Releases in Germany - LILO&STITCH new track!

[Dirk]

Hey there, Hi there, Ho there,

today I want to update you on four releases of Disney soundtracks here in Germany that might be of interested.

The local partner of Walt Disney Records is WEA Germany, which do not distribute the CDs of WD but actually produce them for Germany under that label and add special local releases under that label too.
Currently they are trying to rerelease all the english language original soundtracks of the animated features. Even so the cover may look different in fact all of these releases are identical with the current rereleases in the US. In the same program they are also rereleasing the original german soundtracks of the animated features. Currently most of the newer ones are already available (Pocahontas, Aladdin, ...). But without any announcement to fans or press they also released three german soundtracks that had not been released before:

1. Snow White and the 7 Dwarfs - instrumental sections identical to Randy's remastered version even so he is not named in the booklet, songs in a new translation and in a new recording, not the original vocals from the first movie release, but still the most complete release available. In the past some songs from the real original soundtracks had been released on several compilations which are now OOP. No bonus tracks so.
2. Pinocchio - again instrumental selections from Randy's remastered release, but the songs this time really feature the original vocals from the first release of the movie. Even so quiet old the quality is OK (even so not stellar). Interestingly the booklet does omit the names of the performers and the translator. REALLY NICE RELEASE!
3. Peter Pan - wasn't able to get a copy of that one yet, but from what I could see on Amazon.de it includes all the instrumental selections Randy remastered, but I don't know wether the vocal selections are the original german recordings from the first release. No bonus tracks so, as these were never recorded in German.


After these 3 releases of historical / collector's interest only on to the latest release which arrived in stores this Monday: the limited edition of the original soundtrack of Disney's Lilo & Stitch (I've seen it twice now and love it even more now, so I have to find time to see it a third time I guess ).

Different from the US limited edition release the German Limited Edition (limited to 999.999 copies) the CDs are limited not in the booklet or on the cover but on the paper-box, the yewel box comes in. That box has a Stitch impersonating Elvis on the cover, with the elvis cloths printed in a special silver coating that works as a mirror (sorry for the bad description). The booklet / yewel case does not give any hint that the release is limited, really only the box does... well that is on a first view ...
The normal German release is identical to the US-release (12 tracks, three of them score, the two Hawaian scongs, one by the A-Teens, one by Wynonna and the rest by Elvis) but the Limited Edition has a DIFFERENT TRACKLISTING!!

The normal track 11 "You Can Never Belong" from the score by Alan Silvestri has been omitted in favor of a track called "Ardiente Amor", which is performed by "Caf? Quijano". This is a Elvis-style "rock" song in what I think is Spanish which has been produced by Dann Huff and Wynonna (!). As I just got the Limited Edition today and only listened once to it and there is no information in the booklet who wrote the song, I can't say anything else besides that it successfully marries the Elvis-style songs with a bit of the Hawaian atmosphere. Still I can't remember wether the song was played in the movie, but to be honest I doubt it. If it was played than only in the background. And no, the song is not played during the end credits in the German release of the feature either. So I don't know how and why they came up with this track for the Limited Edition - besides that this should make collectors really interested in getting a copy of the Limited Edition for which there is no need otherwise.


I hope this was of some interest to you,

Yours sincerely
Dirk

 

[Dirk]

HI Bill,

Hercules really was outstanding as far as the bonus tracks are concerned. But this time you got me confused, in my collection I do only have the original US-release (without all the bonus stuff) and the original german language soundtrack release. Even so the later does include "Shooting Star" by Boyzone it does not give any information regarding who wrote the song... I'll try to take a look at the english language release of the soundtrack in Germany as it did include the bonus tracks too, wether that one includes this information (but I have to scan some record stores for that). So unfortunately I can't help you with that question.

Anyone else??


Yours
Dirk

 

[Dirk]

Hey there, Hi there, Ho there,

finally a follow up as I (beter late than never) got my hands on the release of the German soundtrack of Peter Pan. I can tell you know that it features the instrumentals as remastered by Randy for the Classic releases in the US and the original German vocals as recorded for the first release of the feature in Germany. Overall the CD does sound fine even so there is an obvious quality difference between the instrumental and the vocal parts :-(
The booklet includes the German lyrics and NO liner notes. Besides that it is identical with the booklet of the original release of the US-Peter Pan soundtrack from the "Classic"-series, it even has the same illustrations.

And before I forget it: after a rather slow sale of the "limited edition" soundtrack of "Lilo & Stitch" (I wonder why it was rather slow, maybe because it didn't include that much original material besides the Elvis songs?? Hey, there should have been big interest in the CD as the movie made it to the number one spot of the German movie charts!) the normal edition is now available in the record stores since a few weeks. Unfortunately I have to correct me now - "Ardiente Amor" by "Caf? Quijano" is included in that version too (replacing "You Can Never Belong"), so the only difference between the limited edition and the normal edition in the end is the paper box with the CDs number in which the jewel box came.


Yours
Dirk

 

[goldes]

Shooting Star from Hercules was released on all of the European formats. The songs was written by Alan Menken and David Zippel and was originally written for the film but unused. So similar to 'If I Never Knew You' from Pocahontas and 'Someday' from Hunchback, it was recorded as a Pop song and put on the closing credits of the film. If I remember correctly, the UK release closing credits had Shooting Star, followed by Belinda Carlisle's version of 'I Won't Say'.

The tradition of having European pop version of the songs continued with the Vanessa Mae version of Reflections from Mulan, the Peter Andre and Shaggy versions of songs from the Little Mermaid (for its re-release) and most recently with Gareth Gates performing Suspicious Minds on the UK Lilo & Stich album.