The Music Of Disney Animated Classics

[Disney's Divinity]

Bumpity-bump-bump.

Award-Winning ‘Frozen’ Songwriting Team Signs Deal with Disney Music Publishing
http://www.wdwinfo.com/news-stories/awa ... ublishing/

Good for them. Seems like a good fit. I love all their work thus far, although Book of Mormon took quite a while before I "got" it.

I hope nobody takes my comments from earlier in the thread too seriously. They were almost a decade ago. I still prefer the newer, more Broadway-esque soundtracks in general, but I do love quite a few of the older soundtracks. Here’s my ranking of some of their soundtracks:

Beauty and the Beast
Mary Poppins
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Bambi
The Little Mermaid
Pocahontas
Tarzan
Frozen
Bedknobs and Broomsticks
Aladdin
Peter Pan
Pinocchio
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
The Lion King
Hercules
The Jungle Book
Moana
Enchanted
Mulan
Tangled
Cinderella
Alice in Wonderland
Dumbo
The Sword in the Stone
Lady and the Tramp
The Princess and the Frog
The Aristocats
Robin Hood
Oliver & Company
The Fox and the Hound

I’ve left out Sleeping Beauty and Fantasia, just because I think that’s a bit of an unfair battle.

[Mooky]

^^ No love for the Aladdin soundtrack?

[Disney's Divinity]

I wrote that post on the fly. I must've forgot Aladdin and Moana somehow. Edited.

[Mooky]

Nice ranking My list would have been heavily in favor of soundtracks from 1989 onwards. Not that I think that earlier soundtracks are bad or anything, it's just that I don't find myself singing "So This Is Love" or "Bare Necessities" while I'm doing house chores as often as, say, "Under the Sea" or having the trumpet part of "Tour of the Kingdom" constantly stuck in my head. I think the only truly memorable score of pre-1989 for me is The Jungle Book.

[BelleGirl]

Nice ranking My list would have been heavily in favor of soundtracks from 1989 onwards. Not that I think that earlier soundtracks are bad or anything, it's just that I don't find myself singing "So This Is Love" or "Bare Necessities" while I'm doing house chores as often as, say, "Under the Sea" or having the trumpet part of "Tour of the Kingdom" constantly stuck in my head. I think the only truly memorable score of pre-1989 for me is The Jungle Book.

Mooky,

You don't find yourself singing "Bare necessities" while doing house chores that often, yet you state that "The Jungle book" has the only truly memorable score of pre 1989 for you. That's a bit puzzling to me,since it's one of the key songs of that movie.
I think 'The bare necessities" is a perfect song to sing while doing your chores - like A spoonful of sugar from Mary Poppins

[Mooky]

It's simple: when I say score I mean instrumental orchestrations, so while I'm very familiar with songs like "Cruella De Vil" and "He's a Tramp", I can't easily recall any musical cues from pre-1980s other than TJB's "Overture". On the other hand, I have "... To Die For", "Transformation", "Cave of Wonders", "Farewell", etc. basically ingrained in my memory.

[Disney's Divinity]

I agree about a lot of the score from the older movies rarely being as memorable (with some exceptions of course, like SB of course and the chase from the palace in Cinderella). Speaking of Aladdin in particular,the "OJA (reprise)" melody being re-purposed throughout "The Battle" works incredibly well. Naturally Hans Zimmer's score for TLK is fantastic, too.

[Disney Duster]

I feel the films before the 80's still had amazing scores. I can think so easily of Snow White's background music, Bambi's, and, of course, Cinderella's, and all were nominated for Best Musical Score.

[thedisneyspirit]

I like Mermaid, Aladdin's, BATB's, Pocahontas', Tarzan's, Moana's, and there are bits from Lion King, Hunchback, Tangled, Frozen and some others which are nice, but it's usually one or two tracks instead of almost the whole track with others.

I also agree the old movies have a nice score, though it takes one a while to get some tunes to remember. Snow White, Pinocchio, Mary Poppins, Bambi, Alice, Pooh, Jungle Book, and even Lady and the Tramp have nice tunes (there's also Fantasia and Sleeping Beauty, but that one is too obvious). I think the 70s-80s films also must have good tunes, but I don't tend to remember much those films aside from Pooh and Mouse Detective, so I'm not 100% sure. I'm fond of the first part of this one.


[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8eaWc8qqtk[/youtube]

[Mooky]

I agree about a lot of the score from the older movies rarely being as memorable (with some exceptions of course, like SB of course and the chase from the palace in Cinderella). Speaking of Aladdin in particular,the "OJA (reprise)" melody being re-purposed throughout "The Battle" works incredibly well. Naturally Hans Zimmer's score for TLK is fantastic, too.

Yes, Sleeping Beauty is in a category of its own, just like Fantasia. And thank you for reminding me of Cinderella's "Stroke of Midnight", that one is remarkable as well, as is the score when the stepsisters destroy Cinderella's dress.

To be fair, I actually think a lot of modern scores aren't very memorable either; I believe Tangled's the last one I can actually remember, thanks to Alan Menken no doubt. I'm drawing a blank on everything beyond that.

[carolinakid]

To me the modern era scores pale in comparison to the Walt era film scores.

[Vlad]

Alan Menken's work of course is brilliant, especially in The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast and The Hunchback of Notre-Dame. All his scores and songs are brillaint, but these three are the ones that stand out to me.

Love George Bruns' work. His adaptation of Tchaikovsky's music in Sleeping Beauty is outstanding. It was thanks to him that I got interested in ballet and classical music. Frank Churchill's score in Snow White is another great one.

Other favorites include the Sherman Brothers, Hans Zimmer, Elton John and Tim Rice.

[Disney's Divinity]

To be fair, I actually think a lot of modern scores aren't very memorable either; I believe Tangled's the last one I can actually remember, thanks to Alan Menken no doubt. I'm drawing a blank on everything beyond that.

You're right about that. I don't remember anything from the scores of Frozen, Moana, BH6, WIR, etc. I think I'm confusing "modern scores" with Alan Menken scores + TLK. I don't remember the scores for the non-Menken modern films much more than the Walt-era films, although I find the Walt-era scores to be much more... What's a good word? Volatile? Every little action or movement has to come with some sound.

I've grown more fond of the Sherman Bros over time. I'll admit I still, as I've said, prefer Broadway style (Menken/Lopezes/Miranda) to the Sherman Bros' more hummable songs. That's just a preference, but they made some great songs. I was just watching The One and Only, Genuine Family Band for the first time last week (I've been trying to view some of the live-action Disney films lately, particularly the musicals), and the music really made that movie.

[BelleGirl]

I love all the songs and scores in the first two Disney animated classics Snow White and the Seven Dwarft and Pinocchio. Movies likeBambi, Dumbo and Cinderella have a great score as well, very memorable, though they do not give me the "all-around musical" feeling, like I have with The little Mermaid or Beauty and the Beast for instance.


Disney's Divinity wrote:

You're right about that. I don't remember anything from the scores of Frozen, Moana, BH6, WIR, etc

Not anything , even from 'Frozen'? I think the music at the opening of that movie is quite remarkable, sounds a bit mysterious and new-age like.

I just have to keep reminding myself that a distinction is made between songs and musical scores here, but they often run into each other.

Other memorable musical scores:The Lion King, Pocahontas, Hunchback of Notre Dame, Mulan (if just for the opening theme), Tarzan.