Check This Out: "Cats" Enters the Best Original Song Category with Taylor Swift's "Beautiful Ghosts"

Scene from Cats (2019)

Somehow, everyone knew that it just had to happen. With director Tom Hooper's Cats marking the major movie musical of the Christmas season, it just had to sneak into the Best Original Song category somehow. With that said, the moment is finally here and the song that likely exists only for Oscar punditry is "Beautiful Ghosts." While there's still a long way to go until its premiere, there's at least now some sense of what the soundtrack will sound like. With Taylor Swift offering her vocals to the song, it is a curious little ditty that feels like it will be big on emotions, vying for a chance to win the category over whatever Frozen II puts forward. Still, it's a decent song and one that reflects a familiar trend for longtime fans of Andrew Lloyd Webber's film adaptations. 

On one hand, it's weird that Swift hasn't had any Oscar-nominated song in the past. With her status as one of the most successful singers of the modern era, she feels like she should be on tap like Lady Gaga, singing endless inspirational songs that play over closing credits. Then again, her filmography as an actress is slim at best, and this may be her highest-profile gig yet. Following a year where she released yet another successful album in "Lover," she looks to end it with the project that people won't stop talking about. While Cats has been known as the "Memory" musical, Swift's song plays like it wants to outshine it, standing on a bare stage and expose her soul in a way that will connect with audiences.

Then again, this is how Webber's filmography tends to pan out. After all, he won an Oscar for Best Original Song after composing "You Must Love Me" for Evita. His later film The Phantom of the Opera was also nominated for the song "Learn to Be Lonely" and he was originally nominated for Best Original Song, Score or Adaptation for Jesus Christ Superstar. With a recent win of EGOT status, he is in another prime of sorts, having four simultaneous shows running on Broadway and Cats promising to be a big hit this Fall, no matter what the digital fur technology ends up looking like. Still, it feels like a scheme that isn't just done by Webber. Hooper's previous musical Les Miserables featured another original Oscar-nominated song in "Suddenly." It... was fine, but definitely took audiences out of the flow of music.

So, what does the first exposure to Cats as a soundtrack sound like? Well, it sounds like a Taylor Swift song, and one with a capital M for Meaningful:

In some respects, it feels like everyone wants to step on Disney's toes this week. With the launch of Disney+, Netflix announced a partnership with Nickelodeon. With Frozen II quickly approaching, the choice to announce "Beautiful Ghost" feels like an attempt to draw attention away from the Disney soundtrack, which is likely to dominate the Best Original Song category anyways. After all, the last film had "Let It Go." The songwriters have a lot of wiggle room to work with, especially since Disney has dominated the category for most of the past few years and also has "Speechless" from this summer's Aladdin also crowding the category.

Is the song good? Yes. Swift packs in enough emotion to make it feel like it's going to be a great scene, even if the cats do look ridiculous. While some of the rhyme schemes are a bit uninspired in the way that latter-day Webber is uninspired, it still works at capturing the schmaltz that is needed to make these songs work. It also has that dark and dreary imagery that could play well with fans of Swift's music. As a whole, this is a good song and one that feels destined to be a radio staple that's more overplayed than "Shake It Off" was a few years ago. In that way, be glad that Frozen II exists... or not.

Cats still has a long way to go before it becomes the phenomenon that many are predicting that it will be. However, there is one category that always felt like a surefire success story, and it's hard not to see this becoming an earworm with each passing day. Still, in the grand scheme of things Webber's original movie songs have been hit or miss, and this feels like it could go either way at this point. If the film ends up being better than Frozen II, then maybe it will stand a better chance. If not, it will just be another goofy and unnecessary nominee that crowds from superior songs not nominated. Only time will tell if the choice to use lyrics about memory so abundantly will pay off or not.