Ahead of Taylor Swift’s Likely Oscar Debut, Here’s How Other 21st Century Pop Stars Fared at Their First Academy Awards
For every Adele or Billie Eilish who won first time out, there's a Beyoncé or Rihanna who went home empty-handed.
Black News 
Taylor Swift’s “I Knew It, I Knew You” from Toy Story 5 has a lot going for it in the upcoming Oscar race for best original song. The song is a smash hit, having spent its first nine weeks inside the top five on the Billboard Hot 100. Swift is a familiar name to even the least music-aware Oscar voter. And Toy Story 5 is among the top-grossing films of 2026 both domestically and worldwide.
But there are no sure things in awards voting. Beyoncé and Rihanna are two other music megastars who left the Oscar proceedings in recent years with nothing more than happy memories of a fun night out.
We decided to take a look at top music stars of the 21st Century who have been nominated for Oscars for best original song, Our focus is on artists, like Swift, who debuted since 2000, but we made an exception for Eminem, who technically broke through at the end of the 20th Century. The hip-hop icon’s major-label debut album was released in February 1999.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences will announce the shortlist of 15 contenders for best original song on Tuesday Dec. 15. Nominations will be announced on Thursday, Jan. 21, 2017. The awards will be presented on Sunday, March 14.
Here are 18 top music stars of the 21st Century – or pairs of stars, in a couple of cases – who were nominated for Oscars for best original song, with notes about how those nominations turned out. If the artists had subsequent nominations in the category, we point that out too. The year shown is the year of the Oscar ceremony.
