Listen To The ‘Music Of Soul’ Ahead Of Release Of Three Albums Inspired By Pixar Film
Do ya like jazz? Well, you’re going to, if Pixar has anything to say about it. The upcoming Pixar animated filmSoulis a love letter to the music genre, and that love letter will extend beyond the film itself. Disney and Pixar are releasing not one, but three albums related toSoul, one of which is a vinyl album inspired by the film from jazz musicianJon Batiste. And to get you excited about all that jazz, Pixar has released a “Music ofSoul” featurette, which goes into the making of the incredible soundtrack of the film. Watch the Music ofSoulfeaturette below.
Music of Soul Featurette
Soulhas one of the best scores to come out of a Pixar film, and that’s no accident: directorsPete DocterandKemp Powerswanted to make sure jazz was another character in the film, and enlisted musicianJon Batisteto make that happen. ButSoulis more than just a love letter to jazz. It also gets metaphysical, and for that portion of the film, onlyTrent Reznor andAtticus Rosscould do justice with a synthy, trippy score. So to cover all their bases with the incredible musical range thatSoulencompasses, Walt Disney Records is releasing not one, but three albums related to the Pixar film.
The first is theSoul Original Motion Picture Soundtrack, the second is aSoul Original Scorevinyl album and lastly, there’s theMusic From and Inspired by Soulvinyl album. The soundtrack includes the score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, but also includes the songs “Rappin Ced” performed by Daveed Diggs, “Parting Ways” performed by Cody ChesnuTT, and Batiste’s cover of the Curtis Mayfield classic “It’s All Right.”
“Jon Batiste is a fantastic musician—he’s a historian yet is able to push the music forward, bringing all these different influences to the work. I sincerely hope that the jazz music in ‘Soul’ will inspire a whole new generation,” Docter said.
Added Batiste, “All the compositions are influenced by a large swath of the hundred-plus years of jazz music, which gives the listener a lot of reference points. It’s a subtle way to pay homage while also introducing a whole new audience to these types of sounds.”
As for the score by Reznor and Ross, Docter wanted the score to be “different from any other Pixar film. We were excited to work with Trent and Atticus because we knew they would bring us places we’d never gone before.” This means lots of synthetic music and experimental arrangements for the scores in the Great Beyond and the Great Before, which Reznor said was about using the “variety of real, imagined and synthetic instruments, and [spending] the first chunk of time experimenting with different arrangements and different instruments and seeing what felt emotionally right to create the fabric of this world.”
The digitalSoul Original Motion Picture Soundtrackfeatures 42 score and jazz tracks; theSoul Original Scorevinyl album by Reznor and Ross features 23 tracks (Side A 12 tracks / Side B 11 tracks); andMusic From and Inspired By Soulvinyl album by Jon Batiste features 22 tracks (Side A 15 tracks / Side B 7 tracks).
Thedigitalsoundtrack and bothvinylalbums will all be made available onDecember 18, 2020.
