Coco Soundtrack Review
Pixar’s latest animated movie, Coco, brings a new original score from Oscar-winning composer Michael Giacchino. Coco tells the story of 12-year-old Miguel, an aspiring musician who hopes to follow in his idol s famous footsteps despite his family s ban on music. While Coco might not be classed as a Musical, the movie has music in its DNA and this album really showcases that. This album has a variety of different music styles, most of which are either Mexican or heavily inspired by Mexico.
While many of the tracks on the album could be considered “stereotypical” Mexican, which you might only hear while visiting Mexican tourist sights or the Mexican Pavilion at Walt Disney World’s Epcot, I absolutely love listening to this album. As a seasoned traveler, who has spent months touring Central America and has traveled to Mexico multiple times, this album just reminded me of that feeling and quickly worked its way into my soul.
With over 30 tracks on the albums, there are lots of smaller tracks that help that feature an amazing array of instruments, the solo guitar, where you can hear every single pluck of the strings to a full brass band.
The album also features a song by Oscar winners Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez, “Remember Me”, which is the main song from the movie, which is easily my favorite version of the song. Plus there are some variant versions along with a end-credit version sung by Grammy-Winning Singers Miguel and Natalia Lafourcade, which I found lacked the feeling of the other versions. Disney have a tendency to have popular artists cover the main song from movies to get more publicity and the “pop” version just lacks the “magic” feel that classic Disney songs have.
I also really liked the Lullaby version, though I found the “reunion” version of this song to be haunting, it is such a sad version and personally this song really hit a spot as I recently lost a Grandparent. Which made this song so much more special to me.
This album also brought in musical consultant Camilo Lara of the music project Mexican Institute of Sound, which brings some more great Latin music that I really enjoyed.
Other favourite tracks from this album are “Much Needed Advice”, which offers a great story about how music can help. I also really enjoyed “The World Es Mi Familia”, though its a little short and “Proud Corazon” is another great song to sing along with. I really feel these songs will become very popular once the movie opens everywhere, while they might not his the likes of Frozen or The Lion King, this album really is one of the best soundtracks I’ve heard this year.
Overall:
As someone who loves Latin music, this album has been a joy to listen to since its release and with over 30 tracks on this album, its much longer than your traditional Pixar soundtrack and while Pixar movies aren’t usually as “musical” as the “Disney Animated Classics”, this movies songs will no doubt grow more popular as more people discover the movie and I’ve been humming “Remember Me” all week!
Review Score: 8 VERY GOOD