Beauty and the Beast (soundtrack)

Background

During the 1970s and 1980s, Walt Disney Feature Animation struggled to release animated feature films that achieved the levels of success of some of the studio's earlier productions did. In 1989, Walt Disney Pictures released The Little Mermaid. An animated musical that features songs written by lyricist Howard Ashman and composer Alan Menken, The Little Mermaid was both a tremendous critical and commercial success. Hoping to release a film that achieved similar success, the studio decided to adapt the fairy tale "Beauty and the Beast" by Jeanne-Marie Le Prince de Beaumont into an animated film.

Prior to getting professionally involved with Disney, Ashman and Menken had collaborated on a musical adaptation of Little Shop of Horrors and its subsequent musical film adaptation. Following the studio's attempt to adapt the fairy tale into a non-musical animated film under the direction of Richard Purdum, Disney CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg, dissatisfied by the direction in which the film was headed, ordered that it be scrapped and restarted from scratch, this time in the form of a musical. In addition to hiring a screenwriter, Katzenberg recruited Ashman and Menken to write the film's songs.

Ashman's health

Ashman was initially reluctant to agree to work on Beauty and the Beast because he had just recently been diagnosed with AIDS. Additionally, he had already begun writing songs for Aladdin (1992). Ashman's health began deteriorating soon after he completed The Little Mermaid. However, he wanted his illness to remain secret and decided to tell few about it. Too weak to travel, Ashman requested that he be allowed to work on the film's songs from his home, causing Menken and the filmmakers to frequently travel from the film's studio in Burbank, California to his home in New York in order to collaborate with him. Ashman wrote the majority of the song's lyrics from his deathbed.

Content and composition

Lyricist Howard Ashman and composer Alan Menken intended for the songs in Beauty and the Beast to serve as plot devices and assist in the telling of its story. According to Menken, the film's songs grew out of the fact that the film was written to "almost ... exist as a stage musical." Stylistically, Ashman and Menken drew creative influence from several musical styles and genres, including French, classical and Broadway music, using them as reference and inspiration when composing the film's songs. Menken also revealed that the film's songs and score tend to convey a wide variety of emotions, ranging from poignancy to humor and joy.

While composing the orchestral score that accompanies the film's prologue, Menken was inspired by the French suite The Carnival of the Animals by Camille Saint-Saëns, referring to it as his own version of Saint-Saëns' composition. Menken believes that all properly structured musicals should feature an "I Want" song because they are essentially "about a character having a big dream, then [there's] some obstacle to that quest." "Belle", the film's opening number, is an "orchestra-driven", "snare-tapping" song. Accompanied by a full orchestra, it is considered Beauty and the Beast's "I Want" song. Musically, Menken based "Belle" on the narrative style of a traditional operetta, describing it as "something to portray Belle in a world that is so protected and safe." Menken described the film's following musical number, "Gaston", as a hilarious "drinking song sung by basically a group of Neanderthal level guys in praise of a complete lug-head", referring to Ashman's choice of song lyrics as humorous and "tongue in cheek".

When it came time to write the film's large-scale "scintillating" musical number "Be Our Guest", Menken originally composed and provided Ashman with a simple melody that was initially intended for temporary use only, simply for the purpose of allowing his co-writer to start developing the song's lyrics. He labeled the rough composition "the dummy". However, Menken eventually gave up on his attempt to improve upon the song's simple melody, and it ultimately became the version to which Ashman wrote his lyrics. Menken described "Be Our Guest" as a song that is both "simple and tuneful" that "let[s] the lyric shine."

Originally, Ashman and Menken had written a rather lengthy, large-scale musical number for the film called "Human Again". However, when it was deemed "too ambitious", they swiftly wrote and replaced it with a smaller-scale musical number entitled "Something There". According to Menken, the film's theme and title song, "Beauty and the Beast", was "a very hard song to come by" despite its relative simplicity. He revealed that the writing process for "Beauty and the Beast" was the longest period of time that he had ever devoted to one particular song. Written to resemble a lullaby, Ashman and Menken conceived "Beauty and the Beast" as "a song that could have a life outside the movie." The film's final musical number, "The Mob Song", was written as what Menken described as "a macho adventure underscore".

Single

When the film was released, it garnered three separate Academy Award nominations for Best Original Song for "Belle", "Be Our Guest" and "Beauty and the Beast". Producer Don Hahn expressed concern that this would cause confusion among audiences and voters, and potentially result in an unfavorable tie. In order to prevent this from happening, the studio fought in favor of the film's title song and decided to release a pop rendition of "Beauty and the Beast" as a commercial single in an attempt to persuade voters to vote for it. When "Beauty and the Beast" was written, it was composed with the potential of having "half a life outside the movie." Menken revealed that this was the first time one of his compositions had been rearranged and "turned into ear candy".

Menken recruited musician Robbie Buchanan to arrange "Beauty and the Beast" into the form of a pop duet while Walter Afanasieff was responsible for producing the track. Afanasieff also assisted Buchanan in the arranging of the song. Menken was ultimately pleased with Afanasieff's production, explaining, "Walter Afanasieff ... took it and really molded it into something very different than I ever intended and I grew to love it. In a way, Walter made it his own, and I love that." Because Disney could not afford to hire a "big singer", they drafted Canadian singer Celine Dion, who was relatively new to the music industry at the time, to record "Beauty and the Beast". However, the studio feared that she would not draw much media attention because of her relative obscurity in the United States, so they hired American singer Peabo Bryson, who was a more well-known recording artist at the time, to perform alongside her. The newly arranged song was released as the album's lead single on November 25, 1991.

Critical response

Similar to the overwhelmingly positive critical response that the film received, Beauty and the Beast: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack was met with universal acclaim from both music and film critics, garnering nearly unanimous praise for both its songs and score. Tavia Hobart of AllMusic awarded the soundtrack a nearly perfect overall score of 4.5/5 stars, describing Ashman and Menken's compositions as "positively delightful." However, she felt that the album's orchestral score was not as good as The Little Mermaid. Filmtracks was very enthusiastic about the album, praising each of its songs and labeling them "remarkably upbeat". The reviewer also praised Ashman and Menken for avoiding "stupid comedic performances to appeal to children." Unlike AllMusic's opinion, the reviewer felt that the score was "a vast improvement" over The Little Mermaid's. Sputnikmusik's Irving Tan awarded the album a "superb" overall rating of 4.5/5. Praising the film's entire collection of songs in a detailed review, Tan accredited the overall appeal of the soundtrack with much the film's success.

When Beauty and the Beast was released in November 1991, several film and entertainment critics awarded specific praise to its music, both songs and score. Entertainment Weekly's Lisa Schwarzbaum wrote, "The songs unleash a chemical reaction of happiness."

Just as the film made history by becoming the first animated film to receive a Best Picture Oscar nomination, so too the soundtrack made history by becoming the first animated film soundtrack to receive an Album of the Year Grammy nomination (to date, no other animated film soundtrack has been nominated in this category). The pop version of the title track "Beauty and the Beast" also received Grammy nominations for Record of the Year and Song of the Year. In total, the soundtrack won 3 Grammys for Best Pop Duo/Group Performance (Celine Dion & Peabo Bryson, Best Pop Instrumental Performance (Richard Kauffman), and Best Song Written for a Motion Picture (Alan Menken).

Track listing

In the movie track eight comes after track nine.

All music composed by Alan Menken with lyrics by Howard Ashman. All scores composed and produced by Menken. All songs produced by Menken and Ashman except track 15 produced by Walter Afanasieff.

Notes

Unreleased songs and score

1. Prologue (without narration) (This cue was included on the "Music Behind the Magic" CD set, but wasn’t included on any of the commercial albums) [2:32]
2. Belle (Instrumental) [5:04]
3. Gaston Stops Belle [0:56]
4. The Spooky Forest / Wolf Attack (This cue was partially released on the "Music Behind the Magic" CD set, but wasn’t included on any of the commercial albums) [2:38]
5. A Guest in the Castle [3:04]
6. Gaston Proposes to Belle [1:33]
7. Belle Reprise (Instrumental) [1:00]
8. Belle Goes in Search of Maurice / Take Me Instead [3:50]
9. Belle’s New Home (This cue was partially released on the tape cassette and original CD releases, but doesn’t appear on the Special Edition album) [1:49]
10. Gaston (Instrumental) [3:36]
11. Gaston Reprise (Instrumental) [1:52]
12. Belle Meets the Servants [1:23]
13. An Invitation to Dinner / Nothing But a Monster [3:03]
14. The Wandering Guest [0:41]
15. Music?! / Be Our Guest (Instrumental) [3:43]
16. Tour of the Castle [2:14]
17. Helping the Beast [0:25]
18. Belle Tends to the Beast’s Wounds / Gaston’s Plot / Maurice Goes For Belle [2:00]
19. Something Special for Belle [2:03]
20. Breakfast with the Beast / "There's Something There" (Instrumental) [2:40]
21. Cleaning the Castle [0:35]
22. "Human Again" (Instrumental) [4:40]
23. Grooming the Beast [1:00]
24. Beauty and the Beast (Instrumental) [2:42]
25. Belle Leaves / Finding Maurice / A Stow-a-way [1:39]
26. Gaston’s Plan [1:45]
27. "The Mob Song" (Instrumental) [3:26]
28. Battle on the Tower (Full Version) [5:27]
29. Transformation (Film Version) [5:46]
30. Transformation (Sans Disney Chorus) [5:46]

Total time of unreleased score material excluding song instrumentals: Approx. 33 minutes

Total time of unreleased score material including song instrumentals: Approx. 1 hour