Favorite Menken/Ashman musical score?

Post by **Josh** » June 29th, 2005, 6:47 pm

What is your favorite musical score from the team of Alan Menken and Howard Ashman?

I'm going to go with the score for Beauty and the Beast. Listening to the soundtrack last night, I was once again in awe at how good it is.

Post by **James** » June 29th, 2005, 7:24 pm

Is there really any doubt here? Yes they are all great and were Oscar-worthy, but Beauty and the Beast tops them all easily.

Post by **Josh** » June 29th, 2005, 8:56 pm

Let's see if everyone feels that way.

Post by **Macaluso** » June 29th, 2005, 9:37 pm

...Hercules

Post by **fani** » June 29th, 2005, 10:15 pm

Catchiest, sweet tragic love melody.--BATB

Mermaid was kind of a bore, Aladdin was good but not as good

Post by **Ben** » June 30th, 2005, 11:59 am

This is a toughie.

While I would say the intricate themes from B&TB are most amazingly woven through the film, the truth is that Aladdin is the more in-deoth score with the most "color". Add to the fact that Ashman passed away during its creation, and one has to truly marvel at how it all still holds together in the true sense of being an old-style Hollywood musical.

THEN comes Mermaid - without which we wouldn't HAVE any of these anyway - and what is simply the most goregeous "I want" song ever put in a Disney picture, Part Of Your World, which beats anything in B&TB and Aladdin.

But, I guess if we're saying which is "our favorite musical score from the team of Alan Menken and Howard Ashman", then it has to be B&TB, since it trumps Mermaid overall, and Aladdin was half Tim Rice, so has trouble really counting anyway!

Post by **PatrickvD** » July 1st, 2005, 1:16 pm

Ben wrote:This is a toughie.

While I would say the intricate themes from B&TB are most amazingly woven through the film, the truth is that Aladdin is the more in-deoth score with the most "color". Add to the fact that Ashman passed away during its creation, and one has to truly marvel at how it all still holds together in the true sense of being an old-style Hollywood musical.

THEN comes Mermaid - without which we wouldn't HAVE any of these anyway - and what is simply the most goregeous "I want" song ever put in a Disney picture, Part Of Your World, which beats anything in B&TB and Aladdin.

But, I guess if we're saying which is "our favorite musical score from the team of Alan Menken and Howard Ashman", then it has to be B&TB, since it trumps Mermaid overall, and Aladdin was half Tim Rice, so has trouble really counting anyway!

I completely agree with everything you said. I really like all of his work, even the stuff that is considered to be less good, like Home on the Range and Hercules, is in my opinion amazing. He's the best thing to happen to Disney since Walt passed away.

Post by **Ben** » July 1st, 2005, 1:35 pm

I'm also a Hercules nut.

Whereas I agree that Menken has been a undoubted force in the best of recent Disney, it's Ashman that really sold that partnership.

Just look at his story input to see how he/they were able to not only provide music, but help shape the story for those films.

As shown by his other work, Menken is good (great even), but does work best with a strong partner (not Rice, but Schwartz or Zippel).

Post by **Josh** » July 1st, 2005, 3:48 pm

From the looks of things, Glenn Slater is Menken's new "Ashman", respectively. I believe that Menken has stated working with Slater is the closest to working with Ashman that he's done. It certainly seems like the partnership isn't ending anytime soon. In addition to working on Home on the Range together, the two have written new songs for the Little Mermaid Broadway musical and have just signed on to write the score for the Sister Act Broadway musical.

Post by **PatrickvD** » July 2nd, 2005, 8:52 am

Ben wrote:I'm also a Hercules nut.

Whereas I agree that Menken has been a undoubted force in the best of recent Disney, it's Ashman that really sold that partnership.

Just look at his story input to see how he/they were able to not only provide music, but help shape the story for those films.

As shown by his other work, Menken is good (great even), but does work best with a strong partner (not Rice, but Schwartz or Zippel).

I agree, when he was working with Ashman, all pieces fell together. I do think he did a great job with Tim Rice rounding up Aladdin though. That could've gone wrong but it didn't.

And I think Glenn Slater did great on Home on the Range. Sad thing is, I don't think neither of them had any input in the story. They were just on it for the sake of "From the composer of Beauty and the Beast and The Little Mermaid". I'd like to see Alan Menken really involved in a new disney feature animation project again, like back in the day when they had nothing to loose. But that's a sad different story

Post by **Ben** » July 2nd, 2005, 2:54 pm

Like the abandoned Roger Rabbit sequel...

Post by **AniMan** » July 6th, 2005, 10:04 am

Wow, I'm honestly surprised that I'm the only one (at the time I'm writing this) to choose The Little Mermaid. While for me it's a very, very, very close one between Beauty and the Beast and Mermaid, for me the Little Mermaid score affects me on a much deeper level, bringing up incredibly good feelings, with an almost childlike wonder. I still feel "Part of that World" is the best song in a movie, EVER. It is absolutely beautiful, and it is so beautifully sung by Jodi Benson. But, like I said, it's a tough call for me, as I also LOVE the score and songs from Beauty and the Beast. "Belle" is, to me, unquestionably the best song from that film, and it's one of the reasons I had a hard time determining which score I felt was the best. Heh, I'm still not sure!

Post by **Ben** » July 6th, 2005, 12:51 pm

As I noted above, we agree that "Part Of Your World" is the best of its kind in all of Disney, but I am swaing more to B&TB for the tight interwoven feel of all the songs and score.

If you listen to Mermaid, it's quite disjointed, with Daughters Of Triton never turning up as a musical motif in the rest of the score, and the French chef's song (which, okay, one could argue was the basis for Be Our Guest) just doesn't belong in that musical - totally different styles!

So for SONG: "Part Of Your World", no question. But for SCORE, it has to be B&TB due to the tight themes that run throughout the entire score, with lovely little bits and phrases reworking themselves into many of the other songs and the music throughout.

Post by **ShyViolet** » July 7th, 2005, 10:05 am

If you listen to Mermaid, it's quite disjointed, with Daughters Of Triton never turning up as a musical motif in the rest of the score, and the French chef's song (which, okay, one could argue was the basis for Be Our Guest) just doesn't belong in that musical - totally different styles!

Totally agree! I have the score and I love, love, love, love, love POYW, not to mention "Poor Unfortunate Souls." They are both not only wonderfully composed but do a great job of advancing the story and fleshing out the characters, almost like something from Le Mis!

But as for the rest, they're OK, but they still have like this experiemental feel to them, like they're still trying out new things. You can kind of can feel that the Disney animated machine was still just sprouting then. Under the Sea is fun, (which is also a lot like Be Our Guest if you think about it, saying, "What a great place this is!") Kiss the Girl is sweet, but not half as good as POYW. And as for "Fathoms Below", "Daughters of Triton" and "Les Poissons", nothing special. I'm pretty sure they were seriously thinking of cutting out Les Poissons. It kind of feels like something they would put on a DVD as an extra, ("All new song!") not something that was really part of the movie. That's just how I see it.

BTW "Belle" is also my favorite song on the BATB score. Can listen to that ALL DAY. After that I would probably choose "Gaston", which is SO catchy, funny, amazingly done. It's funny how much fuss people made over the song "BATB" itself, I liked it and everything but not half as much as some of the others.

Plus, even though it's not an actual song, the track "Death of the Beast" is soooooo powerful, almost like watching the ending itself.

One of the reasons the ending was so sweeping and dramatic was that Jeffrey Kazenberg re-wrote it with the writers. He really wanted to make the audience cry as much as possible before the happy ending.

"That's your answer to everything. Move under the sea. It's not gonna happen!"
"Well, not with that attitude!"

Post by **Ben** » July 7th, 2005, 10:41 am

Yeah, I agree about Under The Sea. It's a great song, but kills the film dead, while not pushing the story ahead. We all know how great it is "beneath the ocean" (points for where that reference comes from!) but the thing is that Ariel wants to leave anyway.

Great songs in Mermaid, but with B&TB, they were operating at a whole new level.