After ignoring last year’s two nominees for best original song, this Sunday”s 85th Annual Oscar ceremony looks like it will be overloaded with musical performances. In addition to Adele and Barbra Streisand, here’s a guide to whom else you should look out for as of three days before the big show.
*Adele: The multiple Grammy winner will perform her Oscar-nominated tune “Skyfall” from the James Bond movie of the same name. The Academy Awards are planning a 50th anniversary salute to 007 so Adele”s performance will be a part of that and will also include Shirley Bassey, best known for singing Bond themes “Goldfinger” and “Diamonds Are Forever.” How awesome would it be if Carly Simon, Paul McCartney, Sheena Easton and Duran Duran also showed up?
*Norah Jones: She will sing nominated son, “Everybody Needs a Best Friend” from “Ted,” co-written by Oscar host Seth McFarlane.
*Jennifer Hudson and Catherine Zeta-Jones will be among the artists participating in a tribute to recent movie musicals, “Dreamgirls,” “Chicago” and “Les Miserables.” Also confirmed for the tribute is the cast of “Les Miserables,” including Russell Crowe, Anne Hathaway, Eddie Redmayne, Hugh Jackman and Amanda Seyfried, so expect Jackman to break into Oscar-nominated song “Suddenly” at some point.
*Barbra Streisand: Just as you don”t put Baby in a corner, you don”t put Streisand in a medley with other artists. While producers Neil Meron and Craig Zadan are keeping mum on how Streisand, who is singing on the show for the first time in 36 years, will participate, the pair told The Hollywood Reporter, “Streisand is going to come on and do something really special and blow people away.”
*Kristen Chenoweth and Seth McFarlane: As my colleague Guy Tapley previously reported, instead of ending the show with the presentation of the Oscar for best picture, the Academy Awards will close with a musical number by McFarlane and Chenoweth because, as producers Meron and Zadan told The Hollywood Reporter, “We want to have an actual ending.” Sadly, the sound of their singing may be drowned out by the sounds of people clicking their televisions off, no matter how amusing or clever the final song may be.
*As of now, there”s still no word on how nominated songs, “Before My Time” from “Chasing Ice” or “Pi”s Lullaby” from “Life of Pi” will be represented.