Oscar Predictions: Best Original Score and Song

The Oscars are coming up yet again. The guilds, Globes, BAFTAs, and critics have all made their picks. Now it's my turn to figure out what it all means with my multi-part Oscar predictions.
I'm going to go through each of the Oscar categories, tell you what has been nominated and won elsewhere, and order the nominee from who I think is most to least likely to win on Oscar night. That doesn't mean I'll be right, but it does mean I'll be informed. Wish me luck.

Previously:
Oscar Nomination Thoughts
Introduction & Documentary Feature
Foreign Film
Visual Effects
Production Design
Supporting Actor
Supporting Actress
Cinematography
Editing
Live-Action, Animated, and Documentary Short

Glossary:
BAFTA - British Academy of Film and Television Arts Awards
Golden Globe - Presented by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association  Award

Best Original Score

The Golden Globe and BAFTA awards are about as reliable when it comes to predicting the Oscar winner. They've each nominated the eventual Oscar winner 17 times in 20 years. The Golden Globe's winner has matched the Oscar winner 10 times in that span. The BAFTA isn't far behind at 9 times. Interestingly, the BAFTA and Globe award disagree more often than they agee. So, the Oscar winner has won either the BAFTA or Globe 15 out of 20 times and the Oscar winner has failed to be nominated by either only once in 20 years (The Red Violin in 1999).
There are some notable omissions from the field like Arrival which was deemed "not original enough" by the Academy. Their absence makes the race a little less competitive, but at the end of the day, won't change the results.

La La Land
Golden Globes - Original Score - Winner
BAFTA - Original Score - Winner
If La La Land can't manage to win this, then the Oscars have gone completely rogue. Winning the BAFTA and Golden Globe award isn't a lock to win the Oscar*, but it would be shocking if a musical Oscar front runner loses for Original Score.

*2 of the last 7 times that's happened, a different movie went on to win the Oscar - Brokeback Mountain over Memoirs of a Geisha in 2005 and The Fellowship of the Ring over Moulin Rouge! in 2001

Jackie
BAFTA - Original Score - Nominee
On paper, there's a more likely winner that I have ranked below this, but here's what I'm thinking. If La La Land is going to lose, it's not going to lose to a traditional score. It's going to lose to an attention-grabbing one. No score on this list sticks out for me as much as Jackie's. However unlikely a La La Land loss is, look to Jackie to cause it.

Moonlight
Golden Globes - Original Score - Nominee
This film has a pretty gorgeous score. Even in a non-La La Land year where Moonlight was the front runner though, it strikes me as a movie that wins the major awards (directing, acting, screenwriting) more than the tech awards. I am giving this a slight bump just because, as La La Land's main competition, it would probably need to pick up a couple smaller awards along the way to build to knocking La La Land out for Best Picture.

Lion
Golden Globes - Original Score - Nominee
BAFTA - Original Score - Nominee
It's the only movie other than La La Land recognized by both the Globes and BAFTA, but I don't believe in it as a spoiler. It isn't a score that stuck with me. To beat La La Land, it can't just be a good score. It needs to be different.

Passengers
Pardon the pun, but Passengers is just happy to be along for the ride. There is a small part of me that wonders when Thomas Newman (14 nominations, 0 wins) is going to finally get his "it's his time" win.

Original Song

This is a category that is best to go with your gut on. The only precursor is the Golden Globe award and the rules for that aren't as strict. For the Oscar, there has to be unequivocal proof that the song only exists because of the movie it's used in. That's how, for example, there were only 2 nominees in 2011 or "Alone Yet Not Alone" was ruled ineligible in 2013 after initially getting a nomination. The Golden Globe is only a moderate indicator of what will win the Oscar, although it's been more accurate lately. After only matching the Oscar winner once from 2004-2011, the Globes have matched 3 of the last 4 Oscar winners. The one exception in that span is when "Let It Go" lost the Globe in 2013, and that song was never going to lose the Oscar anyway.

La La Land "City of Stars"
Golden Globes - Original Song - Winner
The Golden Globe winner is also the Oscar winner about half the time over the last two decades. More importantly, except for last year, when Sam Smith's generic "Writing's On The Wall" somehow beat Lady Gaga's "Til It Happens to You", you can usually see the winner coming. In 2014, "Glory" became the stand-in for the all the love people felt for Selma, a movie whose Oscar campaign was completely bungled leading into the nomination period. The two years before that, only a fool would've bet against "Let It Go" and "Skyfall". Remember "Falling Slowly"? "Lose Yourself"? "My Heart Will Go On"? These all seem so obvious now. As an earworm that you can't get out of your head and the theme throughout the film, "City of Stars" has that kind of feeling.

Moana "How Far I'll Go"
Golden Globes - Original Song - Nominee
Here's some things to consider. Lin Manuel Miranda is a big deal right now. Don't think that his name will go unnoticed by voters. Disney has a history of finding a way to win this award. Also, vote splitting is somewhat of a concern for La La Land here. The last five times a movie has had two or more Original Song nominees, only once did that film come away with a win (Slumdog Millionaire in 2008, when it had two of the three nominated songs). That carves out a little room for Moana to sneak in with a win. That said, "How Far I'll Go" isn't quite the anthem the way "Let It Go" was and Moana doesn't match Frozen in popularity.

La La Land "Audition (The Fools Who Dream)"
Golden Globes - Original Song - Nominee
Continuing from what I said about "How Far I'll Go", let's look at those cases of vote splitting.
In 2009, a song from Crazy Heart beat out two songs from The Princess and the Frog. I couldn't name any of the songs, but I do remember that Crazy Heart song being tied to a Jeff Bridges march to a Lead Actor win.
In 2007, "Falling Slowly" beat three Enchanted songs. I'm biased because "Falling Slowly" is one of my favorite songs, but I don't see how someone could listen to that and not vote for it.
In 2006, Melissa Etheridge's "I Need To Wake Up" from An Inconvenient Truth beat three Dreamgirls songs. That one is legitimate vote splitting happening and maybe a dash of the Oscars getting political.
In 2003, a Return of the King song beat two Cold Mountain songs. That year, LotR was an unstoppable freight train and those Cold Mountain songs were nothing special.
The point I'm trying to make is that vote splitting is only a concern when the songs from the film in question were already pretty vulnerable. "Audition" works best in the context of the film, so "City of Stars" is a more obvious pick.

Trolls "Can't Stop the Feeling!"
It's a popular song, but that's about all it has going for it.

Jim: The James Foley Story "The Empty Chair"
The fact that I know nothing about the song or movie worries me a little bit as a wildcard, but this isn't really a category for wildcards.