Lady Gaga and Rihanna face off for Best Original Song at 2023 Oscars

The 95th Academy Awards has offered nominations to a wide range of original song composers, from upbeat dance music to dramatic ballads, but all eyes are on the head-to-head battle between Lady Gaga and Rihanna.

Each of the singing superstars recorded a new track for a movie, earning them nominations for the Best Original Song award at the 2023 Oscars.

Lady Gaga vs Rihanna

Lady Gaga’s power ballad, ‘Hold My Hand’ was created for ‘Top Gun: Maverick’. Bloodpop also contributed to the writing. Lady Gaga performs the song atop a grand piano on an airstrip, reaching her arms upward dramatically.

“I know you’re scared and your pain is imperfect / But don’t you give up on yourself,” sings Lady Gaga from the piano as planes fly.

Lady Gaga’s nomination for Best Original Song will be her third in the same category, with a nod for ‘Til it Happens to You’ in 2016 and one for ‘Shallow’ in 2019, which she won.

Meanwhile, Super Bowl 57 halftime show performer Rihanna is nominated for her song ‘Lift Me Up’ for the ‘Black Panther: Wakanda Forever’ movie. The song is also written by Tems, Ludwig Göransson, and Ryan Coogler.

Rihannna’s ballad is the ‘Diamonds’ singer’s first new recording following a six-year hiatus, and she performs it in clear, emotive vocals.

“Lift me up / Hold me down / Keep me close / Safe and sound,” Rihanna sings.

Up against Lady Gaga and Rihanna

The nominations also include dance beat ‘Naatu Naatu’, written by M.M. Keeravaani and Chandrabose and performed by Kaala Bhairava and Rahul Sipligunj.

The song appears in the violent action movie ‘RRR’, a three-hour long film that portrays an anti-colonial message, in a scene where there is a viral dance number.

The song ‘Applause’ from the movie ‘Tell It Like a Woman’, is written by Diane Warren and performed by Sofia Carson.

Warren was given an honorary award at the 2022 Oscars, as the songwriter has been nominated for 14 Academy Awards. Warren scooped up her first Oscars nomination in 1988.

The long, graceful orchestra-backed song ‘This Is a Life’, featured in ‘Everything Everywhere All at Once’, has Ryan Lott, David Byrne and Mitski as both songwriters and performers. The track is suitable to the film’s humanistic theme.

The lyrics say, “Many lives that could have been / “The weight of eternity at the speed of light,” and project the reflective mood of the characters as the film comes to an end.