Soundtrack Sidetracked: Moana

Moana is the 56th movie in the Disney Animated Canon, sandwiched between the pro-police, sloppily allegoried Zootopia (That I like but yes, the allegory is very sloppy) and Wreck it Ralph 2.

I'm not using that stupid subtitle.

HERE is the song they should have been pushing for Best Original Song! I'm not sure how people listened to it and felt indifferent! "Where You Are" is my favorite song in the movie and probably my favorite Disney song period. There's something about it - I love group songs like this. This one feels involved, warm, and alive.





There's also a Maori version! It's SO cool!



Perhaps that's why? It's easier to push a solo effort. Whatever, City of Stars - the song that ended up winning - was a duet.

Then again, the actual actors didn't even perform it at the Oscars. They got John Legend.


"How Far I'll Go", the Award Bait song.

I don't hate it, it just pales in comparison to most of the other tracks. It's not performed badly by any means,  but I wish Moana could have gotten a power ballad like Elsa, as much as I still dislike the song. With a few lyric rewrites, I think the deleted song "More" would have been better.


I'd be loath to not count "We Know The Way", it includes a performance by Lin-Manuel Miranda himself!

I've never gotten the hang of the non-English parts (What language is that? I want to be correct), but it's a pleasure to listen to. I believe that Lin-Manuel did some of the vocals in that section too.


"How Far I'll Go - Reprise"

I like how it slowly gets more urgent with the music and performance that culminates into the relief of finally getting to go somewhere.


"You're Welcome" always felt like the least polished one vocally;

It's like what Double Toasted said; The singing isn't bad, you can tell he's really not a singer, but you like it because you can tell that The Rock was having a real fun time performing it, and then you start singing along and enjoying it too!

"Shiny" was the song I was most excited to hear, but frankly it left me a little lackluster. It felt like a rollercoaster, with a very good build up to something that was underwhelming.

I had to show you the actual scene because when I took my mother to see this, at this point, she went "I can't believe I'm watching this," LOL.

And it's sung by Jermaine Clement! Take advantage of that, he can sing a damn good villain song by a talking animal (See: Rio 2). I have it saved, but it's not necessarily my favorite song.

This movie has more reprises than anything I've ever seen. This one is "I Am Moana (Song of the Ancestors)".

You know, I'm not sure if reprises can be eligible for Best Original Song Oscars. I would have picked this before "How Far I'll Go", just because Auli'i sings this with so much more enthusiasm and emotion. Like, hello, didn't you hear that last line?

Once again, this is more of a one minute song, "Know Who You Are", than anything, but the visuals are so amazing! This scene alone makes me pissed that this didn't win Best Animated Feature. Zootopia is great, I love it, but the allegory is so muddled.

A second reprise where everything is wrapped up neatly.