The Popification of Disney 

Lol, it's funny that you were already working on this video before some of the Wish songs were released because they both felt flat to me anyway, but then I saw that behind-the-scenes featurette where the songwriter fully admits that she writes for pop songs, has no musical theater training, and are credits include working with the likes of Justin Beiber and Selena Gomez. It basically solidified the idea in my mind that Wish is probably not going to be a proper musical and will actually be a movie with songs that resembles a musical.

Howard Ashman's genius cannot be understated. There are some that can master an art form, and there are others that just get it. Ashman just gets it. He literally handed Disney a winning formula on a silver platter. Such a tragedy that he died so young, and before Beauty and the Beast was completed. May he rest in peace.

I think Encanto is an exception. The songs fit because they’re singing about the source about the problem (the family is overworked and fake thus creating the cracks and the powers getting out of control.) It serves the purpose even though it’s not through traditional broadway storytelling.

This is a great point. The songs aren’t deep, you can’t read into the lyrics, they have more surface level information. I’ve also noticed the visuals being more like music videos than a part of the story. I reeeeally noticed that in Kristoff’s song “Lost in the Woods” in Frozen 2 and it was completely baffling. This might be the first Disney movie I can think of that was vey pop-ish in lyrics and visuals. I kind of feel like there needs to be a conversation about Lin Manuel being involved in the production of these movies. He’s been involved in so many Disney projects lately and the lyricism is always an issue.

There's actually a very underrated Disney Channel spinoff show for Tangled called Rapunzel's Tangled Adventure (or Tangled the Series) that has some really good broadway style songs! One of the songs, 'Waiting in the Wings,' even won an emmy.

Right around Encanto I think Disney was ringing Lin Manuel Miranda dry, he had no creativity juice left when he wrote Scuttlebut. Disney absolutely killed their golden goose

Tbh comparing "Part of Your World", an I WANT song from the protagonist, with "Surface Pressure", that is far more a I AM song from a side character, doesn't make much sense to me. If you were talking about "Waiting on a Miracle" the I WANT song from the protagonist from Encanto, it would be more fair You have good points and observation besides this one tho

Interesting video! I think its worth noting that a more pop focused sound is not at all new for Disney. Before the Disney Renaissance, most Disney songs were written to be popular rather than to further the story - catchy ditties with little depth. For Cinderella, pop songwriters from Tin Pan Alley were specifically hired to write songs that would appeal to mass audiences. This was important because Disney was in a very precarious financial situation after World War 2, and if Cinderella wasn't successful Disney would have most likely had to shut down. In the 1980s, Oliver and Company's songs are mostly written by pop composers and performed by pop singers with the one exception being the first song, which was written by Howard Ashman. Hard to say how Wish will turn out when I haven't seen it yet, I hope it's good though.

8:17 To add onto this, but another VERY funny thing about Let It Go's chorus is that it shares the exact same key and chord progression to the prechorus of Katy Perry's Firework. I think they even share the same bpm, so you could just play them together.

One small nitpick - "Surface Pressure" works for me because up until this point, we didn't really understand how Louisa views her power and how she internally struggles with it but feels like she can't complain. Same with "What Else Can I Do?", we see a side of Isabela we (a.k.a. Mirabel) hasn't seen before. So, in that sense, we do learn more about the characters through the songs. But, your point still stands that a lot of modern Disney music just doesn't feel as deep, masterful, and artistic as the songs from the Disney Renaissance era. Broadway music will always sound more rich and complex than Pop music because there's layers to it. I think LMM understands this too, but I have a feeling someone at Disney is telling him to write this way.

My thoughts on Surface Pressure 1. Luisa only sees her self-worth in what she can do for the community and not who she is. 2. Luisa doesn't get enough appreciation (Though this is outside the song.) 3. Luisa is extremely overworked (obviously.) 4. Luisa feels not just that her family and community rests on her shoulders, but this entire little country they live in. 5. Luisa feels that if she makes one tiny mistake everything will go down.

I'm so disappointed in Wish's music so far. It's meant to be callback to old Disney, and they just use pop music. It sounds so bland and forgettable. The villain song, usually the best song in the soundtrack is just so repetitive sounding.

Mirabella doesnt just adlib in in What Else Can I Do, she becomes invested in Isabella and goes from giving exasperated quips to encouraging her dialogue. Again, I agree it's a bit jarring to have such a pop sound, but the song progresses the story in that it's a substitute for a heartfelt conversation between Mirabella and Isabella. Like with Luisa, our protagonist comes to understand and empathise with her sister (and the audience by proxy). I think youve got some good points in this video but others seem to skip over whats actually happening?

I think that comparing part of your world and surface pressure or what else can i do is a missunderstanding on how musicals work. Ariel is the protagonist and that is her I want song, but luisa’s and Issabella’s song doesn’t portray that because they are secondary characters. The equivalent in encanto is Waiting on a miracle. The pop song trend is still true as you say but I think is worth making fair comparisons because Part of your world is meant to be a really deep song with a lot of meaning and the cathalist of Ariel’s feelings. Also the scructure of Encanto has so many characters that if they each one had a deep song then the movie plot will be lost.

Personally I thought Surface Pressure was genius. Luisa doesn't want to reveal her issues or struggles. So the song being so surface level helps with that. It's through the way she looks and changes her tone as she sings that we start to understand how deep it really goes. A parallel between the actual content of the song and Luisa's emotions. It's super simple, but it hit really well with me originally. What Else Can I Do was the other song that stood out to me in the film. Probably not for the song itself, but because I was seeing a trapped person start to have fun. I feel like really _any_ song that carried that joyful energy and excitement of discovery and imagination would've made me feel the same way.

Disney music has always been timely. The musical style found in Snow White was very popular then but nowadays it may sound strange to some. I still love it btw, and I love modern Disney songs as well. At least the original ones like from Encanto. Musical tastes vary and that's ok so I'm not gonna argue with someone who doesn't like them. In my opinion, if the song was written with that style in mind it still works really well. For the most part *cough* Scuttlebutt *cough*. What doesn't work for me is most of the renditions of older songs for the remakes. I already don't like the remakes for lots of reasons but it's often so obvious that they took songs that weren't meant to be pop and made them more pop and that always sounds really really off to me.

You do realize that the Billboard records didn’t start until 1956, around the time that rock and roll started to take over. Prior to this, Broadway WAS popular music. In fact, My Fair Lady was the number one albums for 8 consecutive weeks in 1956 and returned another 11 times between 1957 and 1959. And, on top of that, the songs in Broadway shows and films prior to (and even after) were pitched as pop songs for the radio. There are pop demos for shows as late as the 1970s including “1776” (of all things). And “Beauty and the Beast” was 100% planned as a chart hit, hence the Celine Dion/Peabo Bryson duet, because they saw the potential after how well “Little Mermaid” did soundtrack sales wise. And, while I didn’t particularly care for the songs in Encanto, they are very much what Miranda is doing with his musical scores for Broadway and much in line with a lot of the newer popular scores by Pasek/Paul and others.

What really annoys me with Frozen is that Let it Go predates the plot. They had a story, then they had Let it Go, but they decided to change the story while keeping let it go, so they had to make the movie around that song. (Elsa was supposed to be the villain, she fully knew the town was frozen and didn’t care , « the cold never bothered me anyways » )

what i find most frustrating is that lin clearly has a good understanding of good musicals, and how to write good songs. he praised ashman in this one instagram posts for his subtle use of rhyme in 'what would i give if i could live out of these waters etc.' and how that gives the lyric flow. lin, however, does not do this. one of my least favourite of his lyrics is the crammed syllables in 'morning rain or a hurricane' in waiting on a miracle. it sticks out like a sore thumb and having two examples of weather adds nothing to the song, it just makes the lyric sound clunky and overworked. he knows how good ashman was and why he was so good at writing musical theatre, but he just doesnt do that. the worst part is that lin has written amazing songs that use rhyme excellently. 'breathe' from in the heights, i feel, has a largely subtle rhyme scheme that adds flow to the song withour being overbearing. sometimes he has a fancy rhyne e.g. 'with my eyes on the horizon' but that is one line, where the words have room to breathe and the rhyme emphasises important words. he can write a rly good character song. breathe is conceptually similar to surface pressure (both songs are the first time we learn abt a character's anxiety over overbearing pressure from their community to succeed) but breathe is just... better, more insightful, it tells us more abt the character, both introducing her context-wise and telling us what her deal is. 'everything i know' literally has like... eightish rhymes in the whole song. both songs also use a refrain, rather than a full repeating chorus. burn also has minimal rhymes and it works. i feel like lin's first instinct when writing songs in little time (idk how long lin had to write for disney but it wasnt the many years he spent on heights or hamilton) is to default to finding rhymes. he does freestyle rap, which with his style is finding fun rhymes and stringing them together, which is really funny in the context of freestyle, but not in purposeful musical theatre songs (obviously his freestyles are different from his worst songs, but you get the gist). scuttlebutt sounds like one of his freestyles, which is probably partially a stylistic choice to reflect scuttle's scatterbrain vibe, but also it works terribly for musical theatre. its so annoying! lin clearly knows what good musical theatre is and why its good. he has written many great musical theatrr songs in the past, and i can point to many things he has done that work and are good, but he just hasnt done that in his more recent projects. i think hes adapting 'the warriors' into a stage musical and i really hope its good lin manuel miranda, rather rhan bad lin manuel miranda. i can literally talk abt lin's up and down body of work for hours (as i have done here lol). i'd say his good stuff is in the heights, hamilton, 21 chump street if that counts. also tick tick boom is good, but thats not a writing thing. notably, his best work is his two musicals that he spent years writing, with no guidelines or time limits, and you can tell. thanks for reading my rant abt lin manuel miranda lol its quite long :) also i love your videos! you talk abt musical theatre in a way that i feel is lacking on youtube. you know your shit. :)

Solid video! How Disney has shifted more towards pop music isn't something I really considered before now, mostly because I don't listen to a lot of musical soundtracks so I'm not used to that style and it's harder to recognize for me. All of the songs you mentioned though are songs I like or love and they do a decent to great job (depending on the song) of showing the story at least to me.

Even tho disney has always had contemporary music in their films, one thing need to be noted: since the renaissance era, the films have been using the musical structure of broadway in the sense that the songs are integral to the plot nd understanding of the movie, where before that era the songs were part of the movie but not as essential. But with the new movies they are not adapting the stucture, so they make a story that heavily needs the help of the songs to tell the story while ate the same time make songs that are more focused on charting and trending on tiktok (and therefore are not that nuanced). Oliver and Company had pop songs made and sung by pop musicians but the structure of the movie could function without the songs so there wasn't a conflict of interest betweent the story and the songs. But Encanto presents itself as a movie musical just like a broadway show and that's where it faults.

I remember watching encanto and when surface pressure came out of nowhere, if felt so out of place it was cringey edit: okay, as of the time I'm typing this there's almost 50 replies in a week that isn't comeing from an argument. Where the hell are you guys coming from?

Seriously? Prior to the end of the 1960s, musical theater songs very routinely became popular, and versions of them would be recorded by dozens and dozens of artists if the show was successful, and even more if it got a movie adaptation. I can’t even count how many different versions of the *My Fair Lady* songs there are, and that’s not counting MAD Magazine parodies. And Disney songs often joined them on the hit Parade. “Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah” alone has numerous cover versions over the decades, including Frank Sinatra. Rosemary Clooney covered “When You Wish Upon A Star.” Perry Como recorded “Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo.” Dinah Shore actually worked for Disney as the narrator of the *Bongo* component of *Fun and Fancy Free.* The studio turned to what was then the popular music of the era after *Fantasia* didn’t make money (and earned no profit for the studio until the early 1960s) and throughout the rest of Walt’s lifetime. That’s how they got Peggy Lee to contribute to *Lady and the Tramp.* This is also how they discovered Richard M. Sherman and Robert B. Sherman. They started in rock ‘n’ roll and then moved into pastiches of pre-rock popular music after rock became dominant.

I fundamentally disagree on your analysis of “What Else Can I Do?”. Mirabel quite literally goes from ignoring her sister's moment of honesty to asking her questions and egging her on. I also think both it and “Surface Pressure” reveal layers to both characters. “Dos Oruguitas” is also a stunner and one of the most storytelling-oriented ones (*while* being perfect pop material), but I get that it you don't necessarily get that unless you understand Spanish.

I think The Family Madrigal is an amazing song that gets a bit overshadowed by Bruno. I'd like to hear your analysis of it, as there's a lot to unpack.

That bit you describe about an anti-chorus, I honestly think you could use that effectively to express an emotion. Imagine a character who's life is full of crazy happenings, wild action, lots of stuff just always going on. You have a song that reflects that, really wild, really crazy. But then you hit the chorus and all that drops out and it becomes soft, simple, and smooth. The you've just conveyed in music a character who is completely unshaken by the insanity around him, who maintains calm for everything he does, and who approaches everything in a simple fashion, unhindered by the chaos of the world. That would be awesome.

I feel like Mirabel not having a conversation with Isabella in the song, alongside the song being centered on plants for a big part of it, shows how much Isabella doesn't *want* a conversation with Mirabel. It paints to the listeners just how much dislike they have for each other, to the point that Isabella outright ignores her sister for the first part of the song and more talks to herself, questioning if she can go beyond her limits. It's in the second half of the song that Mirabel starts encouraging her sister, singing together and adding onto her singing, now with Mirabel understanding how her sister feels, they're able to sing in harmony and together.

The argument in Luisa's song is weird... I think it works very well and developes the character a lot.

“Wish has me worried.” Apollo and the gift of prophecy 🏀☄️

I don’t know if this is odd but I think the reason that I like We Don’t Talk about Bruno so much is because it reminds me of One Day More and Confrontation from Les Mis. Something about polyphonies really do something for me.

I think the major flaw of this video is that you really hone in on the Disney Renaissance, and not the eras that came before or after (2000s Disney) From the very beginning in the 1930s, Walt Disney created songs that were completely contemporary because Snow White had to be a hit prove that animation could be for everybody and not just kids. Walt and his team studied various popular films of the time and based the film, the likeness of this White, and the music around what 1930s audiences thought would sound good. Disney did the same thing with their saludos amigos / three caballeros immediately afterwards by hiring popular Latino artists bridge the gap between Americans. The same thing about Snow White could be applied to Cinderella, Walt Disney hired various popular songwriters from Tin Pan Alley to create all of the songs from Cinderella so that they would be a hit with people of the 1950s. Even the jungle book a decade later hired popular musician Phil Harris and Louis prima to add in jazz to an otherwise completely Indian film ( they almost also got the Beatles to the voice of the vultures) This entire method of producing contemporary music ran well into Oliver & company right before the Renaissance happened, so they really haven't done anything that they didn't do already. Yes, the Disney Renaissance did change that by having classic Broadway composers come in and implement their own style, but that's only one era of a 100-year-old company. Disney channel era is arguably where they really started pushing for the "Poppy" music that we hear today. Artists like Lizzie mcguire, Selena Gomez, and Raven Symone prove to Disney that there's a market farthest sort of teenage girl power music. This, what has been going on since the early 2000s and there's an entire new generation of zillennials that grew up on this stuff that are now making movies for Disney themselves. I'm not arguing that we can't have our differing opinions on how good this stuff sounds, but I don't think you should really be using only one era to make a grandy a statement about the company's entire history IMO.

I loved Surface Pressure and I actually wish Encanto was just about Luisa. I loved her character and thought she was a hidden gem, genuinely interesting

I feel like in "What else can I do", Mirabel's ad-libbing in the beginning makes more sense than her actually contributing. In the beginning, Isabella is discovering depths of her powers she didn't know, finally letting some of the barricade fall when her powers reflect what she feels inside. Mirabel thinks that a hug will save the family's magic, and is single-mindedly chasing that "solution". Once she sees how different and more free her sister is becoming over the course of the first few verses, she starts to understand that she doesn't need a hug to save the family's magic; she needs to understand her family and their struggles on a deeper level and to establish a loving and supportive relationship with them again. It's only after Mirabel listens to her sister and starts to understand her as more than "prissy and perfect" that Mirabel comes in with a meaningful verse/bridge.

As much as I love old Disney songs, I really enjoyed every song in Encanto. It felt refreshing to me, and the songs did a good job within the story. However, I think this pop sound should definitely be the exception, not the rule.

A single bar into "When will my life begin" and I knew it was all downhill from there. Look where we are now.

We Don't Talk About Bruno is litteraly "Disneyfied In The Heights" LOL ALSO it mixed traditional salsa/rhumba percussion with hip hop/trap elements, which was becoming a super hot thing that other artists started doing!

I want Disney to make a rock opera

Musical theater has always been influenced by and based in pop music. Since the days of the Follies and Vaudeville, musical theater and pop have been inherently intertwined. Musical theater songs were radio songs. They were written to be popular. In the earliest days of musicals, songs weren’t even meant to further the plot. There was rarely a well-developed plot at all. It was just songs for the sake of songs. That’s why there’s a term, “book musical”, a musical that has a plot. Rock musicals like Grease, Hair, and Jesus Christ Superstar came out when rock music was starting to become popular because that’s what was popular at the time. Musical theater always mirrored pop culture. Since musical theater became less mainstream, theater music strayed from popular styles because it wasn’t being written to be popular. However, musical theater being similar to pop styles is absolutely not a modern thing, it’s just different styles now. Hip-hop and R&B music are popular now, so musicals feature hip-hop and R&B music. This is not a new phenomenon. Theater was always influenced by popular music culture and styles.

I remember commenting upon first hearing "what else can i do" this exact line: " The instrumentals sound like sims 3 create a sim menu "

For Luisa’s song, may I argue that Luisa and Isabella’s songs can be like a “Cats” musical idea. Like ensemble “introduction to characters” songs. Except it’s only 2 characters. So, it might work for an extended musical where the story is the family. Like cats. Lol

I personally really disagree on your takes for Surface Pressure and What Else Can I Do. Both those songs dive on the feelings these characters wish to express and subtly advance the plot, and is this choice to focus more on the message and feeling bad? If you ask me, no. If you think about Hellfire with that logic, the only moment the plot really advances is when the guard shows up to inform Frodo about Esmeralda and he decides he is willing to burn Paris to find her, and that is not the singing part. Because for me those three songs have a similar theme of a character diving in their own mindset and coming to realizations. I understand where your logic comes from, and Wish shows a lot of the problems you describe here. I just don’t think Encanto hits these problems.

Thank you so much for this video. You articulate so well what I was feeling about this movie even though I wasn't sure why I was feeling this way. Awesome job.

Yes, Queen!! Sadly, Disney (I mean, THE Disney we used to know and love and grow with) is already gone, and these mistakes you are describing are the product of a new reality. I wish you analysed the musical numbers in the animated movie Strange Magic (2015). How they integrate with the story and even sound differently in the soundtrack album (meaning the movie versions suit the narration purposes more). Thanks!

I think another reason why those Encanto songs didn't really feel integrated into the plot was because we didn't really get to see to many instances of the characters' struggles and the pressure they were under to be perfect until their respective songs. It definitely felt like a 'show not tell' issue, so when the songs were included abruptly, it was even harder to really connect them to the main plot line cause nothing was made to be narratively there in the first place. I think it definitely had to do with having so many characters to juggle, but at least they managed to give Abuela Alma more nuance I guess

Huh, Bruno, a very specific song about a very specific plot point surrounding very specific characters topped the charts. What we do? Keep in mind our 100 year anniversary is coming up. Ooh! Let's makes things so generic that no one will know anything about what's going on! Brilliant! I think Disney might need a RU-vidr or several in their meetings. The execs seriously lack the passion and creativity, not to mention the analytical skills you and others have. This definitely helped me figure out a lot of stuff too. I realize why I put certain songs on certain playlists. Some songs are meant to identify with a wide audience, but the songs that make these movies are the songs that you can't really separate from them and their message. Bruno was more than a song or a feeling, it was a story and a fun one full of mystery and intrigue with its own unique rhythm, its own identity. No wonder it did so well.

I feel like pop music works in Encanto specifically. I can't even really explain why in detail, but I think it helps that Encanto overall just feels a lot more fun and upbeat. I also feel like Surface Pressure being more surface level (ha) is actually fitting narratively. This was only a very brief look into Luisa's struggles, and that's rather thematically appropriate because it's established she really DOESN'T have the chance to really talk about her problems. HOWEVER ... Movies like Wish really needed the Broadway style numbers, but Encanto was perfect with the songs it got regardless. I feel like Encanto is to Disney Music what Tangled was to Disney Protagonists. A genuinely good movie that used these things (pop music, quirky protagonists) very well. But then movies that followed became too focused on their predecessors using these traits successfully that they felt they had to replicate them regardless of the fact they only worked in the previous works for very specific reasons. So pop music in Encanto is fine, because it suits Encanto. But Encanto's popularity unfortunately allows pop music to bleed into movies where it just does not belong. Which I feel unfairly places the blame on Encanto, simply because it utilised pop music well. Just as Tangled often unfairly receives the criticism of the 'quirky disney princess protagonist' simply because it helped to popularise that trope.

Well, I think this is just Lin Manuel Miranda's style. He made a name for himself by transforming Broadway with the kinds of musical techniques that many people of my generation love with pop and rap. This -IS- broadway music -- The new broadway.

This actually makes a lot of sense, even though I really liked Encanto and it's music Very informative! Good video

Even the classic, as campy and cheesy as they are, took massive risk and became pretty much a golden standard No one old Disney song is alike Sure they have the same purpose of establishing “what I want” or “what I am” Establishing information Now it’s basically chasing charts and graphs

Thank you for putting into words what I felt on an instinctual level

I just found your channel and its like I found the other half to Sideways’ channel, I say this in the highest regard

Wow, you called this one.

Songs in musicals are like fights in action movies, they are just a way of conveying emotions and express their thoughts and feelings, so when they come out of nowhere and say nothing, it does not feel right. It would be like if you watch a drama, and suddenly they just sit down to watch the water boil for about 2 min or so. On an other note, i just watched One Piece Film Red, it was a good movie with banger music that was also a fight scene and a moment in the story where the protagonists and the antagonist are conveying how they are feeling and thinking.

REALLY good video! Let It Go is one of the best "Theater Pop" style songs ever written!

Wow....what an incredible video. I learned so much

Personally, I think that the more music-video style animation actually works for me. It's a bit silly, but it helps to get immersed in a character-focused piece like Surface Pressure and What Else Can I Do. I think that broadway-style musical numbers aren't the only effective way to do a musical, and I think that Encanto still does what it needs to pretty well. Granted, its songs don't have quite as much characterization as a more classic disney musical, but it still accomplishes everything it needs to. To me, the songs in Encanto and Moana actually perform much better as musical songs than those in Frozen.

I don’t know I felt like in terms of narrative surface pressure is not a bad song since it shouldn’t have to tell a story since just like the character Luisa her problem is while hidden superficial it is supposed to show the effects of familial pressure on someone should that be a duty to the family or an act of perfection they are superficial bc while their struggles aren’t superficial the songs and how they are portrayed seem to try to show that since it’s not one character struggling but every member of the family it isint just Luisa or Isabella that struggles but all of them Ps:sorry if I made any mistakes or repeated something too much I am not a native English speaker and still struggle

This was such a lovely and indept video

Fun fact, I actually made a response to your Scuttlebutt video on my channel which essentially has the same title as this video. IMHO, I would argue that Disney has been dipping their toes into contemporary music since arguably Cinderella back in the 50s (Walt hired tin-pan alley songwriters to assure the songs would be hits). It's something that was bound to since Disney is a corporation that moves with the time. My issue is that the songs are doing exactly what you want them, but your disregarding them just because of how contemporary they sound. Surface Pressure and What Else Can I Do, highlight how both of Mirabel's sisters have become prisoners to the world given by them to their grandmother. Luisa in particular spends most of the film going down a depressive slump because without her strength what really is she?. Isabella is the exact opposite where we see how she goes from being a walking stereotype to seeing that there's more to life than what her role has changed her to. This bounces right back onto Mirabel ( and by extension the audience) to affirm that something is deeply wrong with her family, and that things need to change. Encanto is built like a stage musical with how every number built off of the hit the climax. The Disney Renaissance was great, but Disney is a completely different company than it was almost 40 years ago, and historically they always go where the money is. I also think that LMM has proven himself to be a very talented guy, and it's unfortunate that one of the biggest non white composers on Broadway has become a fall guy for White Disney Adults for an issue that has nothing to do with him ( See the naming of him for the bad villain song for wish)

the problem with Surface Pressure is very simple: it sounds like lin-manuel miranda is using jessica darrow as a meat puppet. every line, the flow, it's all PAINFULLY LMM and it doesn't work as a song since it's not him singing it. if Surface Pressure wasn't #relatable then no one would be defending it

You’re excellent at explaining these, you should make videos on how to write songs, verses, bridges etc! (If you want to that is)

Disney! Do NOT let go of musical theater!

Subscribed. I need more breakdowns of Disney songs.

Even though quality is subjective, I think it plays a huge part. Songs like We don't talk about Bruno are just really catchy. Even if you take the song out of context and just watched the video online, without seeing the movie, it is still very enjoyable.

I think Lion King had a lot of generic songs. The best one there is Hakuna Matata because it is a song of persuasion. The main character is in a different place at the end of the song than the beginning. I Just Can’t Wait to be King doesn’t change anything. It doesn’t even reveal the character’s deep desire and ambition that explains later events (the way Part of Your World) does.

"Surface Pressure is a song that doesn't tell us a lot about Louisa." I disagree. I heard surface pressure before I saw Encanto and yet I understood Louisa's issues before coming into the movie. She's talking about the pressure that is put onto the oldest child to be the perfect one. She sacrifices the most and works the hardest but yet no one notices it. It makes sense that you don't see her issues until that song because she's singing it BECAUSE she's about to pop. The pressure built up too much and she's cracking and the song is a part of that cracking mask. If Louisa wasn't close to her breaking point then Mirabel wouldn't have realized that something was wrong. Mirabel's sisters are both forced to be perfect in equally stringent ways. They have to live up to the family expectations.

I think that you're forgetting that these songs in Encanto are made to resemble actual Colombian music genres. Surface Pressure sounds pop-ish because it's Reggaeton and it tends to have that structure. What else can I do is supposed to resemble Rock Latino which also has that common structure. Other songs resemble more unconventional genres like salsa and vallenato, which is why they end up more broadway sounding. It's not that much Disney making them sound pop as it's more how the genres they're inspired in are pop themselves.

we dont talk about bruno is the best disney song in a long long while

The point of Surface Pressure IS to tell us about Luisa’s struggles and that she’s been suppressing that - that’s why it’s the first time it comes up in the movie. It’s the first crack in the veneer of the perfect Family Madrigal that Maribel presented at the start of the movie. Like - Encanto certainly isn’t a perfect movie/musical, but to say that the songs aren’t driving the plot and were only created as pop songs is pretty narrow-minded.

Lesson: pop bad broadway good?

Wish really would have been a better movie to do this with, using Encanto was not the move.

From a business perspective, another advantage of the Broadway-style soundtracks of the Renaissance movies was that they translated so well into actual Broadway plays, which helped keep the original films relevant while opening up a whole new revenue stream for Disney. I wonder if newer movies with popier songs will be as adaptable to the stage.

I would love a video where you discuss Disney villain songs… :)

the popbait back then also meant more of a montage, meaning time passes so they need a song to fill the space.

Honestly, Surface Pressure was my favorite from Encanto, even if I wholeheartedly think Bruno is the best song of the lot. I still don't listen to the Encanto OST as much as Moana's, but Surface Pressure managed to capture the exact feeling of crushing anxiety and pressure, both musically and visually for me.

There is an important point you missed in the video. I'm pretty sure it was in the clip you inserted about songs needing to provide story though I might be wrong. The point is this: In Rennaisance Disney people need to say what they want. But at the point where emotion becomes overwhelming, they need to start singing. The songs always flow from what is going on. It is the emotional climax to what we see on screen. It is where the character can exposit his/her motivation without breaking the narrative. If we see, say, Aladin, steal some food and run from the guards while singing abkut how he is a slum rat, it works. If we were to see him do the same in spoken text, it would be stupid. The songs allow us to get the emotional pay off, it fits in exposition, and we get more story. And the Disney Renaisssance music delivered this. The modern music is just a regular song. Compare One Jump Ahead from Aladin to The Thanks I Get. They both exlosit the character of the singer. But Aladin's song is set within a chase scene caused by him stealing bread to eat (and giving part of it away at the end), is sung between Aladin, the guards, and various bystanders and contains no repeating lines. The other song is just... boring. The refrain repeats both the note progression and the lyrics. The singing is lifeless, and there is no Pressure. No reason to care about the song. It is basically a monologue where we get told the dude is selfish (he volunteers others, the 114 wishes etc) and basically demands respect (which, to be honest, seeing how he created a peaceful country, people migrated there of their own free will, he grants at least some wishes, and he apparently doesn't tax people, he probably deserves).

I love how after Wish released, many of the same people who trashed on Encanto began trashing even harder on Wish

Ah hah, I was wondering why I didn't like most of the songs in encanto. It felt like they were wasting time and I learned basically nothing about the other family members from them. Disney movies used to be so tightly constructed. Nearly every line was important in telling the story. Modern ones feel like a chore stuffed with fillers yet unfulfilling.

Honestly my first impression with Surface Pressure was "man this would make a sick MelFest entry". That's not an insult by any means, but does mean it sounds like safe radio pop more than an emotional theatre song 😂

I worked at the Disney Store (not in the parks) during when Frozen came out, so even though I initially liked the song (and appreciated Disney paying me to see the movie in theaters to begin with), I quickly grew very tired of the song playing 3-4 times a day on the DVD in our store and also the numerous singing Elsa dolls we had. Maybe in like 10 years I'll be able to listen to the song and go, 'no, god, not again'.

i could argue that tarzan had a lot of “pop” songs( not sure how it affected disney or not) but Tarzan was literally just phil collins music, no musical whatsoever. of it failed or not it seems disney tried to stray away from musicals, after a decade of them. wish kinda same vibe, wanting the 90s musical with the 1 hit but still wanting the cake and eating it too .

I remember when listening to "Surface Pressure," I was really disappointed by the fact that it didn't have this big bombastic musical build-up, or rather that it kept killing its own tension rather than letting it simmer. I'm thinking songs like "Alive" and "Confrontation" from Jekyll and Hyde that brew with this sort of tension even its slowest measures. I thought I was being petty that a song that I half-liked wasn't something I could've liked more, but to know that there's an actual reason feels kind of gratifying.

Disney has been on the decline for a good few years now and this seems like one of the primary reasons. I've never seen it articulated this well before, even if I do believe you are somewhat overly charitable to the studio, you are right. They are straying too far from their roots and making songs with charts in mind and not the story they're telling in the here and now. It's ridiculous.

This was recommended to me a few days after I saw Wish, and it couldn't be any more topical. The songs in Wish were ass. If they didn't outright hurt to hear, I felt like I was forgetting the songs while listening to them, LMAO. I really liked your analysis. I'm subbing

This reminds me of how I felt when me and my family first watched encanto. Yeah, surface pressure and what else can I do were great and all, but the song that naturally stood out to me was we don't talk about bruno. Yes, I related to the other two, but we don't talk about bruno was just so theatrical and told such a beautiful story and I'm such a sucker for that overlapping singing we usually only get in theater. But to a lot of the other people I talked to, the other songs stood out just as much, if not more. Here's the thing- I almost exclusively listen to theater. Most people I know listen far more to pop music, and I think this is why our reactions were so different. Pop is fine and all, but I'm not often impressed by it the way I am by theater. One of my other favorite songs in the movie is waiting on a miracle, which tells far more of a story than the other songs imo, and is more theatrical. It kind of reminds me of part of your world in a lot of ways (maybe just because they're similar thematically, idk) I love theater and I love how disney brings people into theater, but especially walking out of wish, more than any other recent Disney movie, it stood out a lot to me that the songs were basic pop songs. I didn't even care to try to understand the lyrics because I could tell I got the picture from two lines. None stood out or really told a story. My parents liked them way more than I did, but they also listen to pop more than I do. I think the other modern Disney movies line up with recent broadway trends, which have shifted to being belty and a bit more similar to pop music (especially with pasek and paul and shows like mean girls) rather than their older counterparts. But wish didn't even feel remotely like modern broadway. It just felt like listening to the radio, which is never what disney has been to nearly that extent

Okay. I am not trying to be mean at all this is a great video fantastic work, but We Don't Talk About Bruno hit #1 because of TikTok. It's very dance-able and has broad characterization that make it great to lip sync to and duet which shot it up.

Surface Pressure is kind of like a Bollywood film song, since it is kind of more interested in exploring an emotion or particular theme instead of story progression. Which I kind of like. Broadway can be kind of sclerotic and dated.

I love surface pressure but the visual of Louisa smiling and dancing while venting about her deepest issues drove me actually insane

You know, I’ve been thinking about “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” and… it kind of feels like a villain song? Obviously it’s not sung by a villain, nor is it even technically about a villain, and yet it gives me the vibes of a villain song. I mean, Mirabel is being tossed around and musically dominated by her family where they are in a position above her. Mirabel doesn’t know about Bruno and her family is explaining him in a way that paints him as something to be feared, and this explanation feels frightening in the way a good villain song should be. I’ll admit, I don’t know much about writing music and I definitely don’t know enough about the intricacies of the song to talk about this. If someone wants to add onto my thoughts or dunk on me for being stupid then please do so. I just wanted to point it out because it’s objectively hilarious how Encanto, a movie without a villain, manages to have a better villain song than Wish.

Lin Manuel Miranda isn't an actual pop-songwriter. He's a Broadway songwriter as much as the great Howard Ashman was. Randy Newman, who did Princess and the Frog, HE'S a pop songwriter, and his song lyrics for that movie are so much more bland and ordinary than anything in Moana or Encanto - they're not bad mind you, but they don't have the wit or cleverness of Miranda's song lyrics. That was what Howard Ashman had, and that's what Miranda is bringing BACK to Disney songs.

New disney songs were made for the lyric videos to be shown to 5th graders in class during field day

This feels like taking the long way around to trash Lin's songwriting style

The current state of Disney music and movies hurts my heart 💔 I didn’t like Surface Pressure at all. I think I actually hate it lol. It felt out of place and some parts made me cringe. I don’t get the reggaeton in it and it’s barely sung. She was mostly just talking.

When i saw they picked julia michaels to do the songs for wish, i was worried….now i know why 🙃 they need to bring back stephen schwartz (though disenchanted was a little disappointing), or shaiman and wittman. They did great work with mary poppins returns, and they can totally nail that classic broadway/golden age disney sound

Ngl I read this title as as "pope-ification", I was like "dang I knew they were self-important, but this is something else."

I knew Surface Pressure sounded clunky and wrong

ANY video calling out Encanto's flaws and here useless pop songs have my respect

ok but, as an artist, and someone who loves the little mermaid, i think you are almost fetichizing "part of your world" in your reviews. seriously. it's been an age old pandering point. it really isn't as deep a song, and that's ok. It's great, for sure, but maybe leave some room to appreciate change. i grew up with that movie and the hunchback, and to me they are perfect but i'm not gonna complain like a granny about the "popification of disney". Art is always changing. On a related note, someting being more niche and urelatable isn't more profound, it's just that, niche. and you can refer to obvious things in a vague manner, does that make it deep? it doesn't. It just leaves obvious (i repeat, obvious) space for the listener to insert their interpetration (which often leads to, for example, fascists and right wingers missing the point of leftist more nuanced media). every piece of media leaves room for the listener/viewer, it's just that those less ambiguous about their topic are both easier to relate to if you happen to empathize, and also to pic apart, point a finger at and feel on a high horse. If you are puting your thoughts out there in a way, that leaves little room to wiggle out of criticism, a bigger entry for speculations about your ideals as a creator, etc. Kind of how there's way less to criticize on an empty canvas, than one that attemps to depict a detailed scene, and for all you know, the empty one might truly be empty and you as the viewer just doing all the work filling in the blank. I appreciate a wide range of media, i love musicals and brodway, as i do a bunch of music genres. i don't think something being more ambiguous is point blank better, and even in that regard, you use that same argument both for and against songs in the same movie. At the same time, i get the feeling that you admire old disney, there's a personal connection and that's understandable. they are great, and they pushed for higher quality in western animation. I appreciate the effort in your video about wish, it made me check other things on your channel, but i got these feelings from listening to your rants on disney. Footnote: in my opinion, the main difference isn't necesarily the "popification", but rather that the stakes are lower (or at least depicted as lower), there's less grim characters, death or violence involved. as much as disney is assumed to be good for all ages, it depicted pretty strong scenes in beauty and the beast, hunchback of notre dame, the little mermaid, the lion king, etc. But now things have more of a cozy feeling from their very conception. and that's fine, "flavours" come and go, you can't always consume depression in a jar, nor can you live only on toxic positivity. Final note: Wish sucks lol. as a proffessional artist i was crying at those color palettes and scenes.

Great video! Theres some noise in your audio recording. Maybe check some denoising plugins, its quite noticeable even on mobile speakers

couple of points: i dont think its really accurate to say all broadway songs serve to progress the plot and explore the characters. yes, part of your world is incredibly intimate and introspective, but surface pressure is not encanto's version of that, because its not the main characters i want song. the encanto counterpart is waiting on a miracle, which has well developed structure and lyricism. the little mermaid has poyw, but it also has under the sea, kiss the girl, les poissons. none of these numbers really serve plot or character progression. they mostly underscore moments of high emotion, just as encanto's songs do. and les poissons is really just there for comedy. perhaps you can criticise encanto's character writing for not exploring isa and luisa in enough depth, but i dont think its a fault of the songwriting. "early taylor swift" now please put some damn respect on mandy moore's name