked” duets; or it was the best score winner Daniel Blumberg, a onetime indie-rock hero now on a second musical act; or it was the musical sections of the host Conan O’Brien’s stand-up bits.

And even when there was no music performed, there was music in the air: Timothée Chalamet, who did not take the stage, nominated for the role of Bob Dylan in “A Complete Unknown”; nods to how music functioned in the night’s big winner, “Anora,” and in the polarizing nominee “Emilia Pérez”; and the appearance of Mick Jagger, gamely making an age joke at his own expense.

On this week’s Popcast, a conversation about how the Oscars incorporated music into this year’s ceremony, in manners both smooth and bumpy; whether music made for movies can ever be cool; and whether O’Brien should be making jokes about Drake and Kendrick Lamar.

Guests:

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