Oscar-nominated songs reviewed: All the Stars, Shallow, The Place Where Lost Things Go

Kendrick Lamar, SZA
All the Stars

Combine a risk-taking, Pulitzer prize-winning rapper with one of the most gut-punching vocalists of recent years, chuck them into a groundbreaking blockbuster, Black Panther, and what do you get? “Meh”, basically. Sure, the beat stomps, the synths twinkle and SZA’s verse is especially good, but this is so generic, expensive-sounding and default Epic (yes there’s a string section) that it could have been Flo Rida and Pixie Lott and not much would change.

Jennifer Hudson
I’ll Fight

This is songwriter Diane Warren’s 10th – TENTH! – attempt at an Oscar for best song, having even lost with gold-plated tear-tugger How Do I Live. The relatively limp I’ll Fight, taken from a documentary about supreme court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, is worthy only in one sense of the word, but the real story is Hudson, who has somehow parlayed an Oscar-winning acting career and a voice that could rupture spleens into a Saturday night ITV slot sat on a spinning chair next to Olly Murs. Get RBG on that!

Lady Gaga & Bradley Cooper
Shallow

“Hoo, huh, uh, huhh-ow, huh, huhh-huhhh”. Lady Gaga’s guttural yawn from last October’s trailer to A Star Is Born was the world’s first taste of Shallow. It was an auspicious start, disseminated via millions of memes, but whichever way you cut it Gags and Brad’s heavily varnished authenticity ballad is an immediate classic, all warm strings, vintage melodies and a soaring second half that blows away all cynicism.

Emily Blunt
The Place Where Lost Things Go

So, let me get this right: Mary Poppins literally flies in and out of children’s lives, gaslights them and then buggers off? Plus, she expects them to sleep soundly despite pulling 6ft lamps out of carpet bags? While the original film has the lovely Stay Awake as its soothing nighttime lullaby, the “sequel” (remake) has Emily Blunt banging on drearily about how the kids’ mum is dead. Seriously, someone call child services.

Tim Blake Nelson and Willie Watson
When a Cowboy Trades His Spurs for Wings

Is this what Justin Timberlake was trying to do with Man of the Woods? When a Cowboy ... is a dusty, harmonica-augmented ballad that features the words “Yippee-ki-yi-yay” and has all the emotional resonance of Bob Dylan clearing phlegm from his throat. Cosmetically, it’s about death, hence the distant choir of angels, but really it’s about cliches.