Some thoughts about the current direction of Disney music. This was mostly written before I heard the songs from Wish. After that movie comes out, I'll have a lot to say.
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.
The plot of Encanto is carried by EMOTION, so of course the only thing we’d learn about Louisa from Surface is the way she FEELS. Waiting on a Miracle comes off naturally since it comes at a point where Mirabel is emotionally isolated. And the songs do advance the plot (again, since they’re carried by EMOTION). We literally see during What Else Can I Do that Isabella breaks free of her perfectionism, her and Mirabel hug, and Abuela gets mad after. Just because they’re bangers doesn’t mean they can’t work musically. The Hunchback of Notre Dome had that random ass love song, while all of Encanto’s songs fleshed out the characters or told us important things. And Hercules and Moana had some songs that didn’t need to be there (like Your Welcome, Shiny, Zero to Hero) but it didn’t matter because they’re good songs, unlike the ones in Wish. As for visuals, I love that Encanto does crazy things during the music. During Surface Pressure, it helps stress that Louisa is worried about the safety of her village. It’s hypocritical to criticize that, considering 2D animated Disney movies also did crazy things with their songs .
@@DORAisD34DWHAT? So you defend Encanto songs but say "You're Welcome" is unnecessary? Duuuude, it narrates the whole background of Maui, his powers, his personality, his flaws which will mark the rest of the movie, it presents the future villain Tamatoa, all of this while also doing tons of world-building absolutely naturally, as it is narrated by a narcissistic character I know you're just copying this comment everywhere cause you're salty but c'mon, pay more attention
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.
The plot of Encanto is carried by EMOTION, so of course the only thing we’d learn about Louisa from Surface is the way she FEELS. Waiting on a Miracle comes off naturally since it comes at a point where Mirabel is emotionally isolated. And the songs do advance the plot (again, since they’re carried by EMOTION). We literally see during What Else Can I Do that Isabella breaks free of her perfectionism, her and Mirabel hug, and Abuela gets mad after. Just because they’re bangers doesn’t mean they can’t work musically. The Hunchback of Notre Dome had that random ass love song, while all of Encanto’s songs fleshed out the characters or told us important things. And Hercules and Moana had some songs that didn’t need to be there (like Your Welcome, Shiny, Zero to Hero) but it didn’t matter because they’re good songs, unlike the ones in Wish. As for visuals, I love that Encanto does crazy things during the music. During Surface Pressure, it helps stress that Louisa is worried about the safety of her village. It’s hypocritical to criticize that, considering 2D animated Disney movies also did crazy things with their songs
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.
*The Simpsons* and *Family Guy* really raised the bar for musical theater on TV. Back in the 80s, we made do with whenever Nell Carter and Joel Higgins got musical numbers on their respective sitcoms. Nobody in Hollywood had any idea what to do with either of them except Brandon Tartikoff and Fred Silverman (and in Nell’s case, Milos Forman).
The plot of Encanto is carried by EMOTION, so of course the only thing we’d learn about Louisa from Surface is the way she FEELS. Waiting on a Miracle comes off naturally since it comes at a point where Mirabel is emotionally isolated. And the songs do advance the plot (again, since they’re carried by EMOTION). We literally see during What Else Can I Do that Isabella breaks free of her perfectionism, her and Mirabel hug, and Abuela gets mad after. Just because they’re bangers doesn’t mean they can’t work musically. The Hunchback of Notre Dome had that random ass love song, while all of Encanto’s songs fleshed out the characters or told us important things. And Hercules and Moana had some songs that didn’t need to be there (like Your Welcome, Shiny, Zero to Hero) but it didn’t matter because they’re good songs, unlike the ones in Wish. As for visuals, I love that Encanto does crazy things during the music. During Surface Pressure, it helps stress that Louisa is worried about the safety of her village. It’s hypocritical to criticize that, considering 2D animated Disney movies also did crazy things with their songs
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.
He's only been a part of three. The only reason people think he's done more than he has is because his things tend to blow up, but the Man can write. Hamilton and ITH are proof of that, and that can extend to Encanto.
That’s, like, one of my complaints with Encanto. The songs come out so suddenly you didn’t expect them the first time watching it, and the visuals don’t flow so good. I mean, of course they flow nicely in editing, but this is a movie and not a short video. Idk, I have a hard time putting my thoughts to words but I hope you get what I mean.
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
This, and also, Lin Manuel Miranda is a writer, too, so there's no way he didn't have a headache figuring out a song for Scuttle at the worst possible time for a song.
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.
Yeah, just because it isn't traditional doesn't mean it isn't Broadway or good. Times change, and with it so does the Disney formula; and if it hadn't, we probably wouldn't have ever gotten bangers like Shiny or Surface Pressure. They might not be what they used to be, but they serve their purpose. While Surface Pressure, What Else Can I Do, and We Don't Talk About Bruno might not be 100% broadway, they all serve their purpose of telling how their respective character was affected by their gifts. Another thing I disagree with with most people is how songs like Surface Pressure and What Else Can I Do are shallow since they don't explore the characters as much and instead focus on relatability, but I think that's intentional. Unlike Hamilton, these songs cover more relatable topics. I mean, I don't know how many of us relate to having your friendship torn apart by being on opposing sides of the Found Fathers, but having to deal with too much pressure or wanting to be free to do what you want despite expectations are very relatable, and what's more authentic than your own feelings?
The plot of Encanto is carried by EMOTION, so of course the only thing we’d learn about Louisa from Surface is the way she FEELS. Waiting on a Miracle comes off naturally since it comes at a point where Mirabel is emotionally isolated. And the songs do advance the plot (again, since they’re carried by EMOTION). We literally see during What Else Can I Do that Isabella breaks free of her perfectionism, her and Mirabel hug, and Abuela gets mad after. Just because they’re bangers doesn’t mean they can’t work musically. The Hunchback of Notre Dome had that random ass love song, while all of Encanto’s songs fleshed out the characters or told us important things. And Hercules and Moana had some songs that didn’t need to be there (like Your Welcome, Shiny, Zero to Hero) but it didn’t matter because they’re good songs, unlike the ones in Wish. As for visuals, I love that Encanto does crazy things during the music. During Surface Pressure, it helps stress that Louisa is worried about the safety of her village. It’s hypocritical to criticize that, considering 2D animated Disney movies also did crazy things with their songs .
They should've had more Colombian influences as far as music goes as well as more focus on the characters' personal lyrical, rhythmical and melodical quirks, styles and preferences (which was present in We don't talk about Bruno). Not some random music video, pop songs with flat lyrics, bad rap (performed by people who mumble rather than rap) and tiktok dances. Not to mention how out of place all the songs were, not further moving the story or even explaining the feelings well with any nuance or subtlety. Everything was flat and reiterated to its audience like to a toddler.
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
The plot of Encanto is carried by EMOTION, so of course the only thing we’d learn about Louisa from Surface is the way she FEELS. Waiting on a Miracle comes off naturally since it comes at a point where Mirabel is emotionally isolated. And the songs do advance the plot (again, since they’re carried by EMOTION). We literally see during What Else Can I Do that Isabella breaks free of her perfectionism, her and Mirabel hug, and Abuela gets mad after. Just because they’re bangers doesn’t mean they can’t work musically. The Hunchback of Notre Dome had that random ass love song, while all of Encanto’s songs fleshed out the characters or told us important things. And Hercules and Moana had some songs that didn’t need to be there (like Your Welcome, Shiny, Zero to Hero) but it didn’t matter because they’re good songs, unlike the ones in Wish. As for visuals, I love that Encanto does crazy things during the music. During Surface Pressure, it helps stress that Louisa is worried about the safety of her village. It’s hypocritical to criticize that, considering 2D animated Disney movies also did crazy things with their songs
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.
Disney never shied away from popular music trends before. They embraced rock music in its early years with some of Annette Funicello’s early records. *Robin Hood* was country when country was starting to become cool, or at least mainstream. And if *Mickey Mouse Disco* wasn’t enough to make you flip your lid, I got two words for you: *Mickey Unrapped.*
*Oliver and Company* follows the same Walt-era trend of hiring multiple songwriters to compose songs for the same movie. This was also the case for *Song of the South* and *So Dear to My Heart,* while even the Sherman brothers had to share *The Jungle Book* and *The Aristocats* with other songwriters.
The plot of Encanto is carried by EMOTION, so of course the only thing we’d learn about Louisa from Surface is the way she FEELS. Waiting on a Miracle comes off naturally since it comes at a point where Mirabel is emotionally isolated. And the songs do advance the plot (again, since they’re carried by EMOTION). We literally see during What Else Can I Do that Isabella breaks free of her perfectionism, her and Mirabel hug, and Abuela gets mad after. Just because they’re bangers doesn’t mean they can’t work musically. The Hunchback of Notre Dome had that random ass love song, while all of Encanto’s songs fleshed out the characters or told us important things. And Hercules and Moana had some songs that didn’t need to be there (like Your Welcome, Shiny, Zero to Hero) but it didn’t matter because they’re good songs, unlike the ones in Wish. As for visuals, I love that Encanto does crazy things during the music. During Surface Pressure, it helps stress that Louisa is worried about the safety of her village. It’s hypocritical to criticize that, considering 2D animated Disney movies also did crazy things with their songs
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.
The plot of Encanto is carried by EMOTION, so of course the only thing we’d learn about Louisa from Surface is the way she FEELS. Waiting on a Miracle comes off naturally since it comes at a point where Mirabel is emotionally isolated. And the songs do advance the plot (again, since they’re carried by EMOTION). We literally see during What Else Can I Do that Isabella breaks free of her perfectionism, her and Mirabel hug, and Abuela gets mad after. Just because they’re bangers doesn’t mean they can’t work musically. The Hunchback of Notre Dome had that random ass love song, while all of Encanto’s songs fleshed out the characters or told us important things. And Hercules and Moana had some songs that didn’t need to be there (like Your Welcome, Shiny, Zero to Hero) but it didn’t matter because they’re good songs, unlike the ones in Wish. As for visuals, I love that Encanto does crazy things during the music. During Surface Pressure, it helps stress that Louisa is worried about the safety of her village. It’s hypocritical to criticize that, considering 2D animated Disney movies also did crazy things with their songs .
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.
The plot of Encanto is carried by EMOTION, so of course the only thing we’d learn about Louisa from Surface is the way she FEELS. Waiting on a Miracle comes off naturally since it comes at a point where Mirabel is emotionally isolated. And the songs do advance the plot (again, since they’re carried by EMOTION). We literally see during What Else Can I Do that Isabella breaks free of her perfectionism, her and Mirabel hug, and Abuela gets mad after. Just because they’re bangers doesn’t mean they can’t work musically. The Hunchback of Notre Dome had that random ass love song, while all of Encanto’s songs fleshed out the characters or told us important things. And Hercules and Moana had some songs that didn’t need to be there (like Your Welcome, I Won’t Say I’m in Love) but it didn’t matter because they’re good songs, unlike the ones in Wish. As for visuals, I love that Encanto does crazy things during the music. During Surface Pressure, it helps stress that Louisa is worried about the safety of her village. It’s hypocritical to criticize that, considering 2D animated Disney movies also did crazy things with their songs.
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.
The plot of Encanto is carried by EMOTION, so of course the only thing we’d learn about Louisa from Surface is the way she FEELS. Waiting on a Miracle comes off naturally since it comes at a point where Mirabel is emotionally isolated. And the songs do advance the plot (again, since they’re carried by EMOTION). We literally see during What Else Can I Do that Isabella breaks free of her perfectionism, her and Mirabel hug, and Abuela gets mad after. Just because they’re bangers doesn’t mean they can’t work musically. The Hunchback of Notre Dome had that random ass love song, while all of Encanto’s songs fleshed out the characters or told us important things. And Hercules and Moana had some songs that didn’t need to be there (like Your Welcome, Shiny, I Won’t Say I’m in Love) but it didn’t matter because they’re good songs, unlike the ones in Wish. As for visuals, I love that Encanto does crazy things during the music. During Surface Pressure, it helps stress that Louisa is worried about the safety of her village. It’s hypocritical to criticize that, considering 2D animated Disney movies also did crazy things with their songs .
Yeah I came down here to comment something similar - ie that they explore an emotion. They're both very emotional songs. I honestly love the whole Encanto soundtrack it's up there with both of the Frozen soundtracks for me. But I find the themes in all three movies intensely relatable to me personally so I'd get if people felt differently.
They do explore that emotion, but you get that after a couple lines. The first chorus tells it all and then it just repeats the same information. Don't get me wrong, I love that song, but I can see the concern that's raised in the video too.
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.
I agree!!! I was just about to comment this! I agree that Waiting on A Miracle still holds pop elements but it would be a fairer comparison to other Disney "I want" songs + it being centered on the protagonist. Additionally, I think it is important to consider that the other songs in Encanto (and Encanto as a whole) were meant to incorporate other styles that are familiar to - I'd argue - a Latinx audience: old reggaeton, Spanish rock, etc. I won't say they're the BEST, but having those sounds in a Disney film is actually quite nice. So I think it did the best it could in trying to incorporate different things at once and having it WORK to an extent because you have other people who are trying to recreate what LMM did and it just DOESN'T WORK.
@@girlwhtdafck Yes! actually I'm from Colombia and What else can I do was thought as a reference to shakira's rock and waiting on a miracle combines a more traditional music style. And it was a very difficult task in terms of music because Colombia has styles influenced by it's african, spanish and indigenous heritage. In terms of the music it also doesn't follow the traditional broadway style because of it's big cast, so I think it could resemble more Cats the musical that has many numbers for small characters (I am songs). Which makes these secondary songs "superficial" in a way
This should be a pinned comment. The video is trying to speak from a very biased perspective, what is failing to acknowledge why or how each era of Disney sounds the way that it does. Alan, Howard, and Swartz are people who got their start in the 1970s and 80s which was when things like A Chorus Line and Sweedy Tood were becoming big Broadway staples. However, near the tail end of the 90s, Broadway musicals took a drastic shift and started to sound a lot more contemporary to appeal to a wider audience. This is especially true because younger people and creators were getting into the medium and wanted to use the sounds that they heard growing up
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.
The plot of Encanto is carried by EMOTION, so of course the only thing we’d learn about Louisa from Surface is the way she FEELS. Waiting on a Miracle comes off naturally since it comes at a point where Mirabel is emotionally isolated. And the songs do advance the plot (again, since they’re carried by EMOTION). We literally see during What Else Can I Do that Isabella breaks free of her perfectionism, her and Mirabel hug, and Abuela gets mad after. Just because they’re bangers doesn’t mean they can’t work musically. The Hunchback of Notre Dome had that random ass love song, while all of Encanto’s songs fleshed out the characters or told us important things. And Hercules and Moana had some songs that didn’t need to be there (like Your Welcome, Shiny, Zero to Hero) but it didn’t matter because they’re good songs, unlike the ones in Wish. As for visuals, I love that Encanto does crazy things during the music. During Surface Pressure, it helps stress that Louisa is worried about the safety of her village. It’s hypocritical to criticize that, considering 2D animated Disney movies also did crazy things with their songs .
Not to be a dick, but these are all just… what the song is about. Like, this is precisely what you were meant to take away. It’s genuinely great that you understood the song (I feel like people are struggling to understand symbolism recently), but this doesn’t really add anything new to the conversation.
@@zigzagintrusion what is Just cant wait to be king about.. other than him wanting to be king, what is a dream is a wish about.. what is under the sea about besides how good ocean life is. disney is built on one sided songs than expand upon a core part of a character or the movie. Surface pressure and What else can I do are no different, it makes you see how integral this specific thing is to the movie or character, songs that tell an entire story are more rare in disney movies Encanto had two, we dont talk about bruno aswell as oruguita, which doesnt get as much story telling credit bc its in spanish. fleshing out singular important aspects in a few songs aswell as a deep song or 2 is VERY on par for disney. It just seems like the difference is back then people werent trying so hard to deconstruct the movies to find whats wrong or different with it
@@zigzagintrusion it adds smth new to the conversation when astor is saying that encanto songs don’t have “information” in them like renaissance disney movies did. listing the ways in which surface pressure does contain character and plot development is a counterpoint to what astor’s saying
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.
Exactly this. The Songs from Cinderella sounded like something you could hear Dean Martin because they have the 1950s condense. The jungle book also featured Dixieland swing which was also pretty popular in the 60s , and is used to highlight how Baloo and Louie are not only cool but outsiders to the jungle and its ways. Lin Miranda is known as the guy who bought more contemporary sounds to Broadway, so of course A lot of the things he creates are going to be indicative of the cultures he grew up around and different than what Broadway of the old sounded like.
Traditional jazz had a revival in England in the late 1950s right before The Beatles made it big. Before that, they got American music, but we didn’t get theirs. Petula Clark was already famous in the UK as a child star since the war, but she was unknown in the US when her song “Downtown” reached #1 though she had been recording in multiple languages for many years by that point and, unlike many of her younger contemporaries, was already married with children.
@@Attmay that's interesting 🤔. That said, the way the bear and King Louie talk is pretty contemporary for what is essentially Colonial India. There's a lot of jive coming from the two and while it is enjoyable it is completely contemporary to that era
The plot of Encanto is carried by EMOTION, so of course the only thing we’d learn about Louisa from Surface is the way she FEELS. Waiting on a Miracle comes off naturally since it comes at a point where Mirabel is emotionally isolated. And the songs do advance the plot (again, since they’re carried by EMOTION). We literally see during What Else Can I Do that Isabella breaks free of her perfectionism, her and Mirabel hug, and Abuela gets mad after. Just because they’re bangers doesn’t mean they can’t work musically. The Hunchback of Notre Dome had that random ass love song, while all of Encanto’s songs fleshed out the characters or told us important things. And Hercules and Moana had some songs that didn’t need to be there (like Your Welcome, Shiny, Zero to Hero) but it didn’t matter because they’re good songs, unlike the ones in Wish. As for visuals, I love that Encanto does crazy things during the music. During Surface Pressure, it helps stress that Louisa is worried about the safety of her village. It’s hypocritical to criticize that, considering 2D animated Disney movies also did crazy things with their songs
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 the point is that the progression you describe doesn’t happen musically- if you heard the song without context it’s HIGHLY unlikely you’d be able to tell that progression was happening, because it’s not incorporated into the song itself
@@gaphic Yes I'd agree with this - I do remember being disappointed the lyrics went back to a chorus about plants instead of expanding on the emotions haha. The visuals somewhat make up for it though, which is just as important for a Disney song.
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 » )
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.
The entire music industry pretty much stopped trying as soon as Howard Ashman died and Kurt Cobain blew his brains out. What did we get after that? One tacky whiny boy band after another, and one underdressed underrehearsed Caucasian female pop “singer” after another. Yes, we paid the price, and look how much we lost. The first half of the 90s (the *Home Alone* era) was fun. The second half was an affront to God except for the *Brady Bunch* movies, the restoration of *Bedknobs and Broomsticks,* and the revelation of Ricky Schroder’s posterior. Things would’ve been different if they had never been a CIA. *Song of the South* came out a year before the formation of that organization, and they were all over Disney after that.
The plot of Encanto is carried by EMOTION, so of course the only thing we’d learn about Louisa from Surface is the way she FEELS. Waiting on a Miracle comes off naturally since it comes at a point where Mirabel is emotionally isolated. And the songs do advance the plot (again, since they’re carried by EMOTION). We literally see during What Else Can I Do that Isabella breaks free of her perfectionism, her and Mirabel hug, and Abuela gets mad after. Just because they’re bangers doesn’t mean they can’t work musically. The Hunchback of Notre Dome had that random ass love song, while all of Encanto’s songs fleshed out the characters or told us important things. And Hercules and Moana had some songs that didn’t need to be there (like Your Welcome, Shiny, Zero to Hero) but it didn’t matter because they’re good songs, unlike the ones in Wish. As for visuals, I love that Encanto does crazy things during the music. During Surface Pressure, it helps stress that Louisa is worried about the safety of her village. It’s hypocritical to criticize that, considering 2D animated Disney movies also did crazy things with their songs .
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.
What Else Can I Do is literally the best song in the movie. When I first saw the thumbnail I thought it would be about Isabela embracing being a stuck-up primadonna and bragging that she couldn't help it. In other words, I expected a mean girl song, but I was pleasantly surprised to discover otherwise. And now, it's my favorite song.
Yes! Dos Oruguitas is such a beautiful and emotionaal song, might be the best song in the movie! It's so beautifully written. But all three you mentioned are my top 3!
@@Joell351Encanto was my favorite recent Disney movie, and I feel like all the video essayists have been completely missing the movie by not approaching it with an open mind. The fact she says Encanto’s songs don’t explore the characters is mind boggling, it’s like we didn’t even watch the same movie. The songs are how we learn what’s actually happening in the lives of the characters! And Dos Oruguitas was my absolute favorite song of the movie, sad it wasn’t even mentioned.
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?
me too!!! i’ve been thinking i was the only one who felt surface pressure didn’t feel like it fit in the movie much and spoke a bit negatively about it bc everyone i talked to about it was like "wtfdym it’s a banger" or something
For me the intro felt weird and out of place but once that’s over I really enjoy it I get why it needed to start there to build but it still feels abit weird and cringey
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.
The plot of Encanto is carried by EMOTION, so of course the only thing we’d learn about Louisa from Surface is the way she FEELS. Waiting on a Miracle comes off naturally since it comes at a point where Mirabel is emotionally isolated. And the songs do advance the plot (again, since they’re carried by EMOTION). We literally see during What Else Can I Do that Isabella breaks free of her perfectionism, her and Mirabel hug, and Abuela gets mad after. Just because they’re bangers doesn’t mean they can’t work musically. The Hunchback of Notre Dome had that random ass love song, while all of Encanto’s songs fleshed out the characters or told us important things. And Hercules and Moana had some songs that didn’t need to be there (like Your Welcome, I Won’t Say I’m in Love) but it didn’t matter because they’re good songs, unlike the ones in Wish. As for visuals, I love that Encanto does crazy things during the music. During Surface Pressure, it helps stress that Louisa is worried about the safety of her village. It’s hypocritical to criticize that, considering 2D animated Disney movies also did crazy things with their songs
In regards to your first paragraph, Anything Goes definitely comes to mind. Still fairly well known outside of its musical to this day as far as I've seen.
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.
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 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. :)
The plot of Encanto is carried by EMOTION, so of course the only thing we’d learn about Louisa from Surface is the way she FEELS. Waiting on a Miracle comes off naturally since it comes at a point where Mirabel is emotionally isolated. And the songs do advance the plot (again, since they’re carried by EMOTION). We literally see during What Else Can I Do that Isabella breaks free of her perfectionism, her and Mirabel hug, and Abuela gets mad after. Just because they’re bangers doesn’t mean they can’t work musically. The Hunchback of Notre Dome had that random ass love song, while all of Encanto’s songs fleshed out the characters or told us important things. And Hercules and Moana had some songs that didn’t need to be there (like Your Welcome, Shiny, Zero to Hero) but it didn’t matter because they’re good songs, unlike the ones in Wish. As for visuals, I love that Encanto does crazy things during the music. During Surface Pressure, it helps stress that Louisa is worried about the safety of her village. It’s hypocritical to criticize that, considering 2D animated Disney movies also did crazy things with their songs
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.
The plot of Encanto is carried by EMOTION, so of course the only thing we’d learn about Louisa from Surface is the way she FEELS. Waiting on a Miracle comes off naturally since it comes at a point where Mirabel is emotionally isolated. And the songs do advance the plot (again, since they’re carried by EMOTION). We literally see during What Else Can I Do that Isabella breaks free of her perfectionism, her and Mirabel hug, and Abuela gets mad after. Just because they’re bangers doesn’t mean they can’t work musically. The Hunchback of Notre Dome had that random ass love song, while all of Encanto’s songs fleshed out the characters or told us important things. And Hercules and Moana had some songs that didn’t need to be there (like Your Welcome, Shiny, Zero to Hero) but it didn’t matter because they’re good songs, unlike the ones in Wish. As for visuals, I love that Encanto does crazy things during the music. During Surface Pressure, it helps stress that Louisa is worried about the safety of her village. It’s hypocritical to criticize that, considering 2D animated Disney movies also did crazy things with their songs .
@@DORAisD34D I agree with you, but how is that related to We Don't Talk About Bruno overshadowing The Family Madrigal? I wasn't criticizing the pop songs
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
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.
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.
The plot of Encanto is carried by EMOTION, so of course the only thing we’d learn about Louisa from Surface is the way she FEELS. Waiting on a Miracle comes off naturally since it comes at a point where Mirabel is emotionally isolated. And the songs do advance the plot (again, since they’re carried by EMOTION). We literally see during What Else Can I Do that Isabella breaks free of her perfectionism, her and Mirabel hug, and Abuela gets mad after. Just because they’re bangers doesn’t mean they can’t work musically. The Hunchback of Notre Dome had that random ass love song, while all of Encanto’s songs fleshed out the characters or told us important things. And Hercules and Moana had some songs that didn’t need to be there (like Your Welcome, Shiny, Zero to Hero) but it didn’t matter because they’re good songs, unlike the ones in Wish. As for visuals, I love that Encanto does crazy things during the music. During Surface Pressure, it helps stress that Louisa is worried about the safety of her village. It’s hypocritical to criticize that, considering 2D animated Disney movies also did crazy things with their songs .
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.
The plot of Encanto is carried by EMOTION, so of course the only thing we’d learn about Louisa from Surface is the way she FEELS. Waiting on a Miracle comes off naturally since it comes at a point where Mirabel is emotionally isolated. And the songs do advance the plot (again, since they’re carried by EMOTION). We literally see during What Else Can I Do that Isabella breaks free of her perfectionism, her and Mirabel hug, and Abuela gets mad after. Just because they’re bangers doesn’t mean they can’t work musically. The Hunchback of Notre Dome had that random ass love song, while all of Encanto’s songs fleshed out the characters or told us important things. And Hercules and Moana had some songs that didn’t need to be there (like Your Welcome, Shiny, Zero to Hero) but it didn’t matter because they’re good songs, unlike the ones in Wish. As for visuals, I love that Encanto does crazy things during the music. During Surface Pressure, it helps stress that Louisa is worried about the safety of her village. It’s hypocritical to criticize that, considering 2D animated Disney movies also did crazy things with their songs .
Yeah, and saying "this song doesn't tell us anything about Luisa" when the entire song is about Luisa felling crushed by the expectations everybody has for her and how she wishes to be free of them and also that she is scared that if she is not strong enough something bad might happen. how can you read that and say that you don't know a thing about this character??!!?!?!
i think the main takeaway of the argument is that we don't know anything ELSE about her except for the fact that she's stressed and under a lot of pressure. i can't say anything else about her character after listening to her song.
@@brkli1485 she's a secondary character. She's not meant to be as in depth as her a lead. The point of her song is to basically push the plot forward by pinpointing the primary antagonistic force of the film (generational trauma,)
@@desdar100 you actually got a point there, but unlike isabela i feel as if luisa was pushed to the sidelines way more than necessary. it would be nice to have a tiny bit more insight on her character and this song would be perfect for that.
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.
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 was a kid in the 1980s. I could have told you *The Little Mermaid* was going to be a runaway hit. When *Bedknobs and Broomsticks* and *Pete’s Dragon,* which were set in or near the ocean, did better on video than in theaters, that showed Disney still had something but just needed someone to come along and organize and arrange things properly. In addition to those, *Snow White, Cinderella,* and *Sleeping Beauty* had all come back to theaters while two of them got home video releases. This made it make sense that a new movie set in the ocean and based on a fairy tale about a princess would be the breakthrough fully-animated hit the studio was hoping for. Meanwhile, the major box-office success of *Who Framed Roger Rabbit* helped shake off the (largely Western-imposed) stigma of watching animation for adults, and *The Great Mouse Detective* and *Oliver and Company* stabilized the finances of animation after *The Black Cauldron.*
The plot of Encanto is carried by EMOTION, so of course the only thing we’d learn about Louisa from Surface is the way she FEELS. Waiting on a Miracle comes off naturally since it comes at a point where Mirabel is emotionally isolated. And the songs do advance the plot (again, since they’re carried by EMOTION). We literally see during What Else Can I Do that Isabella breaks free of her perfectionism, her and Mirabel hug, and Abuela gets mad after. Just because they’re bangers doesn’t mean they can’t work musically. The Hunchback of Notre Dome had that random ass love song, while all of Encanto’s songs fleshed out the characters or told us important things. And Hercules and Moana had some songs that didn’t need to be there (like Your Welcome, I Won’t Say I’m in Love) but it didn’t matter because they’re good songs, unlike the ones in Wish. As for visuals, I love that Encanto does crazy things during the music. During Surface Pressure, it helps stress that Louisa is worried about the safety of her village. It’s hypocritical to criticize that, considering 2D animated Disney movies also did crazy things with their songs
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'.
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.
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.
"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.
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!
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!
The plot of Encanto is carried by EMOTION, so of course the only thing we’d learn about Louisa from Surface is the way she FEELS. Waiting on a Miracle comes off naturally since it comes at a point where Mirabel is emotionally isolated. And the songs do advance the plot (again, since they’re carried by EMOTION). We literally see during What Else Can I Do that Isabella breaks free of her perfectionism, her and Mirabel hug, and Abuela gets mad after. Just because they’re bangers doesn’t mean they can’t work musically. The Hunchback of Notre Dome had that random ass love song, while all of Encanto’s songs fleshed out the characters or told us important things. And Hercules and Moana had some songs that didn’t need to be there (like Your Welcome, Shiny, Zero to Hero) but it didn’t matter because they’re good songs, unlike the ones in Wish. As for visuals, I love that Encanto does crazy things during the music. During Surface Pressure, it helps stress that Louisa is worried about the safety of her village. It’s hypocritical to criticize that, considering 2D animated Disney movies also did crazy things with their songs .
@@DORAisD34D first of all, it's Isabela, not Isabella (yes, that thing bothers me a lot because I'm an Isabella myself). Secondly, I do understand why many people liked Encanto and Arcane, for that matter. They were able to connect with the characters on a deep, emotional level, but I personally didn't. I think both of these animated stories have similar problems: they have no plot whatsoever and there are very random mood swings that are masked as "character development". Encanto had soo much potential, but the result came out very superficial. They tried to go "psychological drama full-mode", but it failed (all of it is just me opinion, you might disagree). A highly disunctional and unhealthy family where all problems and years of trauma are solved thorught one hug. Now that's impressive. Why would Luisa and Isabela confess their darkest secrets and fears to Mirabel if they never were that close? Why was Mirabel the only one to not receive a gift (this crucial point is never explained)? Why was the whole scandal with Bruno forgotten and resolved in an instant? And so on. Like, they could've digged a little deeper and make the gift a "curse" or smth like that, but they just threw in random songs and hugs and called it a day. That's why I think Encanto's a big disappointment and a failed attempt to do a no-villain-drama.
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
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 RUclipsr 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 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.
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 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.
As a Colombian, I can tell you it doesn't absolutely resemble any of our music genres at all. At least Surface pressure and what else can I do are literally just pop songs.
@@sussybaka119 mi pana yo tmb soy de colombia jajaj I know what I'm talking abt. la melodía de surface pressure 100% suena a reguetón viejito y what else can I do perfectamente podría ser canción de aterciopelados
@@lonniegabbie And theres nothing wrong with that, pop isn't inherently bad. criticizing latino inspired music for not sounding like a european genre is weird.
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.
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
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.
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.
*The Wizard of Oz* basically ceases to be a musical after “If I Were King of the Forest” as the two intended reprises of “Over the Rainbow” and “Ding! Dong! The Witch is Dead” ended up on the cutting room floor and only exist as audio. As a result, the third act becomes a very dark action movie (compared to the rest of the movie) with comic relief along the way and a happy ending that leaves lots of room for interpretation.
The plot of Encanto is carried by EMOTION, so of course the only thing we’d learn about Louisa from Surface is the way she FEELS. Waiting on a Miracle comes off naturally since it comes at a point where Mirabel is emotionally isolated. And the songs do advance the plot (again, since they’re carried by EMOTION). We literally see during What Else Can I Do that Isabella breaks free of her perfectionism, her and Mirabel hug, and Abuela gets mad after. Just because they’re bangers doesn’t mean they can’t work musically. The Hunchback of Notre Dome had that random ass love song, while all of Encanto’s songs fleshed out the characters or told us important things. And Hercules and Moana had some songs that didn’t need to be there (like Your Welcome, I Won’t Say I’m in Love) but it didn’t matter because they’re good songs, unlike the ones in Wish. As for visuals, I love that Encanto does crazy things during the music. During Surface Pressure, it helps stress that Louisa is worried about the safety of her village. It’s hypocritical to criticize that, considering 2D animated Disney movies also did crazy things with their songs.
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)
Contemporary music back then was not an outright attack on the eardrums like now. It’s one thing to try and capture a zeitgeist that gave us “A Bushel and a Peck” and “Mairzy Doats.” The modern era can’t even give us those, they just normalized the most problematic word of the latter song!
@@Attmay that's largely because of the generation I grew up with that music, but to the older generation it most likely was. The idea though is more so that it ties into the overarching point that Disney has always been very timely, but because we're far removed from that generation it doesn't come off that way.
The plot of Encanto is carried by EMOTION, so of course the only thing we’d learn about Louisa from Surface is the way she FEELS. Waiting on a Miracle comes off naturally since it comes at a point where Mirabel is emotionally isolated. And the songs do advance the plot (again, since they’re carried by EMOTION). We literally see during What Else Can I Do that Isabella breaks free of her perfectionism, her and Mirabel hug, and Abuela gets mad after. Just because they’re bangers doesn’t mean they can’t work musically. The Hunchback of Notre Dome had that random ass love song, while all of Encanto’s songs fleshed out the characters or told us important things. And Hercules and Moana had some songs that didn’t need to be there (like Your Welcome, I Won’t Say I’m in Love) but it didn’t matter because they’re good songs, unlike the ones in Wish. As for visuals, I love that Encanto does crazy things during the music. During Surface Pressure, it helps stress that Louisa is worried about the safety of her village. It’s hypocritical to criticize that, considering 2D animated Disney movies also did crazy things with their songs.
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
The crazy thing is that every song in Encanto does just that. Luisa and her Older Sister are not protags the way that Ariel and Mirabel are, so it's not going to go in-depth, since they're just driving home the central conflict ( Generational Trauma and how it's affecting the family)
The plot of Encanto is carried by EMOTION, so of course the only thing we’d learn about Louisa from Surface is the way she FEELS. Waiting on a Miracle comes off naturally since it comes at a point where Mirabel is emotionally isolated. And the songs do advance the plot (again, since they’re carried by EMOTION). We literally see during What Else Can I Do that Isabella breaks free of her perfectionism, her and Mirabel hug, and Abuela gets mad after. Just because they’re bangers doesn’t mean they can’t work musically. The Hunchback of Notre Dome had that random ass love song, while all of Encanto’s songs fleshed out the characters or told us important things. And Hercules and Moana had some songs that didn’t need to be there (like Your Welcome, I Won’t Say I’m in Love) but it didn’t matter because they’re good songs, unlike the ones in Wish. As for visuals, I love that Encanto does crazy things during the music. During Surface Pressure, it helps stress that Louisa is worried about the safety of her village. It’s hypocritical to criticize that, considering 2D animated Disney movies also did crazy things with their songs
@@DORAisD34D you are correct but it feels like the creator of the video puts far too many expectations on a piece of the puzzle instead of looking at the bigger picture bc while the pieces may not be “perfect” they are good enough to fit together perfectly
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 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.
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).
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.
The plot of Encanto is carried by EMOTION, so of course the only thing we’d learn about Louisa from Surface is the way she FEELS. Waiting on a Miracle comes off naturally since it comes at a point where Mirabel is emotionally isolated. And the songs do advance the plot (again, since they’re carried by EMOTION). We literally see during What Else Can I Do that Isabella breaks free of her perfectionism, her and Mirabel hug, and Abuela gets mad after. Just because they’re bangers doesn’t mean they can’t work musically. The Hunchback of Notre Dome had that random ass love song, while all of Encanto’s songs fleshed out the characters or told us important things. And Hercules and Moana had some songs that didn’t need to be there (like Your Welcome, Shiny, Zero to Hero) but it didn’t matter because they’re good songs, unlike the ones in Wish. As for visuals, I love that Encanto does crazy things during the music. During Surface Pressure, it helps stress that Louisa is worried about the safety of her village. It’s hypocritical to criticize that, considering 2D animated Disney movies also did crazy things with their songs
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.
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.
The problem with that reductive analysis is that Broadway has been dumbing itself down by trying to slavishly copy whatever is on the radio now. It’s even worse on the west end in London. This is how we end up with this LMM-style broshit.
The plot of Encanto is carried by EMOTION, so of course the only thing we’d learn about Louisa from Surface is the way she FEELS. Waiting on a Miracle comes off naturally since it comes at a point where Mirabel is emotionally isolated. And the songs do advance the plot (again, since they’re carried by EMOTION). We literally see during What Else Can I Do that Isabella breaks free of her perfectionism, her and Mirabel hug, and Abuela gets mad after. Just because they’re bangers doesn’t mean they can’t work musically. The Hunchback of Notre Dome had that random ass love song, while all of Encanto’s songs fleshed out the characters or told us important things. And Hercules and Moana had some songs that didn’t need to be there (like Your Welcome, I Won’t Say I’m in Love) but it didn’t matter because they’re good songs, unlike the ones in Wish. As for visuals, I love that Encanto does crazy things during the music. During Surface Pressure, it helps stress that Louisa is worried about the safety of her village. It’s hypocritical to criticize that, considering 2D animated Disney movies also did crazy things with their songs
It really seems like you aren’t able to separate latin musical styles from the pop style that was inspired by said musical styles, and claiming the music is shallow when most of the songs from Disney musicals isn’t much deeper is misguided at best.
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.
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.
This is such a good point! Especially considering the lack of villains that everyone and their grandma pointed out many times. Really played into our cravings
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.
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.
You literally do though. The family madrigal sets the stage of the family and the image that the people of Encanto have of them. Waiting on a miracle tells us about mirabelle's personal struggles. Surface pressure is our first look into the true toxicity that sits deep down in most of the family members and we see that like mirabelle, they too are suffering from the roles that have been embedded into them. Those three songs alone tell a pretty big story
The plot of Encanto is carried by EMOTION, so of course the only thing we’d learn about Louisa from Surface is the way she FEELS. Waiting on a Miracle comes off naturally since it comes at a point where Mirabel is emotionally isolated. And the songs do advance the plot (again, since they’re carried by EMOTION). We literally see during What Else Can I Do that Isabella breaks free of her perfectionism, her and Mirabel hug, and Abuela gets mad after. Just because they’re bangers doesn’t mean they can’t work musically. The Hunchback of Notre Dome had that random ass love song, while all of Encanto’s songs fleshed out the characters or told us important things. And Hercules and Moana had some songs that didn’t need to be there (like Your Welcome, I Won’t Say I’m in Love) but it didn’t matter because they’re good songs, unlike the ones in Wish. As for visuals, I love that Encanto does crazy things during the music. During Surface Pressure, it helps stress that Louisa is worried about the safety of her village. It’s hypocritical to criticize that, considering 2D animated Disney movies also did crazy things with their songs
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.
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 .
Now that you mention I don't think any character sang in the movie. I think the defining difference is that they were songs that explained how the characters felt and not musical numbers. Can you feel the love is another example
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.
I don’t think she understands that Encanto is different because it is to express feelings and not to move the plot forward. It is to show how broken this family really is which is different than an event being expressed through song.
it’s like how that old bit of media wisdom goes, ‘trying to appeal to everyone will almost always appeal to no one’ - the ultra generic new-disney songs that can be severed entirely from their stories tend to always miss for, i think, that same reason. ‘we dont talk about bruno’ should’ve been seen as undeniable proof that modern audiences will still absolutely love highly specific narrative songs if they’re well made and engaging, but alas..
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 😂
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.
@@concildremford1763 Newman's lyrics are just pleasant. Miranda's have actual wit, humor and creativity and he can tailor a song to suit the characters singing it. Nothing Newman has written has as much variety as the best of Miranda.
I think your points about surface pressure were self defeating - if a song is extremely relatable, it does wonders for getting the audience invested in a character and how their story will develop. I also find the song somewhat cringey and jarring stylistically, but I personally forgive it because it still enhances the story for me.
@@revolution1237 she's not at the point where she's smiling and dancing lmao, you can see how she's actually feeling when the song ends, she looks angry or stressed. When she breaks down she sobs and screams in the rest of the movie.
@@Red-jl1qr I feel like she's already at a transitional point here. All it takes is one bad moment or one bad day for her to completely break down, both mentally and emotionally. (Yes, I sort of paraphrased the Joker here)
girl what are you TALKING about??? i'll hand it to you that surface pressure is pretty one-note, but that's because luisa's entire character is really one-note and she doesn't do anything else in the entire movie other than be stressed (side note: if i could change one thing about encanto i'd have luisa be the one secretly in love with mariano rather than dolores). having her song be sort of static and isolated is actually kind of appropriate for what it's trying to convey-while everything else is going on around her, luisa is in this constant state of anxiety on the inside. as for what else can i do, huh????? the song isn't just about isabela on her own, it's about her and mirabel connecting. at the beginning, mirabel's just awkwardly ad-libbing like you say, but after the first chorus, isabela starts actually including her ("can i deliver *us* a river of sundew...i'm so sick of pretty, i want something true, *don't you?*"), and then mirabel sings about how she's changing her perspective on isabela, and then they start singing together! and the penultimate line is isabela saying that "the way is clearer 'cause you're here and, well, i owe this all to you." like at the beginning of the song, isabela feels trapped in her family's expectations and mirabel is focused on her own issues and is only trying to talk to isabela because bruno's vision told her to, and by the end they're hugging because they want to! and as for what hides behind isabela's smile, she does tell us metaphorically with all these new plants she's making that aren't just pretty generic flowers. it's also worth noting that mirabel's classic disney "i want" song is the least memorable number in the entire movie. i had to think for a few seconds to even remember what it was called (waiting on a miracle, for those who may have also forgotten). dos oruguitas was also not very impactful, at least for me, but it's at least nice how it echoes abuela's part in family madrigal, and i think the problem with that one is that they just did a montage à la when she loved me instead of having abuela actually sing a song like they should have, and at least when she loved me had lyrics in english. anyways if there's one thing lin-manuel miranda knows how to do it's use music to tell a story. obviously he has a different style than ashman and menken, but that doesn't mean his songs don't serve the same purpose. how far i'll go might be a little one-note on its own, but in i am moana when her sort of uncertain melody coming out of her grandma's part from where you are gets more and more confident and then builds into how far i'll go? and then at the end when instead of "how far i'll go" she says "i know the way"??? i don't care what chords are in the backgrounds, that's storytelling. also you're conflating musical style with story function. your main argument seems to be that modern disney songs are meant to be chart-toppers first and story pieces second, but the fact that they use the four-chord loop doesn't mean they can't tell a story. and anyways, you're cherry-picking examples. even if we agree that surface pressure and what else can i do don't communicate enough story, which i don't, encanto had several other songs that were all more classic broadway/disney (except dos oruguitas and colombia, mi encanto, which kinda don't count).
The plot of Encanto is carried by EMOTION, so of course the only thing we’d learn about Louisa from Surface is the way she FEELS. Waiting on a Miracle comes off naturally since it comes at a point where Mirabel is emotionally isolated. And the songs do advance the plot (again, since they’re carried by EMOTION). We literally see during What Else Can I Do that Isabella breaks free of her perfectionism, her and Mirabel hug, and Abuela gets mad after. Just because they’re bangers doesn’t mean they can’t work musically. The Hunchback of Notre Dome had that random ass love song, while all of Encanto’s songs fleshed out the characters or told us important things. And Hercules and Moana had some songs that didn’t need to be there (like Your Welcome, I Won’t Say I’m in Love) but it didn’t matter because they’re good songs, unlike the ones in Wish. As for visuals, I love that Encanto does crazy things during the music. During Surface Pressure, it helps stress that Louisa is worried about the safety of her village. It’s hypocritical to criticize that, considering 2D animated Disney movies also did crazy things with their songs
Absolutely amazing how many comments are just ‘you’re wrong because I like these songs and they’re bangers’ lmao. Excellent analysis! You put into words something I could never quite put my finger on with Encanto
Nah, the people who are disagreeing are making valid points. Lin-manuel Miranda is a Broadway guy first and foremost and many of the songs he writes (even if people don't like some of them) are deeply rooted in the story of his projects One's taste is subjective, but you can't criticize something for doing exactly what you wanted to do while bemoaning that is something that is simply isn't
Essay...People are saying "You're wrong for MANY reasons that add up to a bias / Obsession with Little Mermaid. Should watch all Disney old musicals in terms of songs. Instead if nostalgia like many others! Then realize encanto one of Disney best but Once again... blinded by nostalgia that if came it in 90s / 2D will admit. In plot + songs! As not all old Disney songs were amazing! 10/10. Ignored like a bunch of songs but 2. The 2 analysized wrong. Surface Pressure isn't the I Want song. Waiting on Miracle is! You have to compare Part of Your World to WOAM. Which never mentioned for some reason! When WOAM is a complex I want song. Deep lyrics that tie to ending. Part of Your World don't got deepest lyrics! But is still good! I want songs meant to match character! Not follow others. Said Mirabel talked for no reason in WECID other than to fill sound (Only showed begining) when there was a reason she said "Bring it in" as ignored context of movie when goal was to get a hug but Isa is moving away. Mirabel is there got s reason. As middle part sings lyrics reflecting WDTAB! Ignore as Mirabel encouraged Isabela voice goes from clique disney princess to louder/not as perfect. But somehow noticed Ariel own change of voice? Visuals in Surface Pressure has a reason why all over the place but keep steady/not changing for reason. Called songs music videos when Encanto is mental based so have to look like that! SP can't just walk around singing like other songs. WECID to Isa gift growing! Get confused og context if didn't watch movie. Watch old Disney movies songs beginning... it's same sense as start a scene...then sing! Just issue is tended to be more walking around! All of You, Colombia mi encanto, family madrigal, dos Oruguitas are in literal... but never mentioned. Said don't move plot/learn nothing but praise Hell Fire which is a visuals thing & inner thinking rather than move plot. You do learn about Luisa + Isabela. Luisa venting also helps us see the start of family issue isn't just Mirabel... WECID also advanced plot. Just,,,they REALLY hold onto old European based Disney that can't focus on Broadway isn't only one sound! Encanto has Colombian music elements but ignored songs with so completely. People find as bangers but wasn't made for radio in mind as ignore Disney didn't promote encanto music as much/didn't expect to be radio hits. Came out in Disney plus and people liked. We're confused at same time so watched movie. So comment people can listen without contents unlike other songs of wrong. Semi questioned Moana but ignore I Know the way + I Am Moana. No other Disney songs sound like WDTAB like they don't sound like Hellfire. Wish tried to replicate Encanto but failed! WDTAB also you get vibe of Pepa family. A song meant for them too! Character driven movie + character voices as focus for once. They just really don't like LMM/Wish that made a video of made up things + ignored all other songs to focus on two simply didn't like. I didn't like surface pressure but understood! Just likes clique Disney. Aleo no other Disney characters sound like Madrigals voices + especially Mirabel. Can tell from a movie by that too. So yeah! That's all reasons combined people didn't like video cause combination of false info of what happens in movie + work put into songs + They gotta admit don't like LMM/Wish & didn't like two songs. Don't like idea of Disney changing with Encanto but failed with Wish. Like if Disney makes a rock musical you gonna be like "NOOOOO!!! NOT BROADWAY!!!!" When Broadway had had rock based things... plus jazz...so ???
@@Joell351I think the main problem is that there is not really a harmony with the story and the musicals. Moana did what encanto did but good because it didn't feel jarring in the scheme of what was happening in the scene. Dos orguitas (love this one) and most of bruno were the only songs that flowed naturally in the movie for me. I think it might have somethingto do with the pandemic frying the attention spans of people cause it's like animated movies feel the need to be annoyingly fast-paced/rushed, have bizarre visuals or irkiningly unconventional musical elements to keep the audience's attention now. I especially felt this with most of encanto's songs . It really killed the tone that was supposed to be conveyed for me (looking at you, sufrace pressure)
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.
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
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.
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
Personally, I didn't really like Encanto, and one of the things I dislike is the music. Don't get me wrong, Lin Manuel has done great things, but Encanto just wasn't one of them. I think he peaked with Hamilton and Moana. The songs in Encanto don't feel like they have a soul, they just feel like they were made to be catchy and nothing else. Not to mention, there is only song from the movie most people remember. Not only that, but they don't even feel like Lin wrote them, apart from them being very fast-paced paced. I feel like Disney is really stretching him thin, and I hope he can get back into his fun signature style soon.
The plot of Encanto is carried by EMOTION, so of course the only thing we’d learn about Louisa from Surface is the way she FEELS. Waiting on a Miracle comes off naturally since it comes at a point where Mirabel is emotionally isolated. And the songs do advance the plot (again, since they’re carried by EMOTION). We literally see during What Else Can I Do that Isabella breaks free of her perfectionism, her and Mirabel hug, and Abuela gets mad after. Just because they’re bangers doesn’t mean they can’t work musically. The Hunchback of Notre Dome had that random ass love song, while all of Encanto’s songs fleshed out the characters or told us important things. And Hercules and Moana had some songs that didn’t need to be there (like Your Welcome, I Won’t Say I’m in Love) but it didn’t matter because they’re good songs, unlike the ones in Wish. As for visuals, I love that Encanto does crazy things during the music. During Surface Pressure, it helps stress that Louisa is worried about the safety of her village. It’s hypocritical to criticize that, considering 2D animated Disney movies also did crazy things with their songs.
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
The plot of Encanto is carried by EMOTION, so of course the only thing we’d learn about Louisa from Surface is the way she FEELS. Waiting on a Miracle comes off naturally since it comes at a point where Mirabel is emotionally isolated. And the songs do advance the plot (again, since they’re carried by EMOTION). We literally see during What Else Can I Do that Isabella breaks free of her perfectionism, her and Mirabel hug, and Abuela gets mad after. Just because they’re bangers doesn’t mean they can’t work musically. The Hunchback of Notre Dome had that random ass love song, while all of Encanto’s songs fleshed out the characters or told us important things. And Hercules and Moana had some songs that didn’t need to be there (like Your Welcome, I Won’t Say I’m in Love) but it didn’t matter because they’re good songs, unlike the ones in Wish. As for visuals, I love that Encanto does crazy things during the music. During Surface Pressure, it helps stress that Louisa is worried about the safety of her village. It’s hypocritical to criticize that, considering 2D animated Disney movies also did crazy things with their songs
@@DORAisD34D Did... Did I ever say anything to the contrary about Encamto? I think you meant to make a general comment to the video bit replied to me. Also, I vehementlybdisagree about I won't say I'm in love. That song was necessary exposition about how Megara felt about love after being betrayed. And the push and pull of the song shows how she was trying abs failing to resist.
The plot of Encanto is carried by EMOTION, so of course the only thing we’d learn about Louisa from Surface is the way she FEELS. Waiting on a Miracle comes off naturally since it comes at a point where Mirabel is emotionally isolated. And the songs do advance the plot (again, since they’re carried by EMOTION). We literally see during What Else Can I Do that Isabella breaks free of her perfectionism, her and Mirabel hug, and Abuela gets mad after. Just because they’re bangers doesn’t mean they can’t work musically. The Hunchback of Notre Dome had that random ass love song, while all of Encanto’s songs fleshed out the characters or told us important things. And Hercules and Moana had some songs that didn’t need to be there (like Your Welcome, Shiny, Zero to Hero) but it didn’t matter because they’re good songs, unlike the ones in Wish. As for visuals, I love that Encanto does crazy things during the music. During Surface Pressure, it helps stress that Louisa is worried about the safety of her village. It’s hypocritical to criticize that, considering 2D animated Disney movies also did crazy things with their songs .
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
All of the songs have his mannerisms. The song is getting defended because it's doing everything op stated should be doing, but it gets disregarded surely because of how contemporary it sounds
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
It's refreshing to see someone who feels the same sorta way about encanto that I did. I felt like it was very hollow and surface level when I first watched it but didn't end up diving deeper into that because everyone else loved it 😅
The plot of Encanto is carried by EMOTION, so of course the only thing we’d learn about Louisa from Surface is the way she FEELS. Waiting on a Miracle comes off naturally since it comes at a point where Mirabel is emotionally isolated. And the songs do advance the plot (again, since they’re carried by EMOTION). We literally see during What Else Can I Do that Isabella breaks free of her perfectionism, her and Mirabel hug, and Abuela gets mad after. Just because they’re bangers doesn’t mean they can’t work musically. The Hunchback of Notre Dome had that random ass love song, while all of Encanto’s songs fleshed out the characters or told us important things. And Hercules and Moana had some songs that didn’t need to be there (like Your Welcome, I Won’t Say I’m in Love) but it didn’t matter because they’re good songs, unlike the ones in Wish. As for visuals, I love that Encanto does crazy things during the music. During Surface Pressure, it helps stress that Louisa is worried about the safety of her village. It’s hypocritical to criticize that, considering 2D animated Disney movies also did crazy things with their songs.
I'd like to hear your critique of the lyricism of Moana that you hint at doing here. Even as I like Moana and it's music for the most part I would almost trade Lin Manuel Miranda not ever becoming a part of the film because I see the kind of songwriting it's lead to in Mermaid, Encanto and worst of all Wish
The problem is that the "writing" you're talking about is just your average Broadway playwright mannerisms. People have been combining contemporary music and lingo with classical Broadway since Gilbert and Sullivan. Completing contemporary with pop is a mistake that a lot of people have been making because they're not the same thing. One could even argue that most of Disney's films are contemporary to whatever time they've released in (modern versions of fairy tales). Wish's issue isn't that it's music is contemporary but that it doesn't even make sense in the logic of the film. The king gets a plucky, quirky villain song that is played as the main character sneaks around, he and Asha unironically sing a love duet, etc.
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.
The plot of Encanto is carried by EMOTION, so of course the only thing we’d learn about Louisa from Surface is the way she FEELS. Waiting on a Miracle comes off naturally since it comes at a point where Mirabel is emotionally isolated. And the songs do advance the plot (again, since they’re carried by EMOTION). We literally see during What Else Can I Do that Isabella breaks free of her perfectionism, her and Mirabel hug, and Abuela gets mad after. Just because they’re bangers doesn’t mean they can’t work musically. The Hunchback of Notre Dome had that random ass love song, while all of Encanto’s songs fleshed out the characters or told us important things. And Hercules and Moana had some songs that didn’t need to be there (like Your Welcome, Shiny, Zero to Hero) but it didn’t matter because they’re good songs, unlike the ones in Wish.
As for visuals, I love that Encanto does crazy things during the music. During Surface Pressure, it helps stress that Louisa is worried about the safety of her village. It’s hypocritical to criticize that, considering 2D animated Disney movies also did crazy things with their songs .
You mean "cannot be overstated." Anyway, agreed on all points.
@@DORAisD34D You completely missed the point of the video.
@@moonsigil It is a silly bot; on other videos, it spams the same message on each comment, too.
@@DORAisD34DWHAT? So you defend Encanto songs but say "You're Welcome" is unnecessary? Duuuude, it narrates the whole background of Maui, his powers, his personality, his flaws which will mark the rest of the movie, it presents the future villain Tamatoa, all of this while also doing tons of world-building absolutely naturally, as it is narrated by a narcissistic character
I know you're just copying this comment everywhere cause you're salty but c'mon, pay more attention
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.
But oh will it be ripe for content
They don’t resemble a musical. They resemble a bowel movement.
@@Attmay 😂
The plot of Encanto is carried by EMOTION, so of course the only thing we’d learn about Louisa from Surface is the way she FEELS. Waiting on a Miracle comes off naturally since it comes at a point where Mirabel is emotionally isolated. And the songs do advance the plot (again, since they’re carried by EMOTION). We literally see during What Else Can I Do that Isabella breaks free of her perfectionism, her and Mirabel hug, and Abuela gets mad after. Just because they’re bangers doesn’t mean they can’t work musically. The Hunchback of Notre Dome had that random ass love song, while all of Encanto’s songs fleshed out the characters or told us important things. And Hercules and Moana had some songs that didn’t need to be there (like Your Welcome, Shiny, Zero to Hero) but it didn’t matter because they’re good songs, unlike the ones in Wish.
As for visuals, I love that Encanto does crazy things during the music. During Surface Pressure, it helps stress that Louisa is worried about the safety of her village. It’s hypocritical to criticize that, considering 2D animated Disney movies also did crazy things with their songs
You were right. It wasn't. That's definitely the most soulless choice for a movie.
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.
Trust me, I'm very familiar with that series. I'm a big fan.
Oh, nice :)
*The Simpsons* and *Family Guy* really raised the bar for musical theater on TV. Back in the 80s, we made do with whenever Nell Carter and Joel Higgins got musical numbers on their respective sitcoms. Nobody in Hollywood had any idea what to do with either of them except Brandon Tartikoff and Fred Silverman (and in Nell’s case, Milos Forman).
The plot of Encanto is carried by EMOTION, so of course the only thing we’d learn about Louisa from Surface is the way she FEELS. Waiting on a Miracle comes off naturally since it comes at a point where Mirabel is emotionally isolated. And the songs do advance the plot (again, since they’re carried by EMOTION). We literally see during What Else Can I Do that Isabella breaks free of her perfectionism, her and Mirabel hug, and Abuela gets mad after. Just because they’re bangers doesn’t mean they can’t work musically. The Hunchback of Notre Dome had that random ass love song, while all of Encanto’s songs fleshed out the characters or told us important things. And Hercules and Moana had some songs that didn’t need to be there (like Your Welcome, Shiny, Zero to Hero) but it didn’t matter because they’re good songs, unlike the ones in Wish.
As for visuals, I love that Encanto does crazy things during the music. During Surface Pressure, it helps stress that Louisa is worried about the safety of her village. It’s hypocritical to criticize that, considering 2D animated Disney movies also did crazy things with their songs
yesss, i love tangled the series' soundtrack so much! its absolutely amazing, ready as i'll ever be is what got me into the series
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.
He's only been a part of three.
The only reason people think he's done more than he has is because his things tend to blow up, but the Man can write.
Hamilton and ITH are proof of that, and that can extend to Encanto.
I hated Frozen 2 and all of the songs. “Lost in the Woods” was good, but it didn’t feel _Disney._
Lost in the Woods was so dumb and I love it
@@dootsoulssame 😂
That’s, like, one of my complaints with Encanto. The songs come out so suddenly you didn’t expect them the first time watching it, and the visuals don’t flow so good. I mean, of course they flow nicely in editing, but this is a movie and not a short video.
Idk, I have a hard time putting my thoughts to words but I hope you get what I mean.
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
This, and also, Lin Manuel Miranda is a writer, too, so there's no way he didn't have a headache figuring out a song for Scuttle at the worst possible time for a song.
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.
encanto is also full of authentic colombian music it’s not pop. If pop music is what we’re critiquing wish is right there
Yeah, just because it isn't traditional doesn't mean it isn't Broadway or good. Times change, and with it so does the Disney formula; and if it hadn't, we probably wouldn't have ever gotten bangers like Shiny or Surface Pressure. They might not be what they used to be, but they serve their purpose.
While Surface Pressure, What Else Can I Do, and We Don't Talk About Bruno might not be 100% broadway, they all serve their purpose of telling how their respective character was affected by their gifts.
Another thing I disagree with with most people is how songs like Surface Pressure and What Else Can I Do are shallow since they don't explore the characters as much and instead focus on relatability, but I think that's intentional. Unlike Hamilton, these songs cover more relatable topics. I mean, I don't know how many of us relate to having your friendship torn apart by being on opposing sides of the Found Fathers, but having to deal with too much pressure or wanting to be free to do what you want despite expectations are very relatable, and what's more authentic than your own feelings?
The plot of Encanto is carried by EMOTION, so of course the only thing we’d learn about Louisa from Surface is the way she FEELS. Waiting on a Miracle comes off naturally since it comes at a point where Mirabel is emotionally isolated. And the songs do advance the plot (again, since they’re carried by EMOTION). We literally see during What Else Can I Do that Isabella breaks free of her perfectionism, her and Mirabel hug, and Abuela gets mad after. Just because they’re bangers doesn’t mean they can’t work musically. The Hunchback of Notre Dome had that random ass love song, while all of Encanto’s songs fleshed out the characters or told us important things. And Hercules and Moana had some songs that didn’t need to be there (like Your Welcome, Shiny, Zero to Hero) but it didn’t matter because they’re good songs, unlike the ones in Wish.
As for visuals, I love that Encanto does crazy things during the music. During Surface Pressure, it helps stress that Louisa is worried about the safety of her village. It’s hypocritical to criticize that, considering 2D animated Disney movies also did crazy things with their songs .
@@DORAisD34D Stop spamming this on every comment.
They should've had more Colombian influences as far as music goes as well as more focus on the characters' personal lyrical, rhythmical and melodical quirks, styles and preferences (which was present in We don't talk about Bruno). Not some random music video, pop songs with flat lyrics, bad rap (performed by people who mumble rather than rap) and tiktok dances. Not to mention how out of place all the songs were, not further moving the story or even explaining the feelings well with any nuance or subtlety. Everything was flat and reiterated to its audience like to a toddler.
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
The plot of Encanto is carried by EMOTION, so of course the only thing we’d learn about Louisa from Surface is the way she FEELS. Waiting on a Miracle comes off naturally since it comes at a point where Mirabel is emotionally isolated. And the songs do advance the plot (again, since they’re carried by EMOTION). We literally see during What Else Can I Do that Isabella breaks free of her perfectionism, her and Mirabel hug, and Abuela gets mad after. Just because they’re bangers doesn’t mean they can’t work musically. The Hunchback of Notre Dome had that random ass love song, while all of Encanto’s songs fleshed out the characters or told us important things. And Hercules and Moana had some songs that didn’t need to be there (like Your Welcome, Shiny, Zero to Hero) but it didn’t matter because they’re good songs, unlike the ones in Wish.
As for visuals, I love that Encanto does crazy things during the music. During Surface Pressure, it helps stress that Louisa is worried about the safety of her village. It’s hypocritical to criticize that, considering 2D animated Disney movies also did crazy things with their songs
@@DORAisD34D Stop spamming this on every comment.
For me, it feels like Waiting on a Miracle is the modern and more pop version of Reflection from Mulan.
@@moonsigil am I spamming the comment to the same person? No. So ir doesn’t matter
@@indefiniteartblock434 neither of those songs are pop. Waiting on a miracle is a bambuco song equivalent to a waltz
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.
I was wondering about that, but didn't have the background. Thank you for the information!
When i watched Oliver & co. i literally thought the songs were just pop covers. Now it all makes sense.
Disney never shied away from popular music trends before. They embraced rock music in its early years with some of Annette Funicello’s early records. *Robin Hood* was country when country was starting to become cool, or at least mainstream. And if *Mickey Mouse Disco* wasn’t enough to make you flip your lid, I got two words for you: *Mickey Unrapped.*
*Oliver and Company* follows the same Walt-era trend of hiring multiple songwriters to compose songs for the same movie. This was also the case for *Song of the South* and *So Dear to My Heart,* while even the Sherman brothers had to share *The Jungle Book* and *The Aristocats* with other songwriters.
The plot of Encanto is carried by EMOTION, so of course the only thing we’d learn about Louisa from Surface is the way she FEELS. Waiting on a Miracle comes off naturally since it comes at a point where Mirabel is emotionally isolated. And the songs do advance the plot (again, since they’re carried by EMOTION). We literally see during What Else Can I Do that Isabella breaks free of her perfectionism, her and Mirabel hug, and Abuela gets mad after. Just because they’re bangers doesn’t mean they can’t work musically. The Hunchback of Notre Dome had that random ass love song, while all of Encanto’s songs fleshed out the characters or told us important things. And Hercules and Moana had some songs that didn’t need to be there (like Your Welcome, Shiny, Zero to Hero) but it didn’t matter because they’re good songs, unlike the ones in Wish.
As for visuals, I love that Encanto does crazy things during the music. During Surface Pressure, it helps stress that Louisa is worried about the safety of her village. It’s hypocritical to criticize that, considering 2D animated Disney movies also did crazy things with their songs
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.
Julia Michaels should be in jail for real
@@cbismarck07she’s just doing her job, it’s not her who your frustration should be directed at
They act like Disney started with *The Little Mermaid.*
The plot of Encanto is carried by EMOTION, so of course the only thing we’d learn about Louisa from Surface is the way she FEELS. Waiting on a Miracle comes off naturally since it comes at a point where Mirabel is emotionally isolated. And the songs do advance the plot (again, since they’re carried by EMOTION). We literally see during What Else Can I Do that Isabella breaks free of her perfectionism, her and Mirabel hug, and Abuela gets mad after. Just because they’re bangers doesn’t mean they can’t work musically. The Hunchback of Notre Dome had that random ass love song, while all of Encanto’s songs fleshed out the characters or told us important things. And Hercules and Moana had some songs that didn’t need to be there (like Your Welcome, Shiny, Zero to Hero) but it didn’t matter because they’re good songs, unlike the ones in Wish.
As for visuals, I love that Encanto does crazy things during the music. During Surface Pressure, it helps stress that Louisa is worried about the safety of her village. It’s hypocritical to criticize that, considering 2D animated Disney movies also did crazy things with their songs .
@@DORAisD34DFUCK OUTTA HERE WITH THAT SPAMMING SHIT ALREADY IT'S ANNOYING.
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.
The plot of Encanto is carried by EMOTION, so of course the only thing we’d learn about Louisa from Surface is the way she FEELS. Waiting on a Miracle comes off naturally since it comes at a point where Mirabel is emotionally isolated. And the songs do advance the plot (again, since they’re carried by EMOTION). We literally see during What Else Can I Do that Isabella breaks free of her perfectionism, her and Mirabel hug, and Abuela gets mad after. Just because they’re bangers doesn’t mean they can’t work musically. The Hunchback of Notre Dome had that random ass love song, while all of Encanto’s songs fleshed out the characters or told us important things. And Hercules and Moana had some songs that didn’t need to be there (like Your Welcome, I Won’t Say I’m in Love) but it didn’t matter because they’re good songs, unlike the ones in Wish.
As for visuals, I love that Encanto does crazy things during the music. During Surface Pressure, it helps stress that Louisa is worried about the safety of her village. It’s hypocritical to criticize that, considering 2D animated Disney movies also did crazy things with their songs.
@@DORAisD34D Stop spamming this shit mf istfg. 😤
@@DORAisD34Ddude, stop responding to every comment with this! Obvious like seeking
@@nixthelapin9869 no lmao. I commenting on every comment because Encanto is a good example of how the songs should be important to the story
the comment wasn't even talking about encanto, chill out@@DORAisD34D
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.
The plot of Encanto is carried by EMOTION, so of course the only thing we’d learn about Louisa from Surface is the way she FEELS. Waiting on a Miracle comes off naturally since it comes at a point where Mirabel is emotionally isolated. And the songs do advance the plot (again, since they’re carried by EMOTION). We literally see during What Else Can I Do that Isabella breaks free of her perfectionism, her and Mirabel hug, and Abuela gets mad after. Just because they’re bangers doesn’t mean they can’t work musically. The Hunchback of Notre Dome had that random ass love song, while all of Encanto’s songs fleshed out the characters or told us important things. And Hercules and Moana had some songs that didn’t need to be there (like Your Welcome, Shiny, I Won’t Say I’m in Love) but it didn’t matter because they’re good songs, unlike the ones in Wish.
As for visuals, I love that Encanto does crazy things during the music. During Surface Pressure, it helps stress that Louisa is worried about the safety of her village. It’s hypocritical to criticize that, considering 2D animated Disney movies also did crazy things with their songs .
*Luisa
@@DORAisD34DToo much spamming
Yeah I came down here to comment something similar - ie that they explore an emotion. They're both very emotional songs. I honestly love the whole Encanto soundtrack it's up there with both of the Frozen soundtracks for me. But I find the themes in all three movies intensely relatable to me personally so I'd get if people felt differently.
They do explore that emotion, but you get that after a couple lines. The first chorus tells it all and then it just repeats the same information. Don't get me wrong, I love that song, but I can see the concern that's raised in the video too.
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.
I agree!!! I was just about to comment this! I agree that Waiting on A Miracle still holds pop elements but it would be a fairer comparison to other Disney "I want" songs + it being centered on the protagonist. Additionally, I think it is important to consider that the other songs in Encanto (and Encanto as a whole) were meant to incorporate other styles that are familiar to - I'd argue - a Latinx audience: old reggaeton, Spanish rock, etc. I won't say they're the BEST, but having those sounds in a Disney film is actually quite nice. So I think it did the best it could in trying to incorporate different things at once and having it WORK to an extent because you have other people who are trying to recreate what LMM did and it just DOESN'T WORK.
@@girlwhtdafck Yes! actually I'm from Colombia and What else can I do was thought as a reference to shakira's rock and waiting on a miracle combines a more traditional music style. And it was a very difficult task in terms of music because Colombia has styles influenced by it's african, spanish and indigenous heritage. In terms of the music it also doesn't follow the traditional broadway style because of it's big cast, so I think it could resemble more Cats the musical that has many numbers for small characters (I am songs). Which makes these secondary songs "superficial" in a way
@@girlwhtdafckwaiting on a miracle is bambuco which is more equivalent to waltz music!
You said exactly what I was thinking whie listeing to the video. The comparison between these two song doesnt make much sense.
This should be a pinned comment.
The video is trying to speak from a very biased perspective, what is failing to acknowledge why or how each era of Disney sounds the way that it does.
Alan, Howard, and Swartz are people who got their start in the 1970s and 80s which was when things like A Chorus Line and Sweedy Tood were becoming big Broadway staples.
However, near the tail end of the 90s, Broadway musicals took a drastic shift and started to sound a lot more contemporary to appeal to a wider audience.
This is especially true because younger people and creators were getting into the medium and wanted to use the sounds that they heard growing up
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.
The plot of Encanto is carried by EMOTION, so of course the only thing we’d learn about Louisa from Surface is the way she FEELS. Waiting on a Miracle comes off naturally since it comes at a point where Mirabel is emotionally isolated. And the songs do advance the plot (again, since they’re carried by EMOTION). We literally see during What Else Can I Do that Isabella breaks free of her perfectionism, her and Mirabel hug, and Abuela gets mad after. Just because they’re bangers doesn’t mean they can’t work musically. The Hunchback of Notre Dome had that random ass love song, while all of Encanto’s songs fleshed out the characters or told us important things. And Hercules and Moana had some songs that didn’t need to be there (like Your Welcome, Shiny, Zero to Hero) but it didn’t matter because they’re good songs, unlike the ones in Wish.
As for visuals, I love that Encanto does crazy things during the music. During Surface Pressure, it helps stress that Louisa is worried about the safety of her village. It’s hypocritical to criticize that, considering 2D animated Disney movies also did crazy things with their songs .
@@DORAisD34D Stop spamming this on every comment.
Not to be a dick, but these are all just… what the song is about. Like, this is precisely what you were meant to take away. It’s genuinely great that you understood the song (I feel like people are struggling to understand symbolism recently), but this doesn’t really add anything new to the conversation.
@@zigzagintrusion what is Just cant wait to be king about.. other than him wanting to be king, what is a dream is a wish about.. what is under the sea about besides how good ocean life is. disney is built on one sided songs than expand upon a core part of a character or the movie. Surface pressure and What else can I do are no different, it makes you see how integral this specific thing is to the movie or character, songs that tell an entire story are more rare in disney movies Encanto had two, we dont talk about bruno aswell as oruguita, which doesnt get as much story telling credit bc its in spanish. fleshing out singular important aspects in a few songs aswell as a deep song or 2 is VERY on par for disney. It just seems like the difference is back then people werent trying so hard to deconstruct the movies to find whats wrong or different with it
@@zigzagintrusion it adds smth new to the conversation when astor is saying that encanto songs don’t have “information” in them like renaissance disney movies did. listing the ways in which surface pressure does contain character and plot development is a counterpoint to what astor’s saying
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.
Exactly this.
The Songs from Cinderella sounded like something you could hear Dean Martin because they have the 1950s condense.
The jungle book also featured Dixieland swing which was also pretty popular in the 60s , and is used to highlight how Baloo and Louie are not only cool but outsiders to the jungle and its ways.
Lin Miranda is known as the guy who bought more contemporary sounds to Broadway, so of course A lot of the things he creates are going to be indicative of the cultures he grew up around and different than what Broadway of the old sounded like.
I was born in the mid nineties and love the songs from Sleeping Beauty.
Traditional jazz had a revival in England in the late 1950s right before The Beatles made it big. Before that, they got American music, but we didn’t get theirs. Petula Clark was already famous in the UK as a child star since the war, but she was unknown in the US when her song “Downtown” reached #1 though she had been recording in multiple languages for many years by that point and, unlike many of her younger contemporaries, was already married with children.
@@Attmay that's interesting 🤔.
That said, the way the bear and King Louie talk is pretty contemporary for what is essentially Colonial India.
There's a lot of jive coming from the two and while it is enjoyable it is completely contemporary to that era
The plot of Encanto is carried by EMOTION, so of course the only thing we’d learn about Louisa from Surface is the way she FEELS. Waiting on a Miracle comes off naturally since it comes at a point where Mirabel is emotionally isolated. And the songs do advance the plot (again, since they’re carried by EMOTION). We literally see during What Else Can I Do that Isabella breaks free of her perfectionism, her and Mirabel hug, and Abuela gets mad after. Just because they’re bangers doesn’t mean they can’t work musically. The Hunchback of Notre Dome had that random ass love song, while all of Encanto’s songs fleshed out the characters or told us important things. And Hercules and Moana had some songs that didn’t need to be there (like Your Welcome, Shiny, Zero to Hero) but it didn’t matter because they’re good songs, unlike the ones in Wish.
As for visuals, I love that Encanto does crazy things during the music. During Surface Pressure, it helps stress that Louisa is worried about the safety of her village. It’s hypocritical to criticize that, considering 2D animated Disney movies also did crazy things with their songs
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 the point is that the progression you describe doesn’t happen musically- if you heard the song without context it’s HIGHLY unlikely you’d be able to tell that progression was happening, because it’s not incorporated into the song itself
@@gaphic Yes I'd agree with this - I do remember being disappointed the lyrics went back to a chorus about plants instead of expanding on the emotions haha. The visuals somewhat make up for it though, which is just as important for a Disney song.
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 » )
this is a myth, the original story was similar to this, but it was always in the plan for Elsa to be a misunderstood hero
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.
The entire music industry pretty much stopped trying as soon as Howard Ashman died and Kurt Cobain blew his brains out. What did we get after that? One tacky whiny boy band after another, and one underdressed underrehearsed Caucasian female pop “singer” after another. Yes, we paid the price, and look how much we lost. The first half of the 90s (the *Home Alone* era) was fun. The second half was an affront to God except for the *Brady Bunch* movies, the restoration of *Bedknobs and Broomsticks,* and the revelation of Ricky Schroder’s posterior.
Things would’ve been different if they had never been a CIA. *Song of the South* came out a year before the formation of that organization, and they were all over Disney after that.
The plot of Encanto is carried by EMOTION, so of course the only thing we’d learn about Louisa from Surface is the way she FEELS. Waiting on a Miracle comes off naturally since it comes at a point where Mirabel is emotionally isolated. And the songs do advance the plot (again, since they’re carried by EMOTION). We literally see during What Else Can I Do that Isabella breaks free of her perfectionism, her and Mirabel hug, and Abuela gets mad after. Just because they’re bangers doesn’t mean they can’t work musically. The Hunchback of Notre Dome had that random ass love song, while all of Encanto’s songs fleshed out the characters or told us important things. And Hercules and Moana had some songs that didn’t need to be there (like Your Welcome, Shiny, Zero to Hero) but it didn’t matter because they’re good songs, unlike the ones in Wish.
As for visuals, I love that Encanto does crazy things during the music. During Surface Pressure, it helps stress that Louisa is worried about the safety of her village. It’s hypocritical to criticize that, considering 2D animated Disney movies also did crazy things with their songs .
@@DORAisD34D Stop spamming this on every comment.
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.
What Else Can I Do is literally the best song in the movie. When I first saw the thumbnail I thought it would be about Isabela embracing being a stuck-up primadonna and bragging that she couldn't help it. In other words, I expected a mean girl song, but I was pleasantly surprised to discover otherwise. And now, it's my favorite song.
I think OP is letting their discontentment with LMM get in the way lol
Yes! Dos Oruguitas is such a beautiful and emotionaal song, might be the best song in the movie! It's so beautifully written. But all three you mentioned are my top 3!
@@domdomdiddy3036Dos Oruguitas completely ignored in an encanto analysis video is wild...
@@Joell351Encanto was my favorite recent Disney movie, and I feel like all the video essayists have been completely missing the movie by not approaching it with an open mind. The fact she says Encanto’s songs don’t explore the characters is mind boggling, it’s like we didn’t even watch the same movie. The songs are how we learn what’s actually happening in the lives of the characters! And Dos Oruguitas was my absolute favorite song of the movie, sad it wasn’t even mentioned.
“Wish has me worried.” Apollo and the gift of prophecy 🏀☄️
If I had the gift of prophecy I wouldn't have wanted Disney to get rid of Lin-Manuel 😭
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?
Right?
me too!!! i’ve been thinking i was the only one who felt surface pressure didn’t feel like it fit in the movie much and spoke a bit negatively about it bc everyone i talked to about it was like "wtfdym it’s a banger" or something
For me the intro felt weird and out of place but once that’s over I really enjoy it I get why it needed to start there to build but it still feels abit weird and cringey
Yea i thought surface pressure was kinda weird. Good song, but a little cringe.
i hate surface pressure
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.
Very good take
The plot of Encanto is carried by EMOTION, so of course the only thing we’d learn about Louisa from Surface is the way she FEELS. Waiting on a Miracle comes off naturally since it comes at a point where Mirabel is emotionally isolated. And the songs do advance the plot (again, since they’re carried by EMOTION). We literally see during What Else Can I Do that Isabella breaks free of her perfectionism, her and Mirabel hug, and Abuela gets mad after. Just because they’re bangers doesn’t mean they can’t work musically. The Hunchback of Notre Dome had that random ass love song, while all of Encanto’s songs fleshed out the characters or told us important things. And Hercules and Moana had some songs that didn’t need to be there (like Your Welcome, I Won’t Say I’m in Love) but it didn’t matter because they’re good songs, unlike the ones in Wish.
As for visuals, I love that Encanto does crazy things during the music. During Surface Pressure, it helps stress that Louisa is worried about the safety of her village. It’s hypocritical to criticize that, considering 2D animated Disney movies also did crazy things with their songs
Exactly, take a look at Sweet Charity, almost every fuckin song in that musical was an extremely popular radio song in the 70s
@@Millie-Million even 10 years after the movie came out, “It My Friends Could See Me Now” got a new life as a disco song.
In regards to your first paragraph, Anything Goes definitely comes to mind. Still fairly well known outside of its musical to this day as far as I've seen.
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.
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 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. :)
I guess you can say he “writes like he’s running out of time”
"21 chump street" lol. Not knocking you this just made me chuckle
The plot of Encanto is carried by EMOTION, so of course the only thing we’d learn about Louisa from Surface is the way she FEELS. Waiting on a Miracle comes off naturally since it comes at a point where Mirabel is emotionally isolated. And the songs do advance the plot (again, since they’re carried by EMOTION). We literally see during What Else Can I Do that Isabella breaks free of her perfectionism, her and Mirabel hug, and Abuela gets mad after. Just because they’re bangers doesn’t mean they can’t work musically. The Hunchback of Notre Dome had that random ass love song, while all of Encanto’s songs fleshed out the characters or told us important things. And Hercules and Moana had some songs that didn’t need to be there (like Your Welcome, Shiny, Zero to Hero) but it didn’t matter because they’re good songs, unlike the ones in Wish.
As for visuals, I love that Encanto does crazy things during the music. During Surface Pressure, it helps stress that Louisa is worried about the safety of her village. It’s hypocritical to criticize that, considering 2D animated Disney movies also did crazy things with their songs
@@DORAisD34D ENOUGH
@@mamaya311That’s the name of an actual musical he wrote lol 😭
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.
The plot of Encanto is carried by EMOTION, so of course the only thing we’d learn about Louisa from Surface is the way she FEELS. Waiting on a Miracle comes off naturally since it comes at a point where Mirabel is emotionally isolated. And the songs do advance the plot (again, since they’re carried by EMOTION). We literally see during What Else Can I Do that Isabella breaks free of her perfectionism, her and Mirabel hug, and Abuela gets mad after. Just because they’re bangers doesn’t mean they can’t work musically. The Hunchback of Notre Dome had that random ass love song, while all of Encanto’s songs fleshed out the characters or told us important things. And Hercules and Moana had some songs that didn’t need to be there (like Your Welcome, Shiny, Zero to Hero) but it didn’t matter because they’re good songs, unlike the ones in Wish.
As for visuals, I love that Encanto does crazy things during the music. During Surface Pressure, it helps stress that Louisa is worried about the safety of her village. It’s hypocritical to criticize that, considering 2D animated Disney movies also did crazy things with their songs .
@@DORAisD34D I agree with you, but how is that related to We Don't Talk About Bruno overshadowing The Family Madrigal? I wasn't criticizing the pop songs
@@kwk111 They're spamming this on EVERY SINGLE COMMENT in this comment section. Ignore them.
@@kwk111don’t talk to them they reposted that reply on every comment
@@kwk111They're a spammer.
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
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.
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.
The plot of Encanto is carried by EMOTION, so of course the only thing we’d learn about Louisa from Surface is the way she FEELS. Waiting on a Miracle comes off naturally since it comes at a point where Mirabel is emotionally isolated. And the songs do advance the plot (again, since they’re carried by EMOTION). We literally see during What Else Can I Do that Isabella breaks free of her perfectionism, her and Mirabel hug, and Abuela gets mad after. Just because they’re bangers doesn’t mean they can’t work musically. The Hunchback of Notre Dome had that random ass love song, while all of Encanto’s songs fleshed out the characters or told us important things. And Hercules and Moana had some songs that didn’t need to be there (like Your Welcome, Shiny, Zero to Hero) but it didn’t matter because they’re good songs, unlike the ones in Wish.
As for visuals, I love that Encanto does crazy things during the music. During Surface Pressure, it helps stress that Louisa is worried about the safety of her village. It’s hypocritical to criticize that, considering 2D animated Disney movies also did crazy things with their songs .
@@DORAisD34DWhy are you spamming this on almost every comment? The person you're commenting under literally compliments something about Encanto.
@@Yume_yuko-bume Didn’t realize they were spamming that, I thought they misclicked and posted it as a reply instead of as a normal comment
@@ryanator7935 I've seen them on an another video or this channel, so I thought they're probably a spammer. Have a nice day.
@@Yume_yuko-bumejust report their comments.
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.
The plot of Encanto is carried by EMOTION, so of course the only thing we’d learn about Louisa from Surface is the way she FEELS. Waiting on a Miracle comes off naturally since it comes at a point where Mirabel is emotionally isolated. And the songs do advance the plot (again, since they’re carried by EMOTION). We literally see during What Else Can I Do that Isabella breaks free of her perfectionism, her and Mirabel hug, and Abuela gets mad after. Just because they’re bangers doesn’t mean they can’t work musically. The Hunchback of Notre Dome had that random ass love song, while all of Encanto’s songs fleshed out the characters or told us important things. And Hercules and Moana had some songs that didn’t need to be there (like Your Welcome, Shiny, Zero to Hero) but it didn’t matter because they’re good songs, unlike the ones in Wish.
As for visuals, I love that Encanto does crazy things during the music. During Surface Pressure, it helps stress that Louisa is worried about the safety of her village. It’s hypocritical to criticize that, considering 2D animated Disney movies also did crazy things with their songs .
A single bar into "When will my life begin" and I knew it was all downhill from there.
Look where we are now.
The argument in Luisa's song is weird... I think it works very well and developes the character a lot.
Yeah, and saying "this song doesn't tell us anything about Luisa" when the entire song is about Luisa felling crushed by the expectations everybody has for her and how she wishes to be free of them and also that she is scared that if she is not strong enough something bad might happen. how can you read that and say that you don't know a thing about this character??!!?!?!
i think the main takeaway of the argument is that we don't know anything ELSE about her except for the fact that she's stressed and under a lot of pressure. i can't say anything else about her character after listening to her song.
The song is called "Surface Pressure"...@@brkli1485
@@brkli1485 she's a secondary character.
She's not meant to be as in depth as her a lead.
The point of her song is to basically push the plot forward by pinpointing the primary antagonistic force of the film (generational trauma,)
@@desdar100 you actually got a point there, but unlike isabela i feel as if luisa was pushed to the sidelines way more than necessary. it would be nice to have a tiny bit more insight on her character and this song would be perfect for that.
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.
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 was a kid in the 1980s. I could have told you *The Little Mermaid* was going to be a runaway hit. When *Bedknobs and Broomsticks* and *Pete’s Dragon,* which were set in or near the ocean, did better on video than in theaters, that showed Disney still had something but just needed someone to come along and organize and arrange things properly. In addition to those, *Snow White, Cinderella,* and *Sleeping Beauty* had all come back to theaters while two of them got home video releases. This made it make sense that a new movie set in the ocean and based on a fairy tale about a princess would be the breakthrough fully-animated hit the studio was hoping for. Meanwhile, the major box-office success of *Who Framed Roger Rabbit* helped shake off the (largely Western-imposed) stigma of watching animation for adults, and *The Great Mouse Detective* and *Oliver and Company* stabilized the finances of animation after *The Black Cauldron.*
The plot of Encanto is carried by EMOTION, so of course the only thing we’d learn about Louisa from Surface is the way she FEELS. Waiting on a Miracle comes off naturally since it comes at a point where Mirabel is emotionally isolated. And the songs do advance the plot (again, since they’re carried by EMOTION). We literally see during What Else Can I Do that Isabella breaks free of her perfectionism, her and Mirabel hug, and Abuela gets mad after. Just because they’re bangers doesn’t mean they can’t work musically. The Hunchback of Notre Dome had that random ass love song, while all of Encanto’s songs fleshed out the characters or told us important things. And Hercules and Moana had some songs that didn’t need to be there (like Your Welcome, I Won’t Say I’m in Love) but it didn’t matter because they’re good songs, unlike the ones in Wish.
As for visuals, I love that Encanto does crazy things during the music. During Surface Pressure, it helps stress that Louisa is worried about the safety of her village. It’s hypocritical to criticize that, considering 2D animated Disney movies also did crazy things with their songs
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'.
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.
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.
"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.
Yes!!! THIS!!!👆👆👆
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!
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!
The plot of Encanto is carried by EMOTION, so of course the only thing we’d learn about Louisa from Surface is the way she FEELS. Waiting on a Miracle comes off naturally since it comes at a point where Mirabel is emotionally isolated. And the songs do advance the plot (again, since they’re carried by EMOTION). We literally see during What Else Can I Do that Isabella breaks free of her perfectionism, her and Mirabel hug, and Abuela gets mad after. Just because they’re bangers doesn’t mean they can’t work musically. The Hunchback of Notre Dome had that random ass love song, while all of Encanto’s songs fleshed out the characters or told us important things. And Hercules and Moana had some songs that didn’t need to be there (like Your Welcome, Shiny, Zero to Hero) but it didn’t matter because they’re good songs, unlike the ones in Wish.
As for visuals, I love that Encanto does crazy things during the music. During Surface Pressure, it helps stress that Louisa is worried about the safety of her village. It’s hypocritical to criticize that, considering 2D animated Disney movies also did crazy things with their songs .
@@DORAisD34D first of all, it's Isabela, not Isabella (yes, that thing bothers me a lot because I'm an Isabella myself). Secondly, I do understand why many people liked Encanto and Arcane, for that matter. They were able to connect with the characters on a deep, emotional level, but I personally didn't. I think both of these animated stories have similar problems: they have no plot whatsoever and there are very random mood swings that are masked as "character development".
Encanto had soo much potential, but the result came out very superficial. They tried to go "psychological drama full-mode", but it failed (all of it is just me opinion, you might disagree). A highly disunctional and unhealthy family where all problems and years of trauma are solved thorught one hug. Now that's impressive.
Why would Luisa and Isabela confess their darkest secrets and fears to Mirabel if they never were that close? Why was Mirabel the only one to not receive a gift (this crucial point is never explained)? Why was the whole scandal with Bruno forgotten and resolved in an instant? And so on. Like, they could've digged a little deeper and make the gift a "curse" or smth like that, but they just threw in random songs and hugs and called it a day. That's why I think Encanto's a big disappointment and a failed attempt to do a no-villain-drama.
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
Is that not what encanto is? The story is the family in that too
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 RUclipsr 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 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.
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 remember commenting upon first hearing "what else can i do" this exact line: " The instrumentals sound like sims 3 create a sim menu "
I want Disney to make a rock opera
Something like a Disney version of Rock and Rule 😍
YESSSSS! I second this!!
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.
As a Colombian, I can tell you it doesn't absolutely resemble any of our music genres at all. At least Surface pressure and what else can I do are literally just pop songs.
@@sussybaka119 mi pana yo tmb soy de colombia jajaj I know what I'm talking abt. la melodía de surface pressure 100% suena a reguetón viejito y what else can I do perfectamente podría ser canción de aterciopelados
@@sussybaka119 reggaetón and latin rock are very close to pop music, that’s kinda their point lol
@@lonniegabbie And theres nothing wrong with that, pop isn't inherently bad. criticizing latino inspired music for not sounding like a european genre is weird.
@@toxictost yeah exactly, im defending it
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.
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
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.
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.
*The Wizard of Oz* basically ceases to be a musical after “If I Were King of the Forest” as the two intended reprises of “Over the Rainbow” and “Ding! Dong! The Witch is Dead” ended up on the cutting room floor and only exist as audio. As a result, the third act becomes a very dark action movie (compared to the rest of the movie) with comic relief along the way and a happy ending that leaves lots of room for interpretation.
The plot of Encanto is carried by EMOTION, so of course the only thing we’d learn about Louisa from Surface is the way she FEELS. Waiting on a Miracle comes off naturally since it comes at a point where Mirabel is emotionally isolated. And the songs do advance the plot (again, since they’re carried by EMOTION). We literally see during What Else Can I Do that Isabella breaks free of her perfectionism, her and Mirabel hug, and Abuela gets mad after. Just because they’re bangers doesn’t mean they can’t work musically. The Hunchback of Notre Dome had that random ass love song, while all of Encanto’s songs fleshed out the characters or told us important things. And Hercules and Moana had some songs that didn’t need to be there (like Your Welcome, I Won’t Say I’m in Love) but it didn’t matter because they’re good songs, unlike the ones in Wish.
As for visuals, I love that Encanto does crazy things during the music. During Surface Pressure, it helps stress that Louisa is worried about the safety of her village. It’s hypocritical to criticize that, considering 2D animated Disney movies also did crazy things with their songs.
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)
Contemporary music back then was not an outright attack on the eardrums like now. It’s one thing to try and capture a zeitgeist that gave us “A Bushel and a Peck” and “Mairzy Doats.” The modern era can’t even give us those, they just normalized the most problematic word of the latter song!
@@Attmay that's largely because of the generation I grew up with that music, but to the older generation it most likely was.
The idea though is more so that it ties into the overarching point that Disney has always been very timely, but because we're far removed from that generation it doesn't come off that way.
The plot of Encanto is carried by EMOTION, so of course the only thing we’d learn about Louisa from Surface is the way she FEELS. Waiting on a Miracle comes off naturally since it comes at a point where Mirabel is emotionally isolated. And the songs do advance the plot (again, since they’re carried by EMOTION). We literally see during What Else Can I Do that Isabella breaks free of her perfectionism, her and Mirabel hug, and Abuela gets mad after. Just because they’re bangers doesn’t mean they can’t work musically. The Hunchback of Notre Dome had that random ass love song, while all of Encanto’s songs fleshed out the characters or told us important things. And Hercules and Moana had some songs that didn’t need to be there (like Your Welcome, I Won’t Say I’m in Love) but it didn’t matter because they’re good songs, unlike the ones in Wish.
As for visuals, I love that Encanto does crazy things during the music. During Surface Pressure, it helps stress that Louisa is worried about the safety of her village. It’s hypocritical to criticize that, considering 2D animated Disney movies also did crazy things with their songs.
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
The crazy thing is that every song in Encanto does just that.
Luisa and her Older Sister are not protags the way that Ariel and Mirabel are, so it's not going to go in-depth, since they're just driving home the central conflict ( Generational Trauma and how it's affecting the family)
The plot of Encanto is carried by EMOTION, so of course the only thing we’d learn about Louisa from Surface is the way she FEELS. Waiting on a Miracle comes off naturally since it comes at a point where Mirabel is emotionally isolated. And the songs do advance the plot (again, since they’re carried by EMOTION). We literally see during What Else Can I Do that Isabella breaks free of her perfectionism, her and Mirabel hug, and Abuela gets mad after. Just because they’re bangers doesn’t mean they can’t work musically. The Hunchback of Notre Dome had that random ass love song, while all of Encanto’s songs fleshed out the characters or told us important things. And Hercules and Moana had some songs that didn’t need to be there (like Your Welcome, I Won’t Say I’m in Love) but it didn’t matter because they’re good songs, unlike the ones in Wish.
As for visuals, I love that Encanto does crazy things during the music. During Surface Pressure, it helps stress that Louisa is worried about the safety of her village. It’s hypocritical to criticize that, considering 2D animated Disney movies also did crazy things with their songs
@@DORAisD34D you are correct but it feels like the creator of the video puts far too many expectations on a piece of the puzzle instead of looking at the bigger picture bc while the pieces may not be “perfect” they are good enough to fit together perfectly
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 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.
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).
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.
This actually makes a lot of sense, even though I really liked Encanto and it's music
Very informative! Good video
The plot of Encanto is carried by EMOTION, so of course the only thing we’d learn about Louisa from Surface is the way she FEELS. Waiting on a Miracle comes off naturally since it comes at a point where Mirabel is emotionally isolated. And the songs do advance the plot (again, since they’re carried by EMOTION). We literally see during What Else Can I Do that Isabella breaks free of her perfectionism, her and Mirabel hug, and Abuela gets mad after. Just because they’re bangers doesn’t mean they can’t work musically. The Hunchback of Notre Dome had that random ass love song, while all of Encanto’s songs fleshed out the characters or told us important things. And Hercules and Moana had some songs that didn’t need to be there (like Your Welcome, Shiny, Zero to Hero) but it didn’t matter because they’re good songs, unlike the ones in Wish.
As for visuals, I love that Encanto does crazy things during the music. During Surface Pressure, it helps stress that Louisa is worried about the safety of her village. It’s hypocritical to criticize that, considering 2D animated Disney movies also did crazy things with their songs
@@DORAisD34Dstop copy and pasting…
@@talkingweevil3172 no
@@DORAisD34D ok
@@talkingweevil3172 sorry for being so harsh but I’m not spamming the same person so I see no problem
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.
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.
Lesson: pop bad broadway good?
The problem with that reductive analysis is that Broadway has been dumbing itself down by trying to slavishly copy whatever is on the radio now. It’s even worse on the west end in London. This is how we end up with this LMM-style broshit.
The plot of Encanto is carried by EMOTION, so of course the only thing we’d learn about Louisa from Surface is the way she FEELS. Waiting on a Miracle comes off naturally since it comes at a point where Mirabel is emotionally isolated. And the songs do advance the plot (again, since they’re carried by EMOTION). We literally see during What Else Can I Do that Isabella breaks free of her perfectionism, her and Mirabel hug, and Abuela gets mad after. Just because they’re bangers doesn’t mean they can’t work musically. The Hunchback of Notre Dome had that random ass love song, while all of Encanto’s songs fleshed out the characters or told us important things. And Hercules and Moana had some songs that didn’t need to be there (like Your Welcome, I Won’t Say I’m in Love) but it didn’t matter because they’re good songs, unlike the ones in Wish.
As for visuals, I love that Encanto does crazy things during the music. During Surface Pressure, it helps stress that Louisa is worried about the safety of her village. It’s hypocritical to criticize that, considering 2D animated Disney movies also did crazy things with their songs
Wish really would have been a better movie to do this with, using Encanto was not the move.
It really seems like you aren’t able to separate latin musical styles from the pop style that was inspired by said musical styles, and claiming the music is shallow when most of the songs from Disney musicals isn’t much deeper is misguided at best.
the popbait back then also meant more of a montage, meaning time passes so they need a song to fill the space.
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.
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.
This is such a good point! Especially considering the lack of villains that everyone and their grandma pointed out many times.
Really played into our cravings
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.
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.
You literally do though.
The family madrigal sets the stage of the family and the image that the people of Encanto have of them.
Waiting on a miracle tells us about mirabelle's personal struggles.
Surface pressure is our first look into the true toxicity that sits deep down in most of the family members and we see that like mirabelle, they too are suffering from the roles that have been embedded into them.
Those three songs alone tell a pretty big story
I would love a video where you discuss Disney villain songs… :)
The plot of Encanto is carried by EMOTION, so of course the only thing we’d learn about Louisa from Surface is the way she FEELS. Waiting on a Miracle comes off naturally since it comes at a point where Mirabel is emotionally isolated. And the songs do advance the plot (again, since they’re carried by EMOTION). We literally see during What Else Can I Do that Isabella breaks free of her perfectionism, her and Mirabel hug, and Abuela gets mad after. Just because they’re bangers doesn’t mean they can’t work musically. The Hunchback of Notre Dome had that random ass love song, while all of Encanto’s songs fleshed out the characters or told us important things. And Hercules and Moana had some songs that didn’t need to be there (like Your Welcome, I Won’t Say I’m in Love) but it didn’t matter because they’re good songs, unlike the ones in Wish.
As for visuals, I love that Encanto does crazy things during the music. During Surface Pressure, it helps stress that Louisa is worried about the safety of her village. It’s hypocritical to criticize that, considering 2D animated Disney movies also did crazy things with their songs
Thank you for putting into words what I felt on an instinctual level
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.
REALLY good video! Let It Go is one of the best "Theater Pop" style songs ever written!
Disney! Do NOT let go of musical theater!
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 .
Now that you mention I don't think any character sang in the movie. I think the defining difference is that they were songs that explained how the characters felt and not musical numbers. Can you feel the love is another example
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.
Wow, you called this one.
we dont talk about bruno is the best disney song in a long long while
I don’t think she understands that Encanto is different because it is to express feelings and not to move the plot forward. It is to show how broken this family really is which is different than an event being expressed through song.
it’s like how that old bit of media wisdom goes, ‘trying to appeal to everyone will almost always appeal to no one’ - the ultra generic new-disney songs that can be severed entirely from their stories tend to always miss for, i think, that same reason. ‘we dont talk about bruno’ should’ve been seen as undeniable proof that modern audiences will still absolutely love highly specific narrative songs if they’re well made and engaging, but alas..
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 😂
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.
I disagree. Princess and the frog sound track was a masterpiece
@@concildremford1763 You can NOT say they're as clever as anything by Menken and Ashman.
@WillScarlet16 no but he is better than Lin manuel
@@concildremford1763 Newman's lyrics are just pleasant. Miranda's have actual wit, humor and creativity and he can tailor a song to suit the characters singing it. Nothing Newman has written has as much variety as the best of Miranda.
@@WillScarlet16 Miranda's style is clunky and unrefined
I think your points about surface pressure were self defeating - if a song is extremely relatable, it does wonders for getting the audience invested in a character and how their story will develop. I also find the song somewhat cringey and jarring stylistically, but I personally forgive it because it still enhances the story for me.
I love surface pressure but the visual of Louisa smiling and dancing while venting about her deepest issues drove me actually insane
But she wasn’t really? She only smiled when she was talking about her dreams, and the dances so to speak were all representing her insecurities
@@mujiescomedy279 I'm talking about the end
@@Red-jl1qr It's as if she almost breaks down mentally.
@@revolution1237 she's not at the point where she's smiling and dancing lmao, you can see how she's actually feeling when the song ends, she looks angry or stressed. When she breaks down she sobs and screams in the rest of the movie.
@@Red-jl1qr I feel like she's already at a transitional point here. All it takes is one bad moment or one bad day for her to completely break down, both mentally and emotionally. (Yes, I sort of paraphrased the Joker here)
girl what are you TALKING about??? i'll hand it to you that surface pressure is pretty one-note, but that's because luisa's entire character is really one-note and she doesn't do anything else in the entire movie other than be stressed (side note: if i could change one thing about encanto i'd have luisa be the one secretly in love with mariano rather than dolores). having her song be sort of static and isolated is actually kind of appropriate for what it's trying to convey-while everything else is going on around her, luisa is in this constant state of anxiety on the inside.
as for what else can i do, huh????? the song isn't just about isabela on her own, it's about her and mirabel connecting. at the beginning, mirabel's just awkwardly ad-libbing like you say, but after the first chorus, isabela starts actually including her ("can i deliver *us* a river of sundew...i'm so sick of pretty, i want something true, *don't you?*"), and then mirabel sings about how she's changing her perspective on isabela, and then they start singing together! and the penultimate line is isabela saying that "the way is clearer 'cause you're here and, well, i owe this all to you." like at the beginning of the song, isabela feels trapped in her family's expectations and mirabel is focused on her own issues and is only trying to talk to isabela because bruno's vision told her to, and by the end they're hugging because they want to! and as for what hides behind isabela's smile, she does tell us metaphorically with all these new plants she's making that aren't just pretty generic flowers.
it's also worth noting that mirabel's classic disney "i want" song is the least memorable number in the entire movie. i had to think for a few seconds to even remember what it was called (waiting on a miracle, for those who may have also forgotten). dos oruguitas was also not very impactful, at least for me, but it's at least nice how it echoes abuela's part in family madrigal, and i think the problem with that one is that they just did a montage à la when she loved me instead of having abuela actually sing a song like they should have, and at least when she loved me had lyrics in english.
anyways if there's one thing lin-manuel miranda knows how to do it's use music to tell a story. obviously he has a different style than ashman and menken, but that doesn't mean his songs don't serve the same purpose. how far i'll go might be a little one-note on its own, but in i am moana when her sort of uncertain melody coming out of her grandma's part from where you are gets more and more confident and then builds into how far i'll go? and then at the end when instead of "how far i'll go" she says "i know the way"??? i don't care what chords are in the backgrounds, that's storytelling.
also you're conflating musical style with story function. your main argument seems to be that modern disney songs are meant to be chart-toppers first and story pieces second, but the fact that they use the four-chord loop doesn't mean they can't tell a story. and anyways, you're cherry-picking examples. even if we agree that surface pressure and what else can i do don't communicate enough story, which i don't, encanto had several other songs that were all more classic broadway/disney (except dos oruguitas and colombia, mi encanto, which kinda don't count).
I love how after Wish released, many of the same people who trashed on Encanto began trashing even harder on Wish
This feels like taking the long way around to trash Lin's songwriting style
He is what you get when you act like everything before Stephen Sondheim started writing solo works is irrelevant.
The plot of Encanto is carried by EMOTION, so of course the only thing we’d learn about Louisa from Surface is the way she FEELS. Waiting on a Miracle comes off naturally since it comes at a point where Mirabel is emotionally isolated. And the songs do advance the plot (again, since they’re carried by EMOTION). We literally see during What Else Can I Do that Isabella breaks free of her perfectionism, her and Mirabel hug, and Abuela gets mad after. Just because they’re bangers doesn’t mean they can’t work musically. The Hunchback of Notre Dome had that random ass love song, while all of Encanto’s songs fleshed out the characters or told us important things. And Hercules and Moana had some songs that didn’t need to be there (like Your Welcome, I Won’t Say I’m in Love) but it didn’t matter because they’re good songs, unlike the ones in Wish.
As for visuals, I love that Encanto does crazy things during the music. During Surface Pressure, it helps stress that Louisa is worried about the safety of her village. It’s hypocritical to criticize that, considering 2D animated Disney movies also did crazy things with their songs
So?
Absolutely amazing how many comments are just ‘you’re wrong because I like these songs and they’re bangers’ lmao. Excellent analysis! You put into words something I could never quite put my finger on with Encanto
Nah, the people who are disagreeing are making valid points.
Lin-manuel Miranda is a Broadway guy first and foremost and many of the songs he writes (even if people don't like some of them) are deeply rooted in the story of his projects
One's taste is subjective, but you can't criticize something for doing exactly what you wanted to do while bemoaning that is something that is simply isn't
@@desdar100 not what I said! Good job
@@gaphic ofc, because what you were saying was incorrect similar to the video itself I guess
Essay...People are saying "You're wrong for MANY reasons that add up to a bias / Obsession with Little Mermaid. Should watch all Disney old musicals in terms of songs. Instead if nostalgia like many others! Then realize encanto one of Disney best but Once again... blinded by nostalgia that if came it in 90s / 2D will admit. In plot + songs! As not all old Disney songs were amazing! 10/10.
Ignored like a bunch of songs but 2. The 2 analysized wrong.
Surface Pressure isn't the I Want song. Waiting on Miracle is! You have to compare Part of Your World to WOAM. Which never mentioned for some reason! When WOAM is a complex I want song. Deep lyrics that tie to ending. Part of Your World don't got deepest lyrics! But is still good! I want songs meant to match character! Not follow others.
Said Mirabel talked for no reason in WECID other than to fill sound (Only showed begining) when there was a reason she said "Bring it in" as ignored context of movie when goal was to get a hug but Isa is moving away. Mirabel is there got s reason. As middle part sings lyrics reflecting WDTAB! Ignore as Mirabel encouraged Isabela voice goes from clique disney princess to louder/not as perfect. But somehow noticed Ariel own change of voice? Visuals in Surface Pressure has a reason why all over the place but keep steady/not changing for reason.
Called songs music videos when Encanto is mental based so have to look like that! SP can't just walk around singing like other songs. WECID to Isa gift growing! Get confused og context if didn't watch movie. Watch old Disney movies songs beginning... it's same sense as start a scene...then sing! Just issue is tended to be more walking around!
All of You, Colombia mi encanto, family madrigal, dos Oruguitas are in literal... but never mentioned. Said don't move plot/learn nothing but praise Hell Fire which is a visuals thing & inner thinking rather than move plot. You do learn about Luisa + Isabela. Luisa venting also helps us see the start of family issue isn't just Mirabel... WECID also advanced plot.
Just,,,they REALLY hold onto old European based Disney that can't focus on Broadway isn't only one sound! Encanto has Colombian music elements but ignored songs with so completely.
People find as bangers but wasn't made for radio in mind as ignore Disney didn't promote encanto music as much/didn't expect to be radio hits. Came out in Disney plus and people liked. We're confused at same time so watched movie. So comment people can listen without contents unlike other songs of wrong.
Semi questioned Moana but ignore I Know the way + I Am Moana.
No other Disney songs sound like WDTAB like they don't sound like Hellfire. Wish tried to replicate Encanto but failed! WDTAB also you get vibe of Pepa family. A song meant for them too! Character driven movie + character voices as focus for once.
They just really don't like LMM/Wish that made a video of made up things + ignored all other songs to focus on two simply didn't like. I didn't like surface pressure but understood!
Just likes clique Disney.
Aleo no other Disney characters sound like Madrigals voices + especially Mirabel. Can tell from a movie by that too.
So yeah! That's all reasons combined people didn't like video cause combination of false info of what happens in movie + work put into songs +
They gotta admit don't like LMM/Wish & didn't like two songs. Don't like idea of Disney changing with Encanto but failed with Wish.
Like if Disney makes a rock musical you gonna be like "NOOOOO!!! NOT BROADWAY!!!!"
When Broadway had had rock based things... plus jazz...so ???
@@Joell351I think the main problem is that there is not really a harmony with the story and the musicals. Moana did what encanto did but good because it didn't feel jarring in the scheme of what was happening in the scene.
Dos orguitas (love this one) and most of bruno were the only songs that flowed naturally in the movie for me.
I think it might have somethingto do with the pandemic frying the attention spans of people cause it's like animated movies feel the need to be annoyingly fast-paced/rushed, have bizarre visuals or irkiningly unconventional musical elements to keep the audience's attention now.
I especially felt this with most of encanto's songs . It really killed the tone that was supposed to be conveyed for me (looking at you, sufrace pressure)
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.
Encanto and its soundtrack is probably the only example I can think of where it’s so relatable, it forgot to be good.
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
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.
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
Personally, I didn't really like Encanto, and one of the things I dislike is the music. Don't get me wrong, Lin Manuel has done great things, but Encanto just wasn't one of them. I think he peaked with Hamilton and Moana. The songs in Encanto don't feel like they have a soul, they just feel like they were made to be catchy and nothing else. Not to mention, there is only song from the movie most people remember. Not only that, but they don't even feel like Lin wrote them, apart from them being very fast-paced paced. I feel like Disney is really stretching him thin, and I hope he can get back into his fun signature style soon.
The plot of Encanto is carried by EMOTION, so of course the only thing we’d learn about Louisa from Surface is the way she FEELS. Waiting on a Miracle comes off naturally since it comes at a point where Mirabel is emotionally isolated. And the songs do advance the plot (again, since they’re carried by EMOTION). We literally see during What Else Can I Do that Isabella breaks free of her perfectionism, her and Mirabel hug, and Abuela gets mad after. Just because they’re bangers doesn’t mean they can’t work musically. The Hunchback of Notre Dome had that random ass love song, while all of Encanto’s songs fleshed out the characters or told us important things. And Hercules and Moana had some songs that didn’t need to be there (like Your Welcome, I Won’t Say I’m in Love) but it didn’t matter because they’re good songs, unlike the ones in Wish.
As for visuals, I love that Encanto does crazy things during the music. During Surface Pressure, it helps stress that Louisa is worried about the safety of her village. It’s hypocritical to criticize that, considering 2D animated Disney movies also did crazy things with their songs.
New disney songs were made for the lyric videos to be shown to 5th graders in class during field day
Encantos songs are great as songs very relatable they are good songs. They however are not great *disney* and *movie/musical* songs
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
The plot of Encanto is carried by EMOTION, so of course the only thing we’d learn about Louisa from Surface is the way she FEELS. Waiting on a Miracle comes off naturally since it comes at a point where Mirabel is emotionally isolated. And the songs do advance the plot (again, since they’re carried by EMOTION). We literally see during What Else Can I Do that Isabella breaks free of her perfectionism, her and Mirabel hug, and Abuela gets mad after. Just because they’re bangers doesn’t mean they can’t work musically. The Hunchback of Notre Dome had that random ass love song, while all of Encanto’s songs fleshed out the characters or told us important things. And Hercules and Moana had some songs that didn’t need to be there (like Your Welcome, I Won’t Say I’m in Love) but it didn’t matter because they’re good songs, unlike the ones in Wish.
As for visuals, I love that Encanto does crazy things during the music. During Surface Pressure, it helps stress that Louisa is worried about the safety of her village. It’s hypocritical to criticize that, considering 2D animated Disney movies also did crazy things with their songs
@@DORAisD34D Did... Did I ever say anything to the contrary about Encamto? I think you meant to make a general comment to the video bit replied to me.
Also, I vehementlybdisagree about I won't say I'm in love. That song was necessary exposition about how Megara felt about love after being betrayed. And the push and pull of the song shows how she was trying abs failing to resist.
You’re excellent at explaining these, you should make videos on how to write songs, verses, bridges etc! (If you want to that is)
The plot of Encanto is carried by EMOTION, so of course the only thing we’d learn about Louisa from Surface is the way she FEELS. Waiting on a Miracle comes off naturally since it comes at a point where Mirabel is emotionally isolated. And the songs do advance the plot (again, since they’re carried by EMOTION). We literally see during What Else Can I Do that Isabella breaks free of her perfectionism, her and Mirabel hug, and Abuela gets mad after. Just because they’re bangers doesn’t mean they can’t work musically. The Hunchback of Notre Dome had that random ass love song, while all of Encanto’s songs fleshed out the characters or told us important things. And Hercules and Moana had some songs that didn’t need to be there (like Your Welcome, Shiny, Zero to Hero) but it didn’t matter because they’re good songs, unlike the ones in Wish.
As for visuals, I love that Encanto does crazy things during the music. During Surface Pressure, it helps stress that Louisa is worried about the safety of her village. It’s hypocritical to criticize that, considering 2D animated Disney movies also did crazy things with their songs .
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
All of the songs have his mannerisms.
The song is getting defended because it's doing everything op stated should be doing, but it gets disregarded surely because of how contemporary it sounds
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
It's refreshing to see someone who feels the same sorta way about encanto that I did. I felt like it was very hollow and surface level when I first watched it but didn't end up diving deeper into that because everyone else loved it 😅
The plot of Encanto is carried by EMOTION, so of course the only thing we’d learn about Louisa from Surface is the way she FEELS. Waiting on a Miracle comes off naturally since it comes at a point where Mirabel is emotionally isolated. And the songs do advance the plot (again, since they’re carried by EMOTION). We literally see during What Else Can I Do that Isabella breaks free of her perfectionism, her and Mirabel hug, and Abuela gets mad after. Just because they’re bangers doesn’t mean they can’t work musically. The Hunchback of Notre Dome had that random ass love song, while all of Encanto’s songs fleshed out the characters or told us important things. And Hercules and Moana had some songs that didn’t need to be there (like Your Welcome, I Won’t Say I’m in Love) but it didn’t matter because they’re good songs, unlike the ones in Wish.
As for visuals, I love that Encanto does crazy things during the music. During Surface Pressure, it helps stress that Louisa is worried about the safety of her village. It’s hypocritical to criticize that, considering 2D animated Disney movies also did crazy things with their songs.
ANY video calling out Encanto's flaws and here useless pop songs have my respect
I'd like to hear your critique of the lyricism of Moana that you hint at doing here. Even as I like Moana and it's music for the most part I would almost trade Lin Manuel Miranda not ever becoming a part of the film because I see the kind of songwriting it's lead to in Mermaid, Encanto and worst of all Wish
The problem is that the "writing" you're talking about is just your average Broadway playwright mannerisms.
People have been combining contemporary music and lingo with classical Broadway since Gilbert and Sullivan.
Completing contemporary with pop is a mistake that a lot of people have been making because they're not the same thing.
One could even argue that most of Disney's films are contemporary to whatever time they've released in (modern versions of fairy tales).
Wish's issue isn't that it's music is contemporary but that it doesn't even make sense in the logic of the film.
The king gets a plucky, quirky villain song that is played as the main character sneaks around, he and Asha unironically sing a love duet, etc.