@Nobodyman said in Channel Awesome, AVGN, and other web review shows:
@Bugs said in Channel Awesome, AVGN, and other web review shows:
A song created for a film should be focused on how it benefits the movie not about how catchy it is to sing or great to listen
If so, why include a song at all? If the only concern is advancing the story or characters, then you may as well just have it be ordinary dialogue.
Because sometimes it's works better as a song because it's more entertaining, interesting, to go for a certain effect, etc. Having Sebastian sing about how great the ocean is means you can also go out all out with the visuals whereas the scene would have to be more pallid if he just listed them off; audience accept things happening on-screen (or on-stage) when the characters burst into song that they don't when just speaking (and for what it's worth, I would argue that all four songs you mentioned earlier lose quite a bit without the visuals, which are probably the strongest elements in those scenes). The opening part of Toy Story where Andy plays with Woody while the credits appear would be dull to watch on it's own terms, but "You've got a Friend in Me" invokes a feeling of nostalgia that makes Andy's actions more relatable (songs don't have to be diegetic, after all). Gene Kelly would look more an asylum inmate if he wasn't singing in the rain (and the film actually even winks at this with the brief bit involving the police officer).
You could have a song that, technically, does its job of revealing or emphasizing information about the plot or characters, but if, sonically, it sound likes ass, what's the point?
Absolutely (unless it's meant to be bad-singing to make you laugh), but think a few songs you love from your favorite non-film music albums. Now imagine them replacing the songs in say Aladdin or Les Miserables. Awful right. You can't just take Prince's Purple Rain and then insert into Beauty and the Beast and expect it to work. (One problem with using music from outside in films and games is that we don't have the a shared experience so the intended effect doesn't always come).
The quality of a matte painting is not how good it would look in a museum but how well it fits with the film at suggesting location, mood, creating a sense of verisimilitude, and the like. The same logic applies to a song in a movie. The performance, the composition, the song writing, they all matter, but in a film, there's a lot of other factors to consider during the creative process that don't apply for a single.
To be clear, I'm not saying any of the songs in Encanto sound like ass. To me, most of them are just serviceable. As you say, they're fine during the movie, they fulfill their purpose, but I don't have any great desire to listen to them on their own or revisit. But there have been tons of great Disney songs over the years that I would gladly go out of my way to listen to outside the context of the movies. Same for movie and video game soundtracks. There are lots of people who love listening to them on their own, and I think that is a sign of truly great music.
There's nothing with listening to movie or game soundtracks by themselves.
I think Silent Hill and Donkey Kong Country have great soundtracks (at least when they're not stealing from elsewhere), I also think if you switched them, the play experience would suffer greatly. Conversely, I think no one would praise them as great music or listen to them on their own terms. (Also the composer should be fired for not doing their job). So context does matter.
When I saw that, I knew I'd love this channel!