Tangled review

Tangled (2010)

Composer: Alan Menken

Number of tracks: 20

Total time: 55:38

Overview:

Tangled was a much appreciated return by Disney to the style of their late 80's and early 90's animated musical blockbusters both in style and tone. Even though the film was rendered with computer animation, the animators strove to copy the hand-drawn style of the earlier films. Also, the omnipresent references to modern pop culture that typically plagues recent animated films by Disney are thankfully completely absent.

The film was a resounding success at the box office and was one of three major animated films of 2010 (the others being Megamind and How To Train Your Dragon). In keeping with the "throwback" style of Tangled, composer Alan Menken was hired to do the score and co-write the songs heard in the film.

As he did with Enchanted (2008), Menken delivers a fun and highly enjoyable score to a fun and highly enjoyable film.

Review of the music:

As seems to be the mode of operation for Disney Records when a musical album is released, all the songs from the film are collected at the front of the album with the score portion appearing afterwards. The album opens with "When Will my Life Begin" which also acts as Repunzel's theme. The song is a mix of orchestra and contemporary elements that actually blend together well. Mandy Moore's vocals may not be as strong as some of the vocals from other Menken scored films, but they still work fine in this instance. Interestingly, the first reprise of "When Will My Life Begin" does not appear in the film, though the second reprise does.

"Mother Knows Best" (track 3) is the over-the-top villain song sung by Donna Murphy in classic Broadway style. Again, this is another fine song by Menken with clever lyrics by Glenn Slater. Strangely enough, there are a few verses in the song that never appear in the film. "I've Got a Dream" (track 5) is a purely fun song sung by a tavern full of ruffians who actually are not all that bad.

"Mother Knows Best (reprise)" is a nicely dark twist on the original performance with a much more ominous sound in both the singing and the orchestration. "I See the Light"returns to the classic/contemporary blend heard in "When Will My Life Begin", though this time in a lovely romantic setting. This song acts as the basis for the Love theme for Flynn and Repunzel and is sung by, guess who?, Flynn and Repunzel (Zachary Lev and Mandy Moore). "The Healing Incantation" is a short song sung by Repunzel and is a rather mellow fantasy piece.

As far as the score portion of the album, Menken does a fantastic job at keeping the music surprisingly consistent despite the wide range of emotions and styles in the score. Some of the highlights are "Flynn Wanted", a great action piece; "Campfire", a beautiful piece for strings and woodwinds; "Kingdom Dance", a rather unexpected Medieval styled piece and "Waiting for the Lights", another beautiful fantasy cue.

"Realization", "The Horse with No Rider" and "The Tear Heals" take the score in to darker territory and lets Menken delve into minor mode orchestrations. While the music is darker than the surrounding cues, it never feels out of place or unwanted. At around 2:46- 3:30 in "The Tear Heals" there is a great section of dissonance and pounding percussion that would fit perfectly into Willow (1988).

"Kingdom Celebration" (track 19) nicely sums up the score and all the main song melodies in a nice suite form. As for the pop song stuck at the end.... No comment.

Review of packaging:

The CD comes in the typical jewel case with a thick booklet that contains song lyrics, album credits and photos (or should that be drawings?)

Closing thoughts:

Alan Menken has always been the "go-to guy" for Disney musicals and even after nearly 20 years, he continues to deliver great music and songs. Tangled is the perfect capsulation of Menken's style and a great introduction for newcomers to this composer. For those that have been collecting Menken's scores since the late 80's, this is pretty much more of the same... but when "more of the same" is this good, why complain?

The album has some slight issues (the annoying idea of splitting the songs and score into sections, sticking the prologue in the middle, including the pop song at the end), but overall this is still a very good album and should be enjoyed by all. Highly Recommended.

Score:

4 out of 5