You dumdums haven't polled the delight cast recording of Hamilton yet; let me help

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gGwhSE0nvo

My kid just got into Hamilton, as kids will apparently do (it's my first exposure to it). "Helpless" is a jam, I'll say that!

:D yay!

Easy to make fun of him, but dude is so talented. Hamilton is ace, songs from Moana are strong, and clearly the great songs from Encanto are connecting as pop music in a way since no Disney stuff since ... the '90s?

Don’t forget Vivo, which my daughter has watched / listened to the soundtrack 1,000 times

I'm not sure I've seen it, but now that I think of it I think I've heard one of my kids singing one of the songs. "Turn Up the Tempo?" Is that one of them?

My kids are super into Encanto at present; we just had a boisterous breakfast singalong of "Surface Pressure"

absolutely hate the encanto songs, this guy is such a fucking dweeb, the one the swole sister sings makes me writhe with secondhand dork agony.

I think his dweebiness is a positive attribute.

and clearly the great songs from Encanto are connecting as pop music in a way since no Disney stuff since ... the '90s?

Hmmm maybe we have differing definitions of Pop but "Let It Go" was massive no?

the swole sister song is good not bad SITO

According to the wiki, "Let It Go" (for sure cultural touchstone) was indeed a hit, "the first song from a Disney animated musical to reach the top ten of the Billboard Hot 100 since 1995." "Encanto" soundtrack hit number one yesterday, but I guess the "Frozen II" soundtrack did, too, in 2019. Interesting stat stuff here:

https://www.billboard.com/music/chart-beat/encanto-soundtrack-number-one-billboard-200-chart-1235016951/

Including:

Encanto is just the sixth animated film soundtrack to hit No. 1 since the Billboard 200 began regularly publishing on a weekly basis in 1956. Encanto follows Frozen II (one week at No. 1, 2019), Frozen (13 weeks, 2014), Jack Johnson’s Curious George (one, 2006), Pocahontas (one, 1995) and The Lion King (10, 1994-95). (All but Curious George are Disney films.)

But I guess “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” also just topped the top 200 and Spotify.

Interestingly, "Dos Oruguitas,” the Spanish-language song from "Encanto," was reportedly the one submitted to the Oscars. If "Encanto" stays strong, I wonder if that will finally get him his EGOT. I mean, "Dos Oruguitas" is really pretty for sure. I just learned that there have been two previous non-English songs to win Best Original Song (and four previous non-English nominations).

Should say I don't usually care about this chart and awards stuff, but I like Lin Manuel.

I liked Hamilton well enough, but the more I see of this guy's work since, the less I like him. He definitely seems like a nice guy and I don't begrudge him his success, but seeing In the Heights just revealed how narrow his palette really is. The same song structures, flow and construction over and over again, with different lyrics. I haven't seen Encanto yet, but I definitely prefer the work of Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez (Coco, Frozen) if we are talking contemporary songwriters for animated films.

That’s funny, I said the same thing to my wife (“He’s no Kristen Anderson-Lopez…”)

I’m not a big musical theater guy, but I don’t see what there is to hate on about this guy? (granted, I don’t know much about him; though my son read me bits of a LMM biography he took out from the library)

Yeah, to be clear, I don't hate him either, he seems to be a genuinely nice guy even if he's a big ol' theater dork. I've just got a big sense of diminishing returns with the more of his stuff I see.

I effectively file him in the same category as Dave Grohl - I wish he'd stop popping up in every damn thing, but he comes across as so damn likable that I can't hate him.

I don't know, I kind of get more traditional musical theater vibes from them, by way of Evanescence. Lin, he does seem operate pretty consistently, but I think his stuff is more diverse than people sometimes give it credit for. He's much better than Grohl, who's not even remotely clever about his middle of the roadness.

Like, I am not a musical theater guy at all and a lot of the stuff drives me nuts, but Lin's stuff doesn't bother me. Which might explain why it bothers some other people, lol.

I get the feeling with him, because he is so successful and so high profile that people have been trying to instigate a backlash for years - like the folks who consider Hamilton overrated and not nearly as groundbreaking as it was - but as of yet it's just not taking.

There is a backlash, mostly from dirtbag left, but it’s a lame and hilarious backlash

Hmm, thinking about it a bit, I wonder if LMM's additional abilities as an actor/performer/director/writer (as in the script) give him a leg up that makes up for any (real or perceived) lack of versatility? Whereas Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez's perhaps more conventional Broadway inclinations given them their own set of advantages when it comes to their more limited focus? For example, I could totally see both LMM coming up with successful songs for "Coco" or Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez doing "Moana" or "Encanto." But I don't know if LMM can be Broadway broad and *big* enough for something like "Frozen," and likewise if I was at ground zero for something like "Wicked" I would have called Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez before LNN. But they might ever come up with something personal and idiosyncratic like "Hamilton."

Anyway, I guess LMM and Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez teamed up for some Netflix Schoolhouse Rock sort of thing?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8tBPgDBDKnE

It's not that good.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/10/arts/music/encanto-soundtrack-billboard-chart.html

The soundtrack to “Encanto,” the new Disney animated film, has reached No. 1 on the Billboard chart, displacing Adele’s “30” after a six-week run at the top.

The “Encanto” album, with songs by Lin-Manuel Miranda that draw on salsa and hip-hop and are performed on traditional Colombian instruments, came out in November — initially landing at No. 197 — and has had a steady climb to the top. After the film’s streaming release on Disney+ on Christmas Eve, the soundtrack entered Billboard’s Top 10.

One of its numbers, “We Don’t Talk About Bruno,” is currently the most-streamed song on Spotify, beating out a slew of new tracks by the Weeknd. (The Weeknd’s surprise album, “Dawn FM,” released on Friday with just a few days’ notice, is expected to open with huge numbers on next week’s chart.)

The “Encanto” soundtrack, which also features pieces from the film’s score by Germaine Franco, had the equivalent of 72,000 sales in the United States last week, according to MRC Data, Billboard’s tracking arm. That total includes 88 million streams and 11,000 copies sold as a complete package. “Encanto” is the first soundtrack to reach No. 1 on Billboard’s chart since “Frozen 2” in late 2019.

Ooof, 72k in sales is all it takes ...

The consensus in this household seems to be that Encanto isn't a great movie (I haven't sat and watched it, just seen bits in the background) – but that Bruno song is pretty undeniable. I also like the big song the main character sings as she walks around doing magic or whatever ("something something open the dooooooor...")

I thought "Encanto" was better the second time. Definitely one of the prettier ones in recent memory, and does a few things to counter Disney cliches. For example, no dead parents, no epic quest, no princess, single location (more or less), um, first lead character with glasses? Doesn't quite stick the landing (imo, for reasons I won't spoil), but it has a nice emotional payoff nonetheless.

Cool / good to know (the criticism voiced here was that it's too short or moves too quick, you don't really get to know or care about the characters?)

Yeah Encanto's a very enjoyable film.

xpost I can see that, at least the first time around. There are 11 or so major characters, but only about 4 get their own songs, and of those the relationship between each other and with Mirabel probably could have been developed a bit more to enhance the payoff at the end. (The rest of the 11 are fun but tend to fly by pretty fast.) Second time around I felt there was more than enough meat to convey the movie's message, though, and perhaps not knowing some characters as well as others may be part of it.

no dead parents

dead abuelo though.

It happens.

MOANA IS GREAT

xp: grandpas usually keel over from heart disease or cancer or something, not getting cut down by a death squad. It's still traumatic, although maybe not the same as Nemo's mom getting eaten. Still think it fits into the trope, although more of a generational trauma thing.

Maybe. But he died many decades before Mirabel was born, so it's not really her (the protagonist's) trauma. Moana, she's got her mom and dad, but grandma dies on her watch and follows her around as a force ghost.

absolutely hate the encanto songs (...) the one the swole sister sings makes me writhe with secondhand dork agony.

Ha ha - I heard this for the first time in the car; knew exactly what it was (I remembered the above comment); and had to keep listening on my own (after dropping the kid off), to see how it "developed." It's... quite a song

lol I actually like that one. but having a 9-year-old daughter playing/singing/karaoke-ing/dancing to the whole soundtrack constantly may have skewed my perspective a bit. and agree that overall the music is super weak

the movie itself is solid but there's way too much going on - plotlines, themes, characters - for it to get the kind of traction it would need to be as memorable as say Moana (which I agree with everyone above is the GOAT of modern CGI Disney)

Ehh, Frozen II is modern GOAT imo

there's a lot going on in encanto but perhaps even more fatally it doesn't support anything substantial. there's magic, it goes away, it comes back. the climax is a quiet conversation! which maybe in one way is an admirable change from an epic action setpiece but it's not really compelling viewing.

xp, i thought frozen ii was a trying-too-hard mess.

Yeah, really didn't like Frozen II.

More importantly, how did "You'll Be Back," the best song in Hamilton, not get a single vote in this poll?

I mean, even Frozen I is better than Moana... (IMO, of course)

Just saw a group of elementary school kids singing "We Don't Talk About Bruno," in unison... the guy can write a hit.

Fwiw, I don't hate the "swole sister" song; it's kind of fascinatingly grating (...it's a choice, anyway). It also apparently hit #10 on the Billboard Hot 100 this week(!):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErY3eeRFTFg

Speaking of which, you guys also gotta hear the big showstopper from Vivo (just as I had to hear it, about 10x/day last month):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3lPPysB6bGA

(seems there's also a remix w/Missy Elliott)

I think the Surface Pressure song is great.

I dunno, I don't get the hype over "Bruno", tbh. I thought "Surface Pressure" was the best song in that flick by a wide margin.

"Bruno" is kind of its "Agatha All Along."

The opening song was really busy, and I wasn't sure I'd like the movie, but "Surface Pressure" and Isabella's song were better, and I got more into it. I really liked that the story and the conflict were almost entirely within the house, within the family. But it's still a lower tier Disney movie - Frozen 2 is the only recent one I recall liking less

So, "Bruno" is the first Disney song to hit number one in 30 years, and the first number one song in four years with only one songwriter. And, needless to day, Lin-Manuel's first number one. Also apparently a record for most number of credited performers on a number one, too (6). Add it to the list.

The opening song was really busy

It always makes me think of the "Tiny Toons Adventures" theme! (rapidly listing off the characters and their attributes, etc.)

otm, a lot of cartoon theme songs did that. I think I was probably overwhelmed by those songs the first time I heard them too - probably more fun the second and third time you watch it

I was just talking in the music theory thread about how Waiting on a Miracle represents everything a lot of things I hate about modern broadway composition, the melody sounds so noodly and random. We Don't Talk About Bruno is certainly catchy but I can't really say it's *good*, same with the Family Madrigal song. Overall agree that the movie was kind of a mess but the kids loved it. Definitely underwhelming. A lot of the family seemed like assholes tbh.

I guess in that sense it was a realistic portrayal of a family, except then it set itself up for the impossible resolution that everyone in the messed up family just learns to stop being messed up.

Ooof, 72k in sales is all it takes ...

it says 11k in the bit you quoted!