V/A: Aladdin (soundtrack, picture disc) [WALT DISNEY]

Why you'll love it

This picture disc comes in a die-cut paper sleeve, so the artwork is the record itself. "A Whole New World" won the Academy Award for Best Original Song and became the first song from a Disney film to win the Grammy for Song of the Year.

This edition

• Picture disc
• Die-cut paper sleeve

About the album

Plenty of films have a hit song; Aladdin has a whole side of them. The idea came from lyricist Howard Ashman, who pitched it to Disney, and Alan Menken wrote the music. Tim Rice took over the lyrics after Ashman's death in 1991, so the songs carry both writers' fingerprints.

Robin Williams' Genie runs away with "Friend Like Me" and the parade-sized "Prince Ali," all big-band brass and rapid-fire patter. "Arabian Nights" sets the scene, "One Jump Ahead" chases Aladdin across the rooftops of Agrabah, and "A Whole New World" appears twice, once from the film's magic carpet ride and once as the Peabo Bryson and Regina Belle duet that went to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100.

The film was the highest-grossing picture of 1992 and the first animated feature to pass half a billion dollars at the box office. We sell it to children and to the grown-ups who were children in 1992, and it's the grown-ups who know every word of "Prince Ali."

Also at Kops: more Aladdin on vinyl · browse Soundtracks

Tracklist

Listen

On Walt Disney Records (cat# D002058101), a reissue of the 1992 soundtrack.