The Lion King (2019) Soundtrack Review
Walt Disney Records has released the soundtrack to Jon Favreau’s CGI remake of the much beloved The Lion King originally released in 1994 featuring stunning animation, memorable songs from Elton John, Tim Rice and the booming score of Hans Zimmer.
Zimmer and John have returned along with Pharrel Williams ( Despicable Me series) and international super star Beyonce to re-work the original’s beloved songs along with composing two new songs for the end credits of the film to be sung by Beyonce and Elton John. Hans Zimmer is also scoring the film as well bringing a special classic charm but with a new African twist in certain points of the score to make it more authentic.
The positives of the album are easily the new versions of the beloved songs from the original film with one small exception. Circle of Life is just as you remember it thanks to the archive audio from Lebo M. starting off the song bringing you back to the year 1994.
The new vocals from one of the Raffikis from the Broadway show, Lindiwe Mkhize is just as stunning as the original vocalist but at times can be hard to understand due to her accent. Some songs like I Just Can’t Wait To Be King, Hakuna Matata are just as you remember it albeit with the new actors instead. They make good tunes to listen on your road trips.
One of the weakest points of the soundtrack is easily the new version of Be Prepared , it really feels thrown in at the last minute compared to the other songs on this album since it barely goes up and above with what the iconic song has done in the original film. They should have just cut this out and avoid the embarrassment.
The soundtrack also includes the full version of Timon’s The Lion Sleeps Tonight, hilariously done with animal sounds as the backing track as Billy Eichner shines throughout the song showing he is a worthy replacement of Nathan Lane. Can You Feel the Love Tonight is honestly one of my least favourite takes from the album since it is essentially done as a pop song featuring Beyonce and Donald Glover rather than feeling like it is the characters themselves singing it. It would feel more at home in the end credits.
Speaking of end credits, Elton John returns with a brand new song written by Tim Rice and John. Titled Never Too Late, I like to think of it as a song about Raffiki teaching lessons to Simba that it is never too late to become who he truly is. The other new song is from Beyonce titled Spirit, it is decent but not something I would return to compared to Never Too Late which has been stuck in my head since buying this album off iTunes. It really reminds of the music from the Disney Junior show The Lion Guard.
Finally, two Lebo M songs are in the soundtracks, these are new versions of the song He Lives in You originally from the Rythym of the Pride Lands CD in 1995 that was then re-used in The Lion King II : Simba’s Pride a few years later. This is a much slower version compared to the original and completely sung in Swahili rather than English but it is still worth a listen. The other one is a shorter song called Mbube which is the original version of the earlier The Lion Sleeps Tonight sung in Swahili.
My final thoughts on The Lion King soundtrack are that I am happy that they did not try to change the songs as much as the Aladdin remake and remained quite faithful to the original versions right down to the background music being essentially almost the same as the original but it shines more. Hans Zimmer’s score is just as good as ever but he has added some elements from his Pirates scores into the background music making them more slow or loud when necessary, the Stampede score is just as empowering as ever with a slower tempo when Simba goes to find Mufasa’s corpse. My only negatives are really only Be Prepared and Spirit, the soundtrack would be solid without them.
RATING : 9 out of 10