Tangled

I'm a huge Disney fan so I had been looking forward to The Princess and the Frog last year and I was disappointed, it was cute but there were a lot of weak moments and one of those was the songs. They just weren't memorable.

So Disney went with the great Alan Menken for Tangled and let me tell you it worked! Tangled has some awesome music. I love "Mother Knows Best" for it's broadway like feel, "I've Got a Dream" is hilarious and perfect for the fun side characters. While I liked "When Will My Life Begin" the second reprise for it is amazing! It sounds very reminiscent of Ariel's reprise of "Part of Your World"! "I Can See The Light" is beautiful and romantic, and who knew Zachary Levi could sing?! He's great! "Healing Incantation" is hauntingly beautiful too, be it chilling with Donna Murphy sings in Prologue, adorable when young Rapunzel sings it in Prologue, or sweet and tearful when Mandy Moore sings in The Tear Heals.

Even the score is beautiful! "Campfire" is gorgeous "Kingdom Dance" is so much fun, I can't wait to see it on the big screen with everything going on, "The Tear Heals" gives me goosebumps every time I hear it.

Bottom line, I haven't been this excited for a Disney film since I was a kid, if the film is half as good as the music then we are in for a real treat!

I went to see Tangled not knowing that it was a musical Disney, and was very pleasantly surprised! I knew Mandy Moore was good, but I had no idea that Zachary Levi could sing so well. Alan Menken did a great job orchestrating this, my personal favorite is 14 - Kingdom Dance, but it's a lot of fun. It may not be as broad as some fo the Disney classics, but I like how light and fun this is, it's a definite keeper!

Despite he hasn't composed the score for all of the recent Disney projects, Alan Menken has become a household name that has been synonymous with Disney during the last two decades. And why not? He was a part of bringing Disney into a Renaissance, with some outstanding work to "The Little Mermaid", "Beauty and the Beast", "Aladdin" and also to the underrated masterpieces like "Pocahontas" and "The Hunchback of Notre Dame". Therefore it isn't strange that Disney brought him back to compose the score for their newest CGI feature, "Tangled", which is the Disney company's latest take on the Rapunzel tale (at last).

During his years as a composer, Menken has established his own recognizable sound, while he's also has expanded himself and showed that he has versatile as well. Menken is good at creating sweet, harmonic and wondrous tunes, which gives you the Fairy tale vibes sound, which he absolutely uses in "Tangled". However, it also seems that Menken is consciously trying to repeat himself with using melodies and rhythm that are reminiscent to his previous works, especially to "Beauty and the Beast" and "The Little Mermaid" (if you'll exclude the Calypso and Reggae sound).

With that being said, the music of "Tangled" becomes a little letdown compared to the great achievements of Menken's former work. However, the music isn't bad. Far from it. The melodies are sweet, simple and listenable. But the best song is the sweet "I See the Light", a harmonic and atmospheric little ballad, wonderfully sung by Mandy Moore and Zachary Levi. The orchestration is simply gorgeous and the melody is simply Menken at his best.

While the other songs don't live up to "Lights" level, they are still quite listenable. Most noteworthy is the tune "When Will My Life Begin", which begins as a radio friendly pop tune and sounds more like a song that could be on the pop charts than a Disney fairy tale song. But the song still ends in a calm way.
I shall honestly confess that I've never really listened to Mandy Moore's previous work, but surprisingly enough, her singing voice gives the character of Rapunzel some spark and personality, while her voice is also harmonic and melodic enough to fit a Disney Princess.

The reprises of "When Will My Life Begin" are also mentionable; first a calm and harmonic first reprise and a grandly and epically orchestrated second reprise. "Mother Knows Best" (sung by Donna Murphy) is a playful tune which gives you the thoughts back to the tunes from "Cinderella" and "Snow White", while the reprise, however, is more dynamic and compelling. "Healing Incantation" is a quiet and atmospheric melody as well, but is unfortunately too short. However, some better, more melodic versions of the same song are repeated on the "Prologue" track.

After mentioning the best songs, there are two tunes that come off as huge disappointments. First one is the lively "I've Got a Dream", an accordion driven tune which is quite forgettable, both melodically and lyrically and doesn't live up to the former Disney showstopper numbers. The other one is the main single "Something that I want", which is a fast-paced, but still frenetic, calculated and a rather cold song by Grace Potter and would've been a better fit in a "Shrek" flick than an end credit song for a Disney fairy tale.

When it comes to the score itself, is more or less on the same level at the songs. However, the use of the song cue in the score is less obvious in this score than in Menken's previous works.
As usual, he's good at creating a score for the sweet, romantic, jolly and sad scores. He still struggles to make a memorable and dynamic score for the adventurous and energetic moments, although the "Mission Impossible" cue on "Escape Route" is a funny touch. However, it's noteworthy that much of the music is more guitar driven than you usually expect from Menken. The flute on the "Campfire" tune is relaxing, but the best score track is the Irish/Medieval melody in the "Kingdom Dance" score, which gives you the wish that Menken could've have used the similar style through the rest of his score and songs and brings you the thoughts back to "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" (now that was a score where Menken really broke some boundaries and expanded himself)

And now for the lyrics of the songs. During his career, Menken has collaborated with different lyricists, each better than the previous. While the lyrics by Glenn Slater are simplistic and naive, they are still playful and fun to listen to.

So that's the music of "Tangled". As a whole, it doesn't live up to Menken's most marvelous work. However, the songs and the score makes are passable enough, give you a fairy tale wonder and are listenable to all Menken fans. Let's just hope that Disney won't let Menken go yet.

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