Why everybody has fallen in love with Frozen

MANILA, Philippines - It is awards giving time again for Hollywood and by some happy coincidence, the biggest-selling album in the US nowadays is the soundtrack of the movie Frozen. I do not know if the album is available in the local stores. But thankfully, we can now download music from the web, which I am sure the many fans of Frozen have already done.

Frozen is the latest animated feature from Disney and everybody has fallen in love with it. It has wonderfully reinvented the Hans Christian Andersen’s tale of The Snow Queen for today’s generation, created endearing new characters to love for the ages and introduced a batch of songs that I believe everybody will be singing again and again for all the years to come. Everybody loves the picture. Even the critics are pleased. Frozen is one of Disney’s best and just like the great ones from the past, Beauty And The Beast, Aladdin, The Lion King, it has songs that not only enhance the story but also stands alone as hits.

The soundtrack album features all the songs from the picture, led of course by the charming Let It Go as performed by Idina Menzel who plays the winter-bound Princess Elsa. Incidentally, Idina was one of the witching sisters in the original production of the musical Wicked on Broadway. There is also a pop version of Let It Go as used in the film’s end credits and sung by real-life Disney princess Demi Lovato. If you must know, the kiddies are in love with both versions.

Sven, the reindeer, cute as he is, does not sing, so he is not in the album but everyone else is in it. Kristen Bell, TV’s Veronica Mars is Princess Anna, Elsa’s sister. She has an enchanting duet with Idina, For The First Time In Forever and a love song, Love Is An Open Door with Santino Fontana who plays Prince Hal, who turns out to be not so princely at all. Glee star Jonathan Groff is the mountain man Kristoff, who turns out to be the hero of the tale. He does Reindeer Are Better Than People for his companion Sven. And Josh Gad is the adorable snowman Olaf who dreams of seeing summer with In Summer and not melting away.

There is a lot of Broadway in the songs and I can already see Frozen as a big musical on stage. And a great reason to be really so proud of it is that the songwriters are New York-based Filipinos, the husband and wife team of Kristen Anderson Lopez and Robert Lopez. Robert and Kristen lost out to U2 at the Golden Globe Awards. The winner of the Best Original Song was Ordinary Love, which was written by Bono and his band mates Paul Hewson, Dave Evans, Larry Mullen and Adam Clayton for Mandela Long Walk to Freedom. Both are also in the running in the upcoming Academy Awards.

We will know by March 3 if the members of the Academy will choose to sort of honor the great Nelson Mandela and U2 by also choosing Ordinary Love or maybe they might go for the child-like whimsy of Let It Go. There is also a big chance they might choose any of the other nominees. Also nominated under Best Song category this year are big hit single Happy by Pharrell Williams from Despicable Me; and The Moon Song from Her by Karen O and Spike Jonze.

Aside from the Frozen soundtrack, the other big-selling albums in the US this week as per Billboard Magazine’s Top 200 Albums list are: 2014 Grammy Nominees by Various Artists; Is There Anybody Out There by A Great Big World; Beyoncé by Beyoncé; Pure Heroine by Lorde; Kids Bop 25 by the Kids Bop Kids; Mind Over Matter by Young The Giant; High Hopes by Bruce Springsteen; Prism by Katy Perry; The Marshall Mathers LP 2 by Eminem;

Night Visions by Imagine Dragons; That Girl by Jennifer Nettles; Bad Blood by Bastille; The Heist by Macklemore & Ryan Lewis; Midnight Memories by One Direction; Bangerz by Miley Cyrus; Nothing Was The Same by Drake; Unorthodox Jukebox by Bruno Mars; Here’s To The Good Times by the Florida Georgia Line; and Crash My Party by Luke Bryan.

Here are the Top 20 tunes in the Hot 100 list: Dark Horse by Katy Perry feat. Juicy J; Timber by Pitbull feat. Ke$ha; Counting Stars by One Republic; Say Something by A Great Big World & Christina Aguilera; The Monster by Eminem feat. Rihanna; Talk Dirty by Jason Derulo feat. 2 Chainz; Let Her Go by Passenger; Team by Lorde; Royals also by Lorde; Pompeii by Bastille; Happy by Pharrell Williams; Story Of My Life by One Direction; Drunk In Love by Beyoncé feat. Jay Z; Burn by Ellie Goulding; Demons by Imagine Dragons; The Man by Aloe Blacc; Wake Me Up! by Avicii; Roar again by Katy Perry; Show Me by Kid Ink feat. Chris Brown; and Wrecking Ball by Miley Cyrus.