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Joe Reid joins Mark and Sarah for a ranking — and handicapping — of this year’s Best Song candidates.

Joe Reid is back in the MASTAS guest chair to help Mark and Sarah rank, and discuss, the 90th Academy Awards nominees for Best Song. We go in alphabetical order by lead artist, and along the way, we find that humming “Mighty River” can make mundane chores more enjoyable; wonder if maaaaaybe Common doesn’t need a new agent; and warm our hands at garbage fires.

If you’re already contemplating Oscars odds for your annual pool, which Best Song pony do we predict takes Oscar gold? Well, Pasek and Paul’s chances look good — they’re on the cusp of an EGOT, after all — but Mary J. Blige, nominee in two categories for Mudbound, has a pretty cool story too.

And you can’t count Diane Warren out, as she’s now firmly in Randy Newman/Susan Lucci territory with her nominations-to-wins ratio and was expected to take this award home in 2016 behind Lady Gaga’s “‘Til It Happens To You.”

What of synonym-for-gentle Sufjan Stevens? Our panel was a bit puzzled at which song from the gorgeous Call Me By Your Name got nominated, expecting a nod for “Visions Of Gideon,” but certainly we weren’t complaining. The L.A. Times‘s Tim Greiving has an interesting piece on the history of Stevens’s collaboration with Luca Guadagnino; it’s not often enough that you’ll read a phrase like “the uncredited mandolin acrobatics of Chris Thile,” so let’s credit those acrobatics right here. And don’t miss Variety‘s interview with Stevens on his ambivalence about the nomination, and music for film generally.

But is this the kind of music that wins this award? Ask Aimee Mann. Better yet, don’t; the past nominee recently turned up in The Assassination Of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story with a haunting rendition of “Drive” by the Cars — but apparently the first artist she was asked to cover was…Phil Collins. Amazing. (She passed, duh.)

Here’s a full list to date of all the Academy Award winners for Best Song.

Check out Diane Warren’s entry at The Songwriters’ Hall Of Fame site.

And hashtag never forget Rob Lowe’s cringey Oscars number.

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