‘Sing’ is a movie soundtrack. Listening to it without having seen the movie was hilarious - I put it on in my car when driving home from work one evening and had the shock of my life when a pretty fantastic cover of ‘Shake It Off’ by Reese Witherspoon was interrupted by the vocals of an enthusiastic Nick Kroll with a heavy German accent - spoiler… it only makes it even more fantastic.
Essentially, it’s not an album for you if you don’t know the story of the characters singing. Some tracks work perfectly as standalone singles, such as ‘Faith’ by Stevie Wonder (feat. Ariana Grande) and ‘Set It All Free’ by Scarlett Johansson (she is, coincidentally or not so coincidentally, the only reason I gave this soundtrack and movie a go), but the majority are just a little insane. Insane in a good way, but insane nonetheless. The movie tells of Buster Moon, a theatre-loving koala who is desperate to try and revive his crumbling stage of ‘wonder and magic’. To do this, he holds a singing competition, and along the way both him and his contestants discover a whole new meaning to friendship and hitting rock-bottom.
It’s a heartwarming and inspirational movie that I will recommend to anyone, even if you’re 24 without kids like I am. And after seeing the movie, the soundtrack went from insane to absolutely insanely brilliant. The genres are varied, ranging from smooth crooning jazz, to heavy punk-rock, to cheesy pop. There are covers of well-known hits as well as some original tracks, and I might be a little biased, but Scarlett’s original ‘Set It All Free’ is worthy of mainstream chart placement, if only for how it gets stuck in your head for days and you find yourself singing it in the most inappropriate of places.
Celebrities who don’t normally sing are also featured, such as Matthew McConaughey and Taron Egerton, a Brit who is now starting to make his was in the States, which proves to be a nice surprise and gives you that ‘ooh’ moment when you realise who has leant their previously-unknown vocal talents to the record. Excited tweets have also been posted about Tori Kelly, who voices the shy-but-talented Meena, an elephant who can quite literally bring the house down. There’s hope that she’ll start to gain some more recognition for her own records after this soundtrack.The fact that Family Guy’s Seth McFarlane is also a part of this endeavour offers its own humour, as he’s hardly kid-friendly yet here he is as Mike, a greedy, ambitious mouse with a love for smooth jazz.
Initially this album started out as a bit of a weird one for me but since gaining the right context, it’s enough to make me want to recommend it to everyone, kids or no kids, movie included. I’m also pumped for the sequel already, which is scheduled for release in 2020… only three years to go!
