Hey there, Hi there, Ho there,
I just realized that I hadn't posted anything about the Princess Diaries 2 soundtrack on this board ... so I couldn't resist.
First of all: no score - that is a big minus in my book. There surely is enough space on the CD to include at least some of the score ... I would have loved to hear it as I don't see myself going to the theater to watch the movie, even so Julie Andrews is in it.
Which brings me to the second point: the track she performs together with Raven and Anne Hathaway(?). Well, her singing voice is better than I would have expected and she actually gets to not only "talk-sing". In the beginning so her performance is lacking a bit of a flow and there is too much staccato in it - a problem which later in the song disappears. I wonder why they did not rerecord the beginning of the song, after all it is a studio recording and not a live performance. Anyway overall a quite nice song and nice performance - just not memorable at all. Maybe they should have looked for a more memorable tune. With all the frenzy that surrounded the "Julie Andrews is singing again" track it is a bit of a letdown, but not necessarily because of her but the material.
Which allows to change the topic to the rest of the material on the CD. On the upside: all but one song is actually heared in the movie according to the "booklet", so not too much "inspired by" material. Unfortunately the songs are at best up to the usual average quality of Radio Disney material. But then this does connect with the audience of the movie, so no cause for laments here - even so I personally am not hot on the songs with one or two exceptions.
To come to an end one final point of critic: synergy!! In the past one was used to get special editions of Disney soundtracks or CDs at Disney Stores or the Disney theme parks. Seems no longer. Brother Bear already had a special edition with one extra track by Phil Collins that was NOT sold at any Disney Store, and not Princess Diaries follows suit. In this case Target is said to sell or have sold (?) a special edition with one Bonus Track. Annoying - especially for international fans like me. Living in Germany there is no way to get such a special edition usually but through e-bay, where not even all of them show up ... while I do not really care in the case of Princess Diaries 2 (as it is NOT a score track as far as I know) I'm still looking for that Brother Bear special edition with the Bonus Track.
Pushing their most loyal customers (and some normal customers too) from their own Disney Stores and stores in the Disney theme parks to the big chains like Target sure is a bad concept synergy wise and earning wise. I wonders who came up with that. At least we should be happy that there so far have been only one normal and one special edition of the CDs. Lyric Street the country music label of Disney is just pushing the frontier even further. For the new / latest Rascal Flatts CD released Tuesday (28th) they have a normal version and two different limited editions one through Target and one through some other chain, both of them certainly having different Bonus Tracks, forcing fans / collectors to buy most propably at least 2 CDs ... which in the end might help the performance of the album on the sales charts.
Yours
Dirk
I just realized that I hadn't posted anything about the Princess Diaries 2 soundtrack on this board ... so I couldn't resist.
First of all: no score - that is a big minus in my book. There surely is enough space on the CD to include at least some of the score ... I would have loved to hear it as I don't see myself going to the theater to watch the movie, even so Julie Andrews is in it.
Which brings me to the second point: the track she performs together with Raven and Anne Hathaway(?). Well, her singing voice is better than I would have expected and she actually gets to not only "talk-sing". In the beginning so her performance is lacking a bit of a flow and there is too much staccato in it - a problem which later in the song disappears. I wonder why they did not rerecord the beginning of the song, after all it is a studio recording and not a live performance. Anyway overall a quite nice song and nice performance - just not memorable at all. Maybe they should have looked for a more memorable tune. With all the frenzy that surrounded the "Julie Andrews is singing again" track it is a bit of a letdown, but not necessarily because of her but the material.
Which allows to change the topic to the rest of the material on the CD. On the upside: all but one song is actually heared in the movie according to the "booklet", so not too much "inspired by" material. Unfortunately the songs are at best up to the usual average quality of Radio Disney material. But then this does connect with the audience of the movie, so no cause for laments here - even so I personally am not hot on the songs with one or two exceptions.
To come to an end one final point of critic: synergy!! In the past one was used to get special editions of Disney soundtracks or CDs at Disney Stores or the Disney theme parks. Seems no longer. Brother Bear already had a special edition with one extra track by Phil Collins that was NOT sold at any Disney Store, and not Princess Diaries follows suit. In this case Target is said to sell or have sold (?) a special edition with one Bonus Track. Annoying - especially for international fans like me. Living in Germany there is no way to get such a special edition usually but through e-bay, where not even all of them show up ... while I do not really care in the case of Princess Diaries 2 (as it is NOT a score track as far as I know) I'm still looking for that Brother Bear special edition with the Bonus Track.
Pushing their most loyal customers (and some normal customers too) from their own Disney Stores and stores in the Disney theme parks to the big chains like Target sure is a bad concept synergy wise and earning wise. I wonders who came up with that. At least we should be happy that there so far have been only one normal and one special edition of the CDs. Lyric Street the country music label of Disney is just pushing the frontier even further. For the new / latest Rascal Flatts CD released Tuesday (28th) they have a normal version and two different limited editions one through Target and one through some other chain, both of them certainly having different Bonus Tracks, forcing fans / collectors to buy most propably at least 2 CDs ... which in the end might help the performance of the album on the sales charts.
Yours
Dirk