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image source, Disney
“Encanto” is the Disney movie inspired by Colombia.
The song We don’t talk about Bruno, from the Disney movie “Encanto”, managed to reach the top of the charts in the United States, sharing the podium with artists such as Adele and Glass Animals, while reaching number one in the United Kingdom.
The theme is so catchy that thousands of people have uploaded videos to TikTok singing and dancing with it in the background.
In fact, it has surpassed the success that the song had a few years ago Let it go from the Disney movie Frozen, peaking at number 4 on the Billboard chart (Let it go got to 5th).
The funny thing is that, apparently, Disney did not think that the impact of the song was going to be so great, so he decided to nominate another theme of “Enchantment” for the Oscars.
What is the secret of the success of We don’t talk about Bruno? Here we give you three reasons that can explain it.
1. The theme
We don’t talk about Bruno was adapted as “No se Habla de Bruno” for the Spanish version and is the theme that identifies the mysterious character of “Encanto”.
This is Bruno, the clairvoyant uncle that no one talks about in public and that reflects the typical family theme that is an open secret and generates controversy, so he emphatically avoids during dinner.
The song recreates that dynamic and does so using very graphic words and scenes.
“Children have always liked chilling, half-dark songs, and this one says, for example: ‘Terror on their face, rats behind, when they hear your name there is no going back,'” Mauro Castillo explains to BBC Mundo, independent musician and one of the main voices of the song.
This component of mystery is reinforced by the inclusion of other characters in the film who tell their experiences or anecdotes with Uncle Bruno. In the end, a song of many voices that almost fight each other in a very dynamic choral story is achieved.
image source, Getty Images
Mauro Castillo and Carolina Gaitán, voices of the song “We Don’t Talk About Bruno”.
Its composer, Lin-Manuel Miranda, who has extensive experience in the musicalization of theatrical and cinematographic creations, has said that he was inspired by the theater.
“What I was trying to do is much more common in musical theater than it is in movie musicals. You have those great moments where everyone gets a little masterpiece and then you fuse them together. I think of One Day More from ‘Les Miserables’ or Non-Stop from ‘Hamilton’. It’s always a lovely moment when you can layer all the themes on each other,” Miranda said in a recent interview.
2. The diversity of sounds
This is a difficult song to pigeonhole due to the multiplicity of voices, rhythms and scenes that make it up.
The composition “managed to unite the theme, rescuing the montuno rhythm with chachachá. Over there it can be heard like a happy drum, but there is also influence from rap and trap,” explains Castillo.
And according to him, it is precisely this mixture that has conquered millions of ears. “I think people were expecting more from the Latin urban scene. There is an interest in other types of sounds beyond the chicapum of reggaeton.”
“This song, for example, is in a tempo that has a tendency to seduce those who dance, who like to move. It is a rather relaxed tempo and makes it easy to move one foot and then the other,” he adds.
The mix can also be understood as a kind of deconstruction of the more traditional percussion. “You feel a drum from time to time that is slow, not as fast as the one we are used to in Latin America. In this song it is suggested, it is not as textual as when it is present in the loop that is put together in a sauce,” explains the musician.
So the success of the song may also lie in the fact that people not only want to sing and perform the song, but also that it allows them to dance and easily enter party and celebration mode.
image source, Getty Images
Mauro Castillo, interpreter of the character Felix Madrigal and one of the voices of “We Don’t Talk About Bruno”.
3. The industry behind of the song
Although a song has all the potential to go viral, it is not easy to achieve it.
In this case, “Disney has the infrastructure to sweep consumption because it is the largest family entertainment company and even so it never ceases to amaze that it can achieve such resounding successes,” writer and music journalist Juan Carlos Garay told BBC Mundo.
What’s more, We don’t talk about Bruno and the music of “Encanto” in general have also benefited from the digital ecosystem.
“I consider that within the context of Disney there are much older themes that surpass this song in quality, but they belong to another era. Now what happens is that there are greater possibilities of impacting and measuring audiences,” he adds.
In the end, it is a song that has generated a lot of interest regardless of the age of the audience, but that is also covered by a much larger product that has been adapted into different languages, with great exposure in the global press and with renowned artists promoting it. in social networks.
But while the song and soundtrack have been overwhelmingly successful, another discussion has arisen about the representation of Colombian music in “Encanto’s” music.
After the success of Coco, the Disney movie inspired by Mexico, in which a clear homage was made to the traditional rhythms of that country, the expectations placed on Colombia were very high.
image source, Alberto E. Rodriguez
Carlos Vives performs the main theme of “Encanto”.
the local critic
Although “Encanto” has been very well received in Colombia and in general the homage paid to the country and its multiculturalism has been celebrated, for some Colombian critics and musicians, the music, on the other hand, does not fully reflect the sound richness of the country.
One of them is the singer Maria Mulatto, who expressed his opinion on Facebook. Although she believes that the film is very valuable and very well produced, she would have liked to “find more Colombian rhythms, more faithful,” without losing the international tint.
It also emphasizes that in the case of Coco, “there is a faithful presence of the son jarocho, the bolero and the ranchera, Mexico being a less diverse country than Colombia in terms of rhythms”.
Garay shares the same: “I saw the film with my children and I felt like I was in a musical with small touches of accordion or four llanero to give color, but with a very timid exploration, if it was intended to show Colombian musical folklore” , he concludes.
From the film’s soundtrack, the song that has been perceived, somehow, as more Colombian is “Colombia, mi ecorner“.
That main theme, composed by Miranda and performed by Carlos Vives, has a clear influence from the music of the latter, which as he himself says is not folk, but is inspired by traditional Colombian rhythms.
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