This week, Disney's Frozen soundtrack has climbed the Billboard charts all the way up to number ten. The album, featuring the vocals of screen and stage actress Kristen Bell (voice of Anna), Tony Award winner Idina Menzel (voice of Elsa), Tony nominee Jonathan Groff (voice of Kristoff), among others, is a landmark piece for Disney. Frozen is one of only ten animated features in history that have produced a soundtrack that cracks the top ten. The last time Disney was on the board was for Cars, which peaked at number six.
According to Billboard and Nielsen SoundScan, the Frozen album has sold over 150,000 copies to date, 56,000 this week alone.
The soundtrack features eight original songs from husband-and-wife songwriters Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez (who is responsible for Broadway hits Avenue Q and The Book of Mormon), an additional version of "Let it Go" by Demi Lovato, and the film's original score by Christophe Beck.
In an interview with PR Newswire, Beck spoke about how he approached the score, "With 'Frozen,' we had the setting to draw from—these incredible icy snowy vistas, which are very evocative. The region provided us with lots of really cool and interesting sound to explore that I'd never heard—I don't think many people outside of the region have either."
Peter Del Vecho, the film's producer, talked about the process behind creating a movie in which picture and music blend seamlessly, resulting in a final product in which "each song enhances and expands the story in a way that fully engages the audience in this world." He emphasized the importance of collaboration between the songwriters and the story creation team. During daily video chat meetings they were able to fully develop the movie's characters;"who they are, how they think, what they want."
'Let it Go,' which is arguably the best in the movie was not surprisingly the most important to the soundtrack's development as well. Robert Lopez explained to PR Newswire, "That was our lynchpin. We wanted to write the biggest, beltiest diva number we could channel because we knew we had Idina Menzel—who just knocks it out of the park—and we knew her character Elsa was experiencing something epic in her life."
The song is nominated for a Golden Globe (Best Original Song – Motion Picture), as is the movie itself (Best Animated Feature film).
Frozen is in theaters now. The Frozen soundtrack is available for purchase on iTunes, Amazon, and at other music retailers.
Image courtesy of Amazon