The songs from Disney’s Encanto have continued to break records and make history in both the Billboard Charts in the U.S. and the U.K. singles and album charts. We Don’t Talk About Bruno continues to top the singles chart on both sides of the Atlantic and in other countries around the world and on iTunes. The song, which acts as a story device in the latest Disney movie, surprised everyone, including its creator Lin-Manuel Miranda, who admitted that he doesn’t quite understand why that song was the one that has become the breakout hit of the soundtrack.
This week, We Don’t Talk About Bruno held onto the top spot in the U.K. singles chart, and climbed to the top of the Billboard chart in the U.S. after previously peaking at Number 2. The song has become the first Disney track to top the U.S. chart since Aladdin’s A Whole New World back in 1992, and the first-ever to achieve that status in the U.K. While the success of the song has seemingly rested on word of mouth, there is no doubt that its momentum has been greatly aided by the ability of music listeners to easily access any song via streaming. If the movie had been released ten years ago, it is doubtful that Disney would have gone to the effort of putting the song out in CD format, which would have been the only way for the song to make it into the charts.
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While all the attention is on We Don’t Talk About Bruno, the other songs from the movie have also found their way into the chart, again a first with multiple songs landing in the Top Ten. Just like the number one track from the soundtrack, songs like Surface Pressure and What Else Can I Do? have a familiarity about them that makes it seem like these are songs that have been around for years, and enhancing the appeal.
Why Does We Don’t Talk About Bruno Sound Instantly Familiar?
Disney
When The Greatest Showman became a huge success, it was mainly on the back of its soundtrack, with songs like This Is Me, Never Enough and From Now On tapping into several common, catchy musical styles to hook listeners instantly. There is something similar in the songs of Encanto, and there is a good reason for that too.
We Don’t Talk About Bruno uses a traditional Latin beat, structure and melody, and for anyone who has tried to pin it down, it is almost identical to that used in Santana’s 90’s hit Smooth, to the point it has been combined with the song to create a mash-up by one YouTube user. In addition to this, Miranda’s lyrics wrap around the beat in a way that draws you in, and even though out of context, the song makes no real sense, it doesn’t matter because the melody is stuck in your head, and it stays there. The song also continues giving until the end, altering its delivery of the verses and the chorus to its multi-layers conclusion that has been replicated on social media apps such as TikTok, once again promoting it to more people.
While Encanto did manage to get one song nominated for an Oscar in today’s announcement, the Academy decided that Dos Oruguitas was the best of the songs on offer from the movie. The Academy’s choice is not surprising, as this is the only song of the film that doesn’t link directly to the visuals of the movie, and there is no denying that it is a good track. Once again, it has something that sounds like you have heard it before, and that could be due to part of the hook taking the melody from another Disney classic, Under The Sea from The Little Mermaid.
How long Encanto will continue to cast its magic over the charts is something that we can only wait to find out, but the film has certainly cemented its place in Disney history, and just like movies such as Frozen, The Lion King, Beauty and the Beast and many others has a soundtrack that will be enjoyed by future generations to come. So perhaps, in the long run, it is ok to talk about Bruno.
