Today we have the song that propelled the Encanto soundtrack to the top of the charts and became a cultural phenomenon (to the extent that anything can do that these days).
‘We Don’t Talk About Bruno’ is now the highest-charting Disney single since 1995, when Aladdin‘s ‘A Whole New World’ reached #1. ‘Bruno’ currently sits at #2, kept from the top spot by Adele’s ‘Easy On Me,’ which has perched there for 10 straight weeks. Will Bruno unseat the queen? I wouldn’t bet against him.
Each of the Madrigal sisters in Disney’s Encanto gets a song to dramatize her inner conflict. We heard Maribel’s yesterday, and today it’s Jessica Darrow’s Luisa, the middle child who is gifted with superhuman strength.
As Spider-Man knows, with great power comes great responsibility, and Luisa is buckling under the pressure she feels to literally carry the weight of her family’s expectations. Her song, ‘Surface Pressure,’ is all about how she manages, and fails to manage, that burden.
Stephanie Beatriz, best-known as a husky-voiced no-nonsense detective on Brooklyn Nine Nine, plays Mirabel Madrigal, the gift-deprived lead character of Disney’s Encanto. She turns in a delightful, charming voice performance.
Her singing chops, on the other hand, are a bit shakier. That’s most evident in today’s SOTD, ‘Waiting On a Miracle,’ the classic “I want” song you find in every Disney animated film. Think The Little Mermaid‘s ‘Part of Your World,’ Mulan‘s ‘Reflection,’ or Moana‘s ‘How Far I’ll Go.’
I still have a handful of movies to watch before I can wrap up my definitive top ten of 2021 and start spinning out some blog posts about last year on the big screen.
But I didn’t want to let a certain pop culture moment go unmentioned, so I’m dedicating this week to the music of Disney’s Encanto.
The animated film’s soundtrack, which features eight songs by Lin Manuel Miranda and a couple of dozen instrumental pieces by composer Germaine Franco, currently sits atop the Billboard 200 albums chart, making it only the sixth soundtrack from an animated film to occupy that slot.
Tennessee singer-songwriter Margo Price makes her third appearance on the blog, all for her debut album, 2016’s Midwest Farmer’s Daughter.
The first post marked the release of this album, one I enjoyed very much, and the discovery of a promising new talent. The second post, two years later, bemoaned the fact that I hadn’t listened to Price much at all since first encountering her, and noted that she had recently released a sophomore album.
Meet Me In Montauk 