The Lion King 2019 tracklist, Be Prepared is in!

[Elton John]

https://www.broadwayworld.com/bwwtv/article/THE-LION-KING-Original-Motion-Picture-Soundtrack-to-Release-on-July-11th-20190624

I CALLED IT I CALLED IT I CALLED IT

buncha fools believed be prepared got the axe on such flimsy evidence...

Also apparently ‘he lives in you’ is in the movie.

[TheLionPrince]

I can't wait to listen to the new versions of the original songs and the new song now titled "Never Too Late". Also, I noticed there's a "TBA" on the soundtrack listing. Perhaps, Beyoncé will perform a new song that will appear in the film.

[Panpardus]

I don't think they're going to actually have all of the songs in the film; some of it is probably just there as extra "exclusive" music to help sell the album itself. I'm specifically looking at "He Lives In You" and "Mbube" (although it is great to finally see Solomon Linda get his due as the song's original composer and hear a modern take on his original version).

[quote="TheLionPrince"]I can't wait to listen to the new versions of the original songs and the new song now titled "Never Too Late". Also, I noticed there's a "TBA" on the soundtrack listing. Perhaps, Beyoncé will perform a new song that will appear in the film.[/quote]
That one's been more or less confirmed by Favreau (in a recent Fandango interview) to be the new song in this movie itself that Beyoncé co-wrote with Lebo M. and Hans Zimmer, so definitely interested in hearing that and seeing how it fits into the story. It's supposed to be this film's functional equivalent of "Shadowland".

[Panpardus]

Haven't listened to the whole thing -- I'm trying to save as much for the theater as possible -- but I'll give a review of the ones I have heard. I wrote some of this already in the main thread for the movie, so just copy-pasting here; apologies if you've seen some of it before. In order of appearance on the soundtrack (which is here, in case you haven't seen it: https://music.apple.com/us/album/the-li ... 1472083270):

"Circle of Life/Nants' Ingonyama"
It's good; just as strong as the original, if not slightly more bombastic in the main chorus; there's a lot more percussion and the bass "slaps" (to borrow a current popular term among the black interwebs) harder than the original. There's also some new instrumental ornaments in the background that makes it feel a little different from the original if you're attentive to that sort of thing; the average person probably won't notice though. Unfortunately they played it safe with the arrangement; it's identical to the original in terms of form -- I'd hoped they expanded on the "Nants' Ingonyama" part like the Broadway version and a few other more African-leaning versions do -- and the only thing that's really noticeably different is the singer for the English lyrics. (One of the long-time actresses for the Broadway Rafiki, Lindiwe Mkhize, sings this time. She's good.)

"Hakuna Matata"
Overall I actually kinda like this one more than the original -- at least I would say that, if only Seth Rogen could actually sing well. His intro line is... oof I don't know how that got through, but it's some of the worst singing I've ever heard on a professional recording. Otherwise, all the other singers are good; Billy Eichner is a little extra but it fits his character; I really like how Donald Glover sings on this and his approach to the melody. The lyrics and jokes are good too, though it's mostly 4th wall-breaking stuff that probably wouldn't work as well without knowledge of how the original song and sequence goes. ("You've grown 400 pounds since we started.") Instrumentation and arrangement is different in a good way; some stuff is scaled back (I'm thinking the choir part in the middle where they hold a bunch of chords) and in their place is new little riffs from different instruments. It overall feels like a fresh take; I hope the other musical numbers are like that.

"The Lion Sleeps Tonight"
It's an expanded, mostly a capella version of Timon and Pumbaa's version from the original. I won't describe it too much because listening to the whole thing is actually a bit of a spoiler for one of the changes this movie makes to the original story and it deserves to be a surprise. I will say that it's definitely a more fun improvement on the cartoon; I even found myself smiling and bobbing my head to the beat the first time I heard it. Seth Rogen even actually sounds decent in it!

"Spirit"
This is the "TBA" song on the initially-published soundtrack list and it's grown on me since I listened to it with properly functioning headsets a couple days ago. (Elevated somewhat by the music video that came out today: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=civgUOommC8) Say what you will about Beyoncé, but this is a nice reminder that the woman can sing and [co]write a good song. Aside from "Hakuna Matata", it's nice to see more Kiswahili being incorporated into the music associated with the original Lion King story, since most of the movie's African lyrics are in isiZulu (a South African language) even though the movie takes place in Kenya (where Kiswahili is a national language). My only real disappointment with this is that it doesn't seem like a song sung by one of the characters, it's just a voiceover song for I assume the montage where Simba and Nala return to Pride Rock. (If you've seen the more recent commercials it's been shown that they travel back together instead of separately.) Then again, I did always say that if this movie were to be a musical, it would probably work better if the characters weren't singing the songs themselves, because as we've seen in the "Hakuna Matata" clip, realistic singing lions don't exactly look convincing.

"He Lives In You"
The biggest difference is that it's all in isiZulu, which is cool to hear. The added syllables make it more syncopated and lend the song as a whole to have more of an active groove than the original, which I like. It's got a vibe and instrumentation closer to the Broadway iteration, actually. I don't think this is in the movie at all, or even during the credits, but I appreciate that it exists anyway.

"Never Too Late"
Of the brand new songs, I think this one is the catchiest. The message captures the story and struggle of (adult) Simba, and it's nice to hear Lebo M. and Elton John actually performing together on a song. There's some weird volume issue though where the intro is noticeably quieter than the rest of the song even though it's got the same energy, and it's not supposed to be a deliberate effect or anything. Either way, I'm sure this one's in the end credits and it's perfectly fitting.

"Mbube"
Nice for Disney and the Lion King franchise to finally introduce (Western) audiences to the original song by South African Solomon Linda from which "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" derived, and Lebo M. does it plenty of justice. It's still a modern take on the song -- the original from 1939 is much slower, understated, and almost entirely a capella: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrrQT4WkbNE -- but it's the closest to the original iteration than any other version I've heard (and there's been a lot). Definitely a fitting tribute to celebrate the 80th anniversary of its release.

I'll probably edit this to add my thoughts on the rest of the musical numbers from the soundtrack once I've seen the movie. Don't know how much I'll comment on the score elements though; I'll probably just bring up certain parts if something stands out to me.