The Strange Way to Cover Classic Songs
Before reading any further, here are three covers of three 1970s songs:
They’re pretty good covers, right? But why do they exist? Music this good costs money to make, and redoing classic songs, albeit fun, probably doesn’t pay for itself.
There’s one critical thing that links these songs together: “September” was covered for animated childrens’ movie Trolls, “Don’t You Worry ‘Bout A Thing” was covered for animated childrens’ movie Sing, and “I Will Survive” was covered for animated childrens’ movie The Angry Birds Movie.
It’s no secret or surprise that movies with music are immensely successful. Even better: movies with not just a soundtrack, but songs with lyrics! The “movie musical” is the natural result of that need. When you want to tell a story on the big screen, it’s nice to hold your audience’s attention with the occasional song.
When you think about a movie musical, what do you picture? I’m going to guess that your mind drifts toward things like Frozen or Moana. Animated movies, especially those geared toward children, are notorious for their use of music to drive the plot or show emotions.
Well, Trolls, Sing, and The Angry Birds Movie are no different. Unlike those movies, though, these ones don’t write their own music to use in the movie — they use preexisting songs, and get popular artists to cover them. Justin Timberlake, Tori Kelly, and Demi Lovato are all names that people will go to a movie to see.
But why? An eight-year-old isn’t going into these movies to hear musicians sing classic songs. They don’t know Lionel Richie’s “Hello” from Adele’s '“Hello” from Ice Cube’s “Hello.” Perhaps these songs aren’t for them.
These songs exist in these movies because parents want to see them there. Children are well-known for being under the age of 16, so how are they going to go see a kids’ movie on their own? They aren’t. So for a parent who takes their children out to the movie theater, these songs exist as a way to make the movie a little more bearable.
It’s the same reason famous actors and singers provide their voice talent to these movies. Movie studios could pay far less to get lesser-known voice actors, but they don’t do that in an attempt to appeal to parents as well as children. See: Zendaya is Meechee, a musical who’s-who of name recognition marketing for the movie Smallfoot.
And it’s also why some…rather distasteful jokes find their way into kids’ movies. They are designed to fly over your head if you’re under the age of 18. But when you’re a parent, it’s the exact kind of comedy that you would want out of a movie.
So, as it turns out, childrens’ movies may not be so unbearable after all. If you’re getting tired of overly predictable plot points and your kids are zoning out from too much dialogue at once, don’t worry — whichever A-lister got recruited for this animated movie is probably about to inexplicably break into song again in a moment. If an hour and a half of half-baked plot is the entry price for these kinds of covers, I’d say it’s worth the price of admission.
