When Frozen came out back in 2013 the music immediately became a focal point of the movie. Tunes such as Do You Want To Build a Snowman, Let it Go, and In Summer became pretty big hits. Lets be real, nearly every song on that soundtrack was pretty catchy and many of them were also pretty silly. The reason I bring this up is because it's important to understand how different Frozen II's soundtrack really is. Where Frozen mostly contained those happy, fun, and catchy tunes, Frozen II's explores a huge range of emotions ranging from that same happy to about as dark a feeling as one can feel. With so much emotion and power in the music it's really easy to forget that you're watching and listening to a Disney sequel considering their not so wonderful reputation overall.
As I mentioned already, Frozen's soundtrack had a handful of songs off the soundtrack that really stuck out from the rest. Sometimes I find myself skipping a few of the songs in-between those stand outs, but with Frozen II I have yet to skip a single track. Is there tracks that stand out to me more than others? Of course. That said I don't think a single track stands out nearly as much as Let It Go stood out in the original movie. Into the Unknown has been marketed and pushed as the big song in the movie, but pretty much anyone I've talked to agree that while the song is great, it is by no means head and shoulders above some of the others. So what are the tracks that stand out to me?
Right off the bat I have to call attention to All is Found which is the opening track of the movie and the album. I'm a huge fan of stories and legends being told through songs. The movie kicks off as Queen Iduna sings the song to Anna and Elsa as a lullaby. It then reprises multiple times throughout the movie as the lullaby ends up essentially becoming a reality. Right from the get go, the ominous lyrics of this track had me very curious about the movie. It does a great job foreshadowing even though it takes place in the past when Anna and Elsa's parents were alive. These types of songs always stand out to me and have always been an easy way for a movie to suck me in.
I find When I'm Older to be hysterical. For whatever reason a lot of my coworkers constantly say that I am always say things like "this is fine" and "that makes sense" (sarcastically on that one). That allowed me to kind of connect on a different level with this song. In Frozen II Olaf is maturing? Or at least getting older and facing a lot of questions about life. In the movie he sings this as the earth, wind, fire, and water spirits all find him and mess around with him. Each time one messes with him he just goes on believing that what just happened will make sense when he's older. I cant help but laugh as I find myself thinking the same thing when crazy things happen in my daily life. That'll make sense someday I tell myself. I know I can't be alone in that. Josh Gad hits it out of the park singing as always as well. While In Summer introduced us to Olaf in Frozen, When I'm Older really explores his dilemma of being lost in the forest and trying to figure out things in life as he matures compared to the 10000% happy go lucky character we see in the first movie.
Before I get into my top two songs on the soundtrack, lets get back to Into the Unknown. The "standout" track of this film I think is actually weaker than several others in the movie. It's still a good song and is certainly one worth talking about, but I have a few issues with it. I admit some of these issues may be due to how frequently this song is being compared to Let It Go, so please bear with me. Visually I feel that the song gave too much away. While the animation is nothing short of stunning, seeing all of the spirits kind of spoiled the surprise. Up till this song all we had hinting at anything possibly happening in this movie was the lyrics of All is Found. Here we see each spirit, though we don't know they are what we will be seeing as the movie went on. That kind of ruined the suspense for me when the spirits force the people of Arendelle out since we knew that wind, fire, water, and earth were all going to be involved. Of course that's just the visual end of things and really has nothing to do with the song itself. Back to the music as they say...
Let It Go did such a great job in setting up Elsa's character for the rest of that movie that it was going to be hard to match. One of the things that I feel that song did so right was controlling high notes. Much of Let It Go focuses on seeing what Elsa can do. Testing herself and finding the strength to make the most of who she is despite her fears and hesitations. When she finally reaches that point of power where she has her ice castle built she belts out some high notes near the end of the song. This created so much drama. The first time I watched Frozen I thought that at that point she was turning into a villain. The power and confidence in her voice in comparison to how it was at the start of the song was like night and day. Into the Unknown I think misses that mark. Much of the song consists of high notes. I guess you could say I find it too dramatic. Both songs set up the rest of the movie for what Elsa wants, but where Let It Go was an epic slow build that climaxed as Elsa realizes what she can do, Into the Unknown just screams it's time for an adventure.
While not as stand out to me as the others in this blog, Into the Unknown is still a great song. The lyrics themselves I feel are overall well done. Again, comparing it to Let It Go will make them seem weaker in comparison, but on their own they're solid. It's still a very powerful and driving song. While the amount of high notes make me feel like it's too dramatic, the other side of the coin is that those high notes show just how brave and strong Elsa has become. By the time the first half or so of the song ends Elsa is ready for the adventure and that's where the high notes commence. Again, I like the song and it is certainly a stand out, but really this next song I think is the one that should be getting the praise and that is Show Yourself.
Show Yourself is one of the final songs in the movie and it is one of the two most powerful. It comes at a point where Elsa has just tamed the water spirit and she arrives at her final destination. That nervousness and uncertainty are there again at the start of the song. As the song progresses though, Elsa again gains confidence as she continues to hear the mysterious call and heads deeper into the island. The suspense continues to build throughout until she finally gets to what I'm guessing is the center of the cave. Before we go further remember what I was talking about with high notes. This song does it so right. It starts off with Elsa almost at a speaking level as far as notes go. By the time she reaches the center the excitement and suspense of the song is reaching a climax and the notes start to get higher. It's a very similar feel and strategy that helped Let It Go become the mega song it turned into. Anyway...
Elsa is again visited by the spirits that form a massive snowflake when Elsa steps in the center. There is then a reprise of All is Found right in the middle of the song as Queen Iduna's spirit is revealed as the voice Elsa has been hearing. There is an incredible and emotional duet between Elsa and the spirit of her mother which Idina Menzel and Evan Rachel Wood knock straight out of the park as Elsa is revealed as the fifth spirit. The animation is incredible and powerful in its own right, but there is more to it. The message behind this song though is so powerful that I think it should send Let It Go out of the top Frozen song slot of the masses.
There's a large number of people who have really connected with this song and it is really easy to see why. Elsa finds herself in this song and no longer has any fear of who she is. She isn't going to hide who she is at all anymore and embraces everything about herself. That is such a hard thing for so many people to do. The emotion that was put into this song helps to make it a powerhouse and incredibly inspiring. We have a character that went from being petrified of who she was at the start of the first movie, to one that had confidence yet was still unsure of who she was or why she was the way she was, to one that realized all the answers she was looking for were within herself. It's really powerful stuff. I personally know a couple people that have tried to change their outlook on themselves based on this song. They have stopped letting their pasts define them and are showing themselves as who they are and not what they're supposed to be or what they used to feel they needed to be.
While I truly believe Show Yourself is the Let It Go (but done even better) of this movie, it is The Next Right Thing that completely stunned me and by far hit me the hardest in all the ways. Full disclaimer here. I do not cry during movies. I do not cry listening to music. I think I've gotten through this song perhaps twice without shedding a tear. The song takes place shortly after Show Yourself as Anna is lost in a cave. Kristoff was nowhere to be found, Elsa had just froze, and Olaf just flurried away. Left completely alone Anna delivers what starts out as the most hard hitting Disney song and builds into an incredibly moving yet equally as hard hitting song. Early on the lyrics strongly suggest that Anna has a past of being in dark places, though none as dark as the current one during the song. She even states that she is ready to succumb to that darkness. Despite that dark though she hears a whisper that tells her that she must go on. The rest of the song is a battle between that darkness pulling at Anna and her drive to do the next right thing.
As the song continues Anna breaks down the overwhelming situation into literally the next breath, next choice, and next step. When she does her confidence begins the grow and the music crescendos as Anna stumbles through the cave realizing that while things will never be the same she will still do the next right thing. As is the case with this movie in general, the animation that goes with this song is nothing short of stunning. Anna's raw emotions are so easy to see and feel. Kristen Bell delivers an A+ performance here and literally no emotion is lost in her singing.
With all of that said, I've got to touch on why this song hits so hard for me. Depression is a nasty beast. It's one that affects many people all over the world and has many different effects on those people. Just a little over a year ago I had a major life changing event that sent me down into probably the darkest place I had ever been in. I'm still battling back from that event and this song almost word for word describes the battle I personally have been having. That feeling of being totally alone I felt. That feeling of not knowing what to do I felt. The feeling of having to take things one literal step at a time I continue to feel. The feeling of stumbling blindly towards the light I feel everyday. Just trying to do the right thing every day. It sounds so simple, yet it is just so difficult to do when you've got that kind of darkness pulling you back. When I heard this song the first time it floored me with its lyrics. I was shocked that Disney actually put this song in the movie, but I was so happy they did.
As I said before, there are people all over the world that are dealing with their own personal depression battles and not everyone is able to handle it as well as others do. Disney brought attention to this and again, I don't think this song is the best overall on the soundtrack, I do think it may very well be tied with Show Yourself as the most important on the soundtrack. Is the song too much for kids? No. Even earlier in life depression rears its ugly head and even the most basic of tasks can become mountains. Things like getting out of bed, taking a shower, eating. They sound so incredibly basic and trivial, but they all fall into that next right thing. Waking up and feeling like complete garbage and feeling like it isn't worth getting up is awful. That voice of doing the next right thing though is so true. One literal step at a time each day. It's all that can be done when those feelings are there. In the movie Anna ends up reunited with everyone she lost, which made all her next right things worth it. In the real world the same thing can apply. Do those next right thing and eventually something good will happen. You'll find someone else after losing the most important person in your life. You'll get that job that will save you from not the best of living conditions. You'll rise from an addiction. You'll conquer whatever mountain life has thrown at you. Your life won't be the same as it was, but that doesn't mean it wont be a great one.
I could go on and on about The Next Right Thing and just how important I think the song is in this movie and outside the move, but it's time that I start wrapping up this blog. There are a few songs from the soundtrack I didn't talk about such as Lost in the Woods and Some Things Never Change. Both of those songs are great as well, but personally they didn't connect with me as much as these others did. The deluxe edition of the soundtrack also adds in a few deleted songs that are also really well done. I much prefer these outtakes to the outtakes on Frozen's soundtrack. Some like Unmeltable Me are silly while others such as Get This Right and I Seek the Truth actually would have added some serious character development for Kristoff, Anna, and Elsa respectively. It's pretty wild that these two songs in particular were left out, but that just shows how incredibly strong the rest of the soundtrack is.
Frozen II's soundtrack is one that will resonate with me I would think for a long time for a multitude of reasons. Show Yourself is my pick for best song on the soundtrack and if I had to pick I'd say that The Next Right Thing is the most important. As far as the weakest song goes... I'm not going to count the brief Reindeer are Better Than People (Continued) so I will have to say Some Things Never Change. It's a very Frozen song for sure and is great in its own right, but it's not one I find myself singing or having many thoughts on when I listen to it. If you have been listening as you read along, perhaps you agree with me, perhaps you don't. Either way thank you as always for reading! If you'd like to discuss this soundtrack leave a comment, otherwise expect the next blog coming real soon!
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