Everything Is Going to Be Great Why Dont You Know It
Why "We Don't Talk About Bruno" Is the Biggest Disney Hit Since "Let It Go"
The TikTok favorite captures everything that makesEncanto groovy.
This week, "Nosotros Don't Talk Nearly Bruno"—a song from the soundtrack to Disney'southward latest animated flick, Encanto—climbed toward the top of the music charts, nestling itself among the likes of Lil Nas 10 and Adele on the Billboard Hot 100 and Spotify's almost-played tracks. The song sets one of the motion picture'due south dramatic climaxes, consisting of a revolving door of magical characters interjecting a whirlwind of melodies. Information technology all culminates in the film's protagonist, Mirabel, piecing together i of the movie'due south primal mysteries: What's the bargain with Bruno?
In that location are many aspects of this track contributing to its ascent popularity, weeks after Encanto's release: Not only is the song narratively compelling, but information technology's also a total bop. The music is a remarkable mixture of Broadway and Latin American influences, with a particularly distinctive rhythm. While the characters each sing the tricky and tight melodies we've come to expect from Lin-Manuel Miranda, they almost always avoid singing on the beat. The vocal'south repeating bass line also constantly teases our expectations; of the 30 notes that make up this lick, only two marshal with the beat out! This pervasive off-the-beat-ness is precisely why we can't help grooving to this vocal; when music evades the beat, it evokes a feeling of motion in listeners, tugging on our own centers of gravity equally it narrowly avoids coinciding with where we expect it to land.
The trajectory of "We Don't Talk Nigh Bruno" is equally dramatic. The song rotates through a series of verses, with different members of Mirabel's family each singing unlike melodies. Withal, unbeknownst to the listener, Miranda has composed each of these melodies to work together. As the vocal rips toward its climax, we hear a tornado of lines mashed together as the characters sing their individual melodies at the same fourth dimension. The moment produces an unexpected and sensational musical high point, and information technology cleverly references like overlapping dramatic pinnacles in Les Misérables, Due west Side Story, and fifty-fifty Sesame Street'due south famous breakfast conflict.
Just the song is more than just a danceable and catchy tune. The movie Encanto is well-nigh an enchanted family losing its magical powers due to some unseen forcefulness. Equally Mirabel struggles to understand this force, she interrogates each of her relatives about her absent-minded, fortunetelling uncle Bruno. Merely the vocal isn't really "about" Bruno in the same fashion the movie isn't really "about" magic. Instead, the motion picture is actually almost unresolved intergenerational trauma (especially in migrant and politically oppressed cultures), while the song actually lays bare the characters' ain frustrations, shortcomings, and prejudices.
For case, the first poesy finds Mirabel'south aunt Pepa and uncle Félix blaming Bruno for predicting rain at their wedding ceremony. However, Pepa's own magical powers command the weather; the underlying pregnant behind her verse is less about Bruno'southward alleged curse on her wedding, and more than nearly the couple's underlying frustrations with Pepa's inability to command her own ability ("in doing so he floods my brain").
Perhaps the most compelling moments in the vocal are those sung by Dolores, Mirabel's cousin, whose magical ears allow her to hear every movement and conversation within miles. The family, however, treats Dolores like a magical courier service, asking her merely to mechanically report on events and ignoring her feelings and input. In "Nosotros Don't Talk Most Bruno," Dolores' verse recounts what she'southward heard and deduced virtually her supposedly absent uncle. In the scant 19 seconds that she sings, her complex and roundabout lyrics reveal that she still hears Bruno effectually the house ("I can always hear him sort of muttering and mumbling") and that he tried to apply his gift to help the family unit ("it'south a heavy lift with a souvenir so humbling"), but he became alienated from his mother and siblings when his prophecies failed to align with their expectations ("grappling with prophecies they couldn't empathize"). But while Dolores drops these narrative bombshells, the music is too fast and as well soft for us to fully understand her. Delivered at twice the speed of whatsoever other verse, she whispers her syllables (compare the total-throated Pepa with the muted Dolores), making her words difficult, if not incommunicable, to comprehend. By being too fast and as well soft, the music cleverly forces the audition into the same human relationship with Dolores that she has with the rest of the family: She is trying to tell us the truth about Bruno, but we're unable to fully understand her.
As the track continues, the song embeds its own hidden musical prophecies. When Mirabel'due south too-perfect sister Isabela delivers her verse, she recounts Bruno's prediction that her own power and happiness will continue to grow ("He told me that the life of my dreams … would anytime be mine"). While these lines initially seem boastful and vapid, this passage somewhen plays a key function in Isabela's transformation afterwards in the flick. In Isabela's song "What Else Can I Do?" Mirabel helps her sister realize that her life has been restricted by her family's unrealistic expectations ("What could I do if I just knew it didn't need to exist perfect?"). As Isabela confesses "I'm so sick of pretty, I want something truthful," Mirabel recapitulates her sis's verse from "Nosotros Don't Talk About Bruno" to encourage Isabela to cover her ain wants and needs. Here, Mirabel musically reinterprets Bruno's prophecy, showing Isabela how she tin finally attain "the life of her dreams."
Fifty-fifty the key of "We Don't Talk About Bruno" hides information about the plot's terminal resolution. The vocal is in the key of C—that is, the note C serves equally its key domicile pitch—a fundamental that has already played an of import role in the soundtrack, with scenes that highlight familial love and connexion set in this fundamental. In contrast, songs that highlight Mirabel's growing altitude from her family ("The Family Madrigal" and "Waiting on a Miracle") foreground the note C-precipitous every bit a pitch one annotation away from C; these moments musically show Mirabel being pulled away from her family'southward central of C. Conversely, when the family confronts its issues and trauma later in the movie, the music moves back into the cardinal of C. "What Else Can I Exercise?" moves to that key during Isabela'due south crucial breakthrough, and Abuela (Mirabel's intransigent grandmother) has her own quantum in the ballad "Dos Oruguitas" in that key. "We Don't Talk About Bruno" describes the family'due south bug while foreshadowing their solutions, and by using the cardinal of C, the music is making an explicit connection betwixt these solutions and the ultimate resolutions of the family unit'south trauma.
In a lot of ways, "We Don't Talk About Bruno" is a surprising candidate for this distinction of the first Disney song since Frozen's megahit "Let It Become" to attain the pinnacle 5 on Billboard's Hot 100. After all, it's non a dear ballad, it'south not a solo anthem, nor is it even in a mainstream pop way. But the song is so absurd for so many reasons—musical, lyrical, and narrative—giving us all many reasons to talk about (and sing most, and brand TikToks most) "We Don't Talk Virtually Bruno."
Correction, Jan. 13, 2022: This slice originally misspelled the name Mirabel.
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Source: https://slate.com/culture/2022/01/encanto-soundtrack-we-dont-talk-about-bruno-tiktok.html
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