THE NIN HOTLINE

It's award season, and fifteen years ago, that meant that CDs, DVDs, and other goodies would get mailed out to attract the attention of people who vote in things like the Golden Globes, the Oscars, and so on. That still happens on a much more limited scale, but for us plebes who aren't interested in spending three figures trying to buy a CD that's not supposed to be for sale, these days the studios post For Your Consideration scores online, as Amazon MGM has done for Challengers here.

If you're not familiar, the scores submitted to Oscar voters are different than the commercial releases, as they must be "as heard" in the film. This sometimes means there's music in the For Your Consideration (FYC) album that's not on the official release. Sometimes the music on an FYC score is a more primitive edit of what you've been listening to. And sometimes familiar music cuts off suddenly, because it was written as a cue for a scene that ends abruptly. It can be an interesting peek into the process that goes into taking these film cues and turning them into "songs". And you can listen to all 21 cues from Challengers, online, here. If you're clever with a web browser, you can even figure out how to download them for keeps.