Rating:
Genre:
Soundtrack
Release Date: 11/02/2004
No small part of the reversal of fortune enjoyed by the animated-film division of the
Walt Disney company starting in the late 1980s and continuing through the '90s and into the 2000s was the decision to make movie
musicals using proven writing and performing talents from the worlds of
musical theater and, particularly,
adult contemporary pop. The renaissance really started in 1989 with
show music writers
Alan Menken and
Howard Ashman's music for
The Little Mermaid, which resulted not only in a box-office hit, but also a multi-platinum
soundtrack. An important next step occurred with
Menken and
Ashman's
Beauty and the Beast (1991) -- the title song sung by
Celine Dion and
Peabo Bryson -- producing a Top Ten
pop hit. The rest was history, and that history is reprised on this disc, which presents the work of
pop stars on subsequent
Disney animated features including
The Lion King (1994;
Elton John's
"Circle of Life," written by
John and
show music veteran
Tim Rice);
Pocahontas (1995;
Vanessa Williams'
"Colors of the Wind," written by
Menken and
show music veteran
Stephen Schwartz);
Mulan (1998;
Christina Aguilera's
"Reflection," written by
Matthew Wilder and
show music veteran
David Zippel);
Tarzan (1999;
Phil Collins'
"You'll Be in My Heart" and
"Strangers Like Me"); and
The Emperor's New Groove (2000;
Sting's
"My Funny Friend & Me"). All of those tracks reached the
pop and/or
adult contemporary charts, and they are accompanied by the work of such distinguished and venerable
pop figures as
Lyle Lovett,
Sarah McLachlan,
Randy Newman,
Bonnie Raitt,
Tina Turner,
Stevie Wonder, and
Wynonna. While the likes of
John,
Collins, and
Sting no doubt wrote with a sense of the film characters and plots in mind, for the most part these songs do not seem tied specifically to those elements to the same extent that songs in the average Broadway
musical are. Rather, they sound like the same kind of
pop/rock these artists write and perform generally. The great exception here is the work of
Newman, who has more of a movie background. True, from the first note his songs (
"When She Loved Me," "You've Got a Friend in Me," "If I Didn't Have You") sound like
Randy Newman songs, but the lyrics also relate to the characters in the films
Toy Story,
Toy Story 2, and
Monsters, Inc., especially
"When She Loved Me," in which
McLachlan sings touchingly in the voice of a doll abandoned by a little girl who has outgrown her. Still, for anyone unfamiliar with the use of these songs in the films with which they are associated (if there is such a person in existence), this album would sound more like a collection of 1990s to early-2000s
adult contemporary/lite-FM
rock than anything related to animated children's movies. (Oddly,
Peabo Bryson and
Regina Belle's
"A Whole New World [Aladdin's Theme]" is missing from the collection.)
~William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide
;)
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