Image: Disney
Guess we ARE talking about Bruno
The soundtrack to Encanto, Disney’s newest animated film, has reached No. 1 on the Billboard Top 100 chart. From songwriter Lin-Manuel Miranda and composer Germaine Franco, the soundtrack has slowly been climbing the charts ever since the movie premiered. After Christmas Eve, when the movie hit Disney Plus, it broke into the top 10. The last Disney soundtrack to reach the Billboard No. 1 was 2019’s Frozen 2.
As for the individual songs, it should come as no surprise to anyone who’s watched the movie that the infectious “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” is the most popular song on the soundtrack. The song is currently the most streamed song on Spotify and is the first Disney Animation song since Frozen’s “Let it Go” to hit the Top 5 of the Top 100. Notably, the reggaeton earworm is not the song that Disney submitted for Oscar consideration. That goes to soft Spanish lullaby “Dos Oruguitas.” It is the only song from the movie submitted, likely in an effort to not split the votes. And since the deadline for submission was Nov. 1, there was no way Disney knew which song would take off. The acoustic and bittersweet “Dos Oruguitas” — which comes at a major tear-jerking moment in the film — is a more traditional fit.
Encanto follows a magical family in Colombia, where each of the members is blessed with a miraculous gift — except for plucky Mirabel. When the magic is threatened, Mirabel sets out to save it. Filmmakers Jared Bush and Byron Howard sought to “evolve the Disney musical” and in doing so, leaned way more into musical theater sensibilities than Disney movies past — each song in Encanto efficiently and effectively spurs on the plot and character development. And they’re just so damn catchy!
