Anyone who knows me, knows just how much I love Disney. So when A Whole New Sound, an entire album from Disney featuring some of my favourite songs covered by some of my favourite artists, was announced, you can bet I was going to be excited.
And I was rightly excited. The album kicks off with one of my favourite princess songs – Part of Your World from The Little Mermaid covered by New Found Glory. The arrangement works so well and I love the prominence of the drums. It’s sped up and works quite well, apart from the very end ‘wish I could be part of that world’, it starts out nice and drawn out but then halfway through changes pace to be rushed and it doesn’t really work well.
Mayday Parade is definitely one of my favourite bands and they get to be featured with Remember Me from Coco. The opening instrumentation is very Mayday-sounding and at first I thought I was listening to something from their back catalogue rather than Remember Me. As Derek’s vocals kicked in, it was obvious that this was the perfect choice for the band. I never really thought about how well Remember Me would work as a Mayday track until just now (and I’ve watched Coco countless times). The layered vocals add a nice touch and the composition band have come up with for the instrumentation really rounds the track off nicely.
The lead song from the album was Simple Plan’s version of Can You Feel the Love Tonight and it’s absolutely fabulous.
I2I comes from one of my all-time favourite movies and I absolutely love Powerline, so this was one I was quite hesitant about. I can’t really say I’ve listened to too much Magnolia Park but they had me dancing around my room with their upbeat pop rock version of the track.
I like Yellowcard and I like Chrissy Costanza, so them teaming up for A Whole New World was a nice touch. It works really well as William Ryan Key has a good voice for Aladdin’s parts and Chrissy can basically turn her hand to anything. This is probably the one that seems to be close to the original but I haven’t no complaints about that (I2I is also pretty close). I would have preferred this version over the live action ZAYN and Zhavia cover.
I like how We The Kings covered Go the Distance but it sounds a bit like the vocalist is bored doing it. In all honesty I haven’t listened to much of the band so this could just be the way his voice sounds, but for me it seemed like he didn’t want to do it. It still sounded good though. Plain White T’s version of Surface Pressure is interesting as it sounds cool and I love it when it’s sped up more.
Meet Me @ The Altar cover one of the most popular Pixar songs in You’ve Got a Friend in Me and well and truly put their own spin on it as at times the instrumentation is unrecognisable from the original. But I think it’s a really good sound.
Boys Like Girls completely threw me off. I was not expecting such a beautiful rendition of You’ll be in My Heart. I’m not one to praise Phil Collins but this is probably the one song I do quite like from him. However Boys Like Girls have completely thrown it on its head in the best way possible. The vocals are absolutely beautiful and the instrumentation is top notch (when the inevitable Tarzan live action remake comes, Disney make sure you get Boys Like Girls on board for the music!). I think this is 100% the stand out track for me.
It’s been years since I’ve listened to Tokio Hotel. I love how calming the vocals are on their cover of Colors of the Wind.
Let it Go is probably one of the hardest Disney songs to sing (and probably the most overplayed too) so it was going to be interesting to hear how LØLØ puts her own spin on it. The guitar tuning is really cool as it’s accented in the instrumentation. LØLØ sort of sounds a bit off with the vocals, and it seemed to me that there was a bit of over-autotuning but I think it adds a quirky touch.
They decided to end the album with Friend Like Me by Bowling For Soup – and why not? You know BfS are going to turn the track into something insane before you even hear it and they don’t disappoint. The multiple vocals work really well and the voice changes are hilarious. The instrumentation during the “can your friends do this…” section is just class, giving time to actually show off the band’s talents. You can tell they were having fun recording it with the ad libs.
The album is good fun from start to finish and there’s not a bad version on the album. The covers vary from quite close to the original to really putting their own spin on it but it works really well.
A Whole New Sound is such a good idea and it made this Disney punk rock princess extremely happy. Now who’s with me on a petition for a punk rock soundtrack for the next Disney movie?
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