Date: Mar 6, 1993
Weeks: 1
One thing I decided early on for this blog was that I had to review the performance that was recorded on the single that went on the charts. I could drive myself trying to compare every live performance, re-recording, cover, and remix. Sometimes I like to go to those alternate versions just to illustrate how the song could be made better, or why the performance that charted is bad, but ultimately I'm judging the version of the song that was popular.
And so with that all said, I can now safely state that I hate this song.
I loved Disney's Aladdin when it was new. I still like it now. And I think "A Whole New World," as performed by the characters in the movie, is a fine song (although the movie has better songs). But I hate this recording. It's overproduceed, oversung, overdone, and underinteresting.
The music is the first problem. It's just so gentle and slow. This is a problem in the alternating wood block/tambourine percussion line and the gentle steel drum music line, which makes up the base of the song. Eventually they switch over to the power ballad tropes of the poundy 80s drums, and the most gentle "rocking guitar solo" I think I've ever heard. There aren't very many layers of sound, and they are all extremely slow without being very sincere.
The other sincerity problem comes in the vocals. Peabo Bryson oversings it a little, but he isn't too bad. Actually, now that I'm focusing specifically on his performance, I think he may be the best part of this recording. He does a fine job and if he does oversing a little, his performance at least matches the music. The real problem here is Regina Belle. She is in full self-showcase, oversinging mode. She adds all kinds of trills where they don't belong, and even sings some of the notes wrong ("endless diamond sky" being a particularly egregious example). I think she's trying to add her unique style to the song, but this is a carefully calculated production designed to promote a Disney movie. The whole track is overproduced, and Belle's free vocal style here doesn't match it at all.
Belle further irritates me by being bad at pronunciation. "Soaring, tumbling, freewheeling through and en-less diamond sky." She misplaces the "d" sound from "endless" and turns "an" into "and." This isn't a live performance, or a raw recording where small mistakes add personal flavor. This is a Disney promotional song. Why didn't they do another take of that? Heck, this is the early 90s. Major entertainment companies could edit that sort of thing out of an audio track. In a track that is otherwise so irritatingly polished, why is that mistake allowed to stand out like that?
It's hard to criticize the lyrics from a musical. They make sense in their original context, so it's only a problem if the lyrics are weird and you manage to get far enough away from the context to emphasize their weirdness. That doesn't really happen here, so I guess the lyrics are fine.
My verdict: Don't like it. But I'm glad I reviewed it, because I now realize that Peabo Bryson isn't as bad as I though. He's the only good thing happening in this song.
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