Stumbling and Fumbling: The Decline of Disney Music

 

Ugh...The backbone of Disney's resurgence from corporate laughingstock to media juggernaut can almost directly be attributed to the immense success of Disney Feature Animation beginning in the late 1980s with both Oliver and Company and The Little Mermaid.  While the former film had been in the planning stages for years, the culmination of events that led to the success of the latter came from many fronts, but specifically a return to Disney's classic storytelling methods (largely being updated for modern audiences) and an update to the musical formula that had been at the heart of many of the company's beloved "Classics" from Snow White to The Jungle Book.  Much of that has to be attributed to the work of Howard Ashman and Alan Menken, who had come to Disney off the backs of their smash off-Broadway hit "Little Shop of Horrors".  Ashman had many projects he wanted to work on at Disney, but it was his interest in The Little Mermaid that would change the trajectory of both modern storytelling and modern filmmaking forever.  

Yeah, it's been a long time since I frequented this blog, innit?! A lot has changed for me since then. Fortunately, the bowels of everyone's favorite pandemic didn't kill me, so that means I got to live long enough to enjoy the fruits of Hollywood's labor. Isn't it... magical?

Okay, there's a lot I would love to discuss should I elect to remain here for the foreseeable future, but this topic was something I've actually been cooking up for a while.  In fact, I actually was in the process of writing this out as a video for my YouTube Channel in a video essay style before I opted to not completely reshape the way my channel is going.  Besides, I've already got about five or six other projects I'm working on over there, so I figured the place to put this would be here.  

I am far from an expert when it comes to writing music in any shape or form, as you'll see in this post. I am just a guy who's been struggling to be a writer while making YouTube Videos and slowly making it through every day of my slow and monotonous life. One of the things I do take stock of in my writings, however, is the importance of finding an emotional balance for your character, persona or whomever you're writing about or for. Emotionally connecting to your audience is essential, especially in the realms of musical theater, or in the case of this particular segment, motion pictures. While I have had many tutors in my life who've conveyed this message to me, from my original editor Theresa Altebrando to my High School English Teacher Ms. Walsh and other members of the Long Island Writer's Guild who've taught me major aspects of how to write carefully and properly, one could argue that the greatest teacher for me in my emotional writing was, in fact, Disney.

The Walt Disney Company has been through... quite a tumultuous era since the Pandemic, haven't they? Getting into feuds with the Governor of Florida, hemorrhaging money over a failed Star Wars resort and the steep decline in quality from their animation department which began with Ralph Breaks the Internet in 2018 and culminated in the disastrous 100th Anniversary event film, Wish. There's a hell of a lot more to talk about when it comes to them, but that would be a post for another day. This post is going to be about something specific that comes from Disney: their music.

I will admit to not being the biggest fan of Encanto, a movie that many see as the last truly magnificent Disney Film to come out.  I respect the film for what it was and can agree that it's at the very least comparable to some of the finest Disney Films out there, but I wouldn't put it in the elite tier personally.  Because of this and my sheer hatred for the Disney Remakes and apathy towards Marvel movies since Endgame, I kinda just steered clear of the movie theater the last few years.  Yes, I've seen a handful of films since then (most notably the Super Mario Bros. Movie and Oppenheimer), but specifically from Disney's output I've more or less tried to avoid it as much as possible.  However, since getting Disney+, I've been able to explore and reevaluate all of the Disney Movies I can possibly fathom, both live action and animated, as well as indulging in TV Shows I might have missed or just had no interest in upon initial release.  This includes most of Disney's recent library, basically every film since Ralph Breaks the Internet.  And aside from my opinion of Frozen II and Encanto being slightly warmer than my initial views of these films, the rest of the films have either since remained very lukewarm or have gotten even worse for me (with the exception of Pixar, who's output has remained mostly consistent apart from Lightyear).  This includes Raya and the Last Dragon, Strange Worlds, Moana 2 and yes, even Wish.  As for the Live Action Remakes, which I reluctantly was forced to watch with my sister and a few cousins recently, they remain as awful as I expected them to be, if not worse than I could have imagined.  

But getting back on point, one of the things I deeply respect about Encanto is its music. And if fans are going to use the music in the film to justify its placing as an elite Disney film, I will concede that point to them happily. But the rest of Disney's output has seemed... off. And this goes beyond the last five years. In reality, at least for me, this problem began with the 2017 Beauty and the Beast remake. For the life of me, I've spent the last few years trying to articulate why these movies rub me the wrong way, specifically from the aspect of music. I've watched videos explaining it, tried to get into music theory and even bought a large book on songwriting from my job to try and justify my anger properly. But it turns out all of that wasn't necessary, as all I had to do was go to the sources themselves and go through the "Making Of" and "Behind the Scenes" specials of all of the studio's most beloved musicals to get to the point I wanted to make. The final nail in the coffin was a 2016 Disney Special about the music of their Broadway Shows I saw while visiting my grandmother for Easter this year. It's something that I think Disney has lost sight of and don't seem too keen to rush back to anytime soon.

Ashman brought his signature style of "Broadway" into the Disney universe.  Characters who might have been underplayed or subdued to fit into the story were given free reign to essentially be whatever he wanted them to be.  He changed the crusty, old crustacean character who worked with King Triton into a reggae singing, deep voiced little crab named Sebastian, after all.  But the one thing Ashman stressed to everyone he worked with was something he inherited from all of his time working on stage shows: which is the ability to simultaneously sing and act.  You could essentially hire anyone to sing a song, but it took a special breed of talent to be able to sing and act at the same time.  And Ashman was strict and very particular in getting the right voices for his roles.  

Have you ever wondered why the original casts of both The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast largely were filled with people who were predominantly stage actors?  Why Disney didn't hire someone like Madonna or Whitney Houston to play Ariel or Belle?  This reason is specifically why.  Both Madonna and Whitney were fantastic singers in their own right, but would it be worth the financial investment if they also could not act?  Ashman had worked with many of his preferred actors before on several projects, including Jodi Benson and Jonathan Freeman whilst also having a deep respect for the older stage actors such as Jerry Orbach and Angela Lansbury.  People who have made their careers as both singers and actors with the ability to do both at once.  

My go to examples for how to properly illustrate this point have always been in both of the leading ladies first singing moments in "Part of Your World" for Ariel and "Belle" for Belle. In "Part of Your World", the final moments of the song have Jodi's vocal range reaching its apex as Ariel continues to convey her hearts desires to Flounder and by proxy the audience. When she swims up to the top of her cavern, singing about how she wished she could reach the shores up above, the music builds and builds until it stops. You see Ariel's bright eyes wane and her expression change. She goes from desperate to sad and her voice changes from melodic to almost melancholy. Rather than use the opportunity to show off Jodi's range, which the song had already done a good job of by this point, Jodi reveals the vulnerable side to Ariel we haven't seen yet. She is both close to her dream and as far away as she can be and she gives into her despair before slowly finishing her song. We see Jodi go from jubilant to mournful in just a few lines of song as Ariel's realization sinks in for her.  She's right where she doesn't want to be and is unsure of if her dream will ever come true.  And we as the audience fall in love with her and wish for her desires to come true.  

As for "Belle" on the other hand, an almost entirely different concept comes from Paige O'Hara's performance.  In a small break from choir, Belle takes a moment to sit by a fountain and read her book aloud to a few nearby sheep, explaining to them (and again by proxy, us) why this scene in her book is her favorite.  In O'Hara's delivery, however, something extraordinary happens.  You can actually hear her smiling behind the drawings.  Think about that: O'Hara delivers the lines in the song so well that we can actually hear the smile on her face as she's singing it.  She is enveloping herself into the character of Belle in ways that only a stage actor can.  

Ashman wanted to get to the heart of every character he wrote, even those who may not have a musical number for themselves.  This is why Ashman gets a writing credit in The Little Mermaid and was heavily involved in the writing for both Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin before his death in March of 1991.  And while Ashman's death no doubt had a profound impact on the direction of Disney Animation afterwards, that doesn't mean that his writing partner Alan Menken was incapable of realizing the same things as him.  Menken would go on to incorporate his longtime collaborator's teachings into every subsequent project he took on at Disney and has gone on to have quite a lucrative career as a songwriter and composer.  And Ashman alone wasn't the only writer who would work at Disney that realized this notion.  It was also heavily in the writings of other non-Menken driven musicals that Disney would churn out over the decades, including The Lion King and Moana.  Both Lin Manuel Miranda and Elton John have understood this aspect of writing and incorporated it into their songs, which have become as beloved as the ones written by Ashman or Menken, if not more.  

In modern times, however, it would appear as if there has been a fundamental change in the way Disney articulates it's music, be it in newer films or the remakes of their classics.  Nowadays, when Disney needs a song written, it's less about the journey of getting to the song and more about wanting this song to be the next "Let it Go" or "You're Welcome".  Instead of finding a song that fits the mold of the story, the focus shifts to this needing to be a song that articulates something they want expressed, even if it has nothing to do with the story.  We went from actors who could sing and act simultaneously, to singers who cannot find the blend between the mediums,  In the 90s and 2000s, when Disney hired an actor to play a role that could not sing, they would often cast someone as a singing voice instead.  While both The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast avoided the need for this, it was a driving force behind many of the actors in other films of the Disney Renaissance.  Characters like Aladdin, Jasmine, Jack Skellington, Simba, Nala, Pocahontas, Esmeralda, Hercules, Mulan and Shang would all get separate actors to sing and act, but only someone with a keen ear would be able to tell that this wasn't the guy or girl singing that also acted.  In the remakes, however, while it's clear the people they cast can sing, they usually struggle to act alongside it.  

My go to example here is comparing the singing performances of Jason Weaver from the original Lion King to JD McCrary's performance in the 2019 remake.  No one argues that McCrary cannot sing, as he clearly has talent and is best suited in a pop or hip hop style.  However, "I Just Can't Wait to be King" is written in the style of being a theatrically produced song.  Simba has to be able to articulate his excitement about one day not taking orders from anyone and being free to make any rules he sees fit.  Weaver's performance gets his feelings across perfectly, whereas McCrary seems like he's just singing any other song he's performed before.  It lacks the enthusiasm and spirit of the original film and only adds gasoline to the fire of why that entire scene flopped so badly in the remake.  If you're not going to hire someone capable of following the singing and acting playbook, then the only way for a song to work is for you to rework the song into the style of the new voice.  Disney tried to do this for Will Smith's interpretations of the songs in the 2019 remake of Aladdin, and while I can respect that, the fact that it wasn't done for the other actors or any other actors in any of the remakes seems as if it were a decision by Smith and not the studio.  This was not done for either Donald Glover or Beyonce in "Can You Feel the Love Tonight", Mena Massoud or Naomi Scott in "A Whole New World" or any other songs for that matter.  

This trend would only be made worse in the 2023 remake of The Little Mermaid.  Again, Halle Bailey can clearly sing and she showed in this movie that she can at least act, but doing both at the same time was next to impossible for her.  Nowhere is this clearer than in "Part of Your World", where at the same exact point where Jodi Benson allowed herself to be emotionally vulnerable, they instead take the time to show off Bailey's singing voice in a "show offy" way.  How am I supposed to get emotionally invested in the character when you don't allow them to be emotional with us?  

Oddly enough, the opposite was the problem with Emma Watson's Belle in the 2017 remake. Emma can clearly act, but she definitely needed at least a singing coach to be there with her as she sang. Because the overuse of autotuning is clear and present in every single line from your leading lady, which is kind of a problem. It's also there in JD McCrary's Simba voice as well, but it's most profound in Watson's performance. I don't hear it much in anyone else's voice in that film, but guys like Josh Gad and Luke Evans were on stage before this, so it makes sense.  

And don't even get me started on the remake of Snow White and it's awful music.  We will get into that when I inevitably tear that film a new one in a review.  But for the time being, we're going to shelve the remakes and put our focus on the newer animated musicals by Disney.  After all, Lin Manuel Miranda is behind the songs for Moana and we all loved the songs in Frozen and Encanto, so surely the newer films have to be good in terms of music, right?  Well, no.  

Whether they did so intentionally or not, Disney seemed to go out of their way to learn the wrong lessons from why the music in their other films were bad and instead doubled down on the "Pop" style of music.  In the hands of someone who works on theater, such as Miranda, it can work.  However, in the hands of people who have never written for a film and with Disney giving them creative control with only a very short and to the point message about what they wanted from it, you get the kinds of songs that appeared in Wish.  A movie that has been panned as one of the worst to ever come out of the company, this film's music felt as if it were written by AI.  There was no rhythm, no flow and nothing that could be seen as a step back into the classic style of writing.  That doesn't necessarily mean a bad thing, but when I'm not even sure which parts of the song are a verse or a chorus, that means you kinda flopped when it comes to writing the music.  I don't blame the writers for this, as they were given an impossible task, but I do blame Disney for phoning in what was perhaps their most important film release since a certain red-haired mermaid appeared on screens back in 1989.  And every single song in the film has this same issue, from the lead "I Want" song, to the villain's "song" and so forth.  There's no hook and again, while I know Ariana DeBose can sing, no theatrical style singing, which means we struggle to emotionally connect with Asha and most of the other characters as they sing.  

And don't you worry, I will be ripping this film a new one when it's time to, as the music is far from the worst problem in the movie.  But since this is a post about Disney's musical shortcomings, I feel we have to move onto the next few films in question.  I will give Moana 2 the barest of passes, as the film is clearly a cut together movie based on a Moana Disney+ show that was being written that Disney needed to get into theaters after the disasters of their prior films.  But the one I will not give a pass is the last major Disney "remake" to come out in Mufasa: The Lion King.  

I think that Disney is in dire need to find their next Alan Menken/Howard Ashman type of songwriter that can carry the studio melodically on his back for the next few decades, because they have bounced around various different song writers on numerous projects over the years.  Whether it be the consortium of writers for the Descendants Films, Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez of Frozen fame, or Julia Michaels and Benjamin Rice of infamy for Wish.  They seem to be trying to recapture that magic they had in the 90s.  And someone at Disney thinks that the person in mind is Lin Manuel Miranda.  After all, he is the biggest thing on Broadway going with his work on Hamilton and he's already had success for Disney, so surely it means he's ready to write Disney songs on par with the classics of old, yes? 

Well, no.  And his efforts in both the Live Action remake of The Little Mermaid and then Mufasa are the golden example as to why he's not and will never be Alan Menken or Howard Ashman.  Now, let's preface this with the fact that neither Ashman nor Menken was involved in the music for The Lion King.  That honor went to Elton John, Tim Rice and Hans Zimmer, who all worked together to create arguably the most iconic film soundtrack of all time.  And adding someone who is so stylistically different into the legacies of not one but two of Disney's most significant films seems to have rubbed people the wrong way.  His songs that were new for Mermaid were more or less bland and forgettable or just downright obnoxious (Looking at you, "Scuttlebutt").  And the same can be said for all of the songs written for Mufasa, but whereas the former had the classic songs to fall back on, the latter did not have the luxury of being able to just incorporate songs from Elton John and Tim Rice.  And apart from "I Always Wanted a Brother", I don't think I remember even the names of the other songs without googling it.  Eric's song at least gets the benefit of having Eric's lead actor giving his all to the song "Uncharted Waters".  Where is the benefit for "Bye Bye" (which yes, is the name of the song from the villain of Mufasa)? So, no, I don't think that Lin Manuel Miranda is up to the challenge of superseding Menken or Ashman, because his style of writing isn't for the refined Broadway of Menken and Ashman, but for the more modern, pop driven Broadway of now.  Who would want to see an original Broadway show when we can go see "& Juliet" or "Moulin Rouge" instead and listen to pop songs we can hear on the radio?  

Disney has for sure lost their way in many aspects of storytelling, but the sharp decline in music has to be the most disappointing for me.  I'm not inspired by any song Disney has put out in the last decade.  I don't feel compelled to write about a hero based on "Uncharted Waters" and I definitely don't feel inspired by "Speechless", "Spirit", "Scuttlebutt" or "This is the Thanks I Get".  When I'm writing a scene for a villain, I'm not thinking of that travesty of a song.  I'm thinking of "Poor Unfortunate Souls", "Be Prepared" or "Hellfire".  I'm not thinking of "Into the Unknown" or "Family Madrigal" when I write or think about Disney.  If you do, congrats, and I hope you find success in whatever it is you're doing.  But for me, the steep drop in quality is something that might haunt Disney for a long time.  You know, unless people stop going to see these godforsaken remakes.  

Oh well, a man can dream right?