Buy it... on Disney's commercial album if you seek a surprisingly comprehensive selection of music written for both versions of this film.

Avoid it... on the Disney promotional pressing of Debney's score, because it doesn't even feature the same amount of material as on the commercial product.

Debney

The Emperor's New Groove: (John Debney/Sting) Anxious to recapture its glory days of the romantic animated musicals of the early 1990's, Walt Disney Pictures gave the green light to Kingdom of the Sun. Director Mark Dindal labored in production with that template, working with songwriter Sting and composer Marc Shaiman to provide the musical numbers and score for the film. Unfortunately for all involved, the studio abruptly decided to completely change the entire storyline and focus of the film, insisting that it become the first full-fledged comedy to come from the studio in the era. A South American emperor survives the script edits even if two other major characters did not; in the version that would become The Emperor's New Groove, the selfish emperor is accidentally turned into a llama during an execution attempt by the story's bumbling villain, and in the process of stirring up a bunch of funny one-liners, the character learns about the virtues of goodness. Despite cautious advance word and awful trailers, The Emperor's New Groove turned out to be quite a decent film. The situation with its vast production changes took its greatest toll on the music, however. Sting had written several songs for Kingdom of the Sun while Shaiman had written his score and begun to record it. When news struck of the total changes in production, Sting decided to stay on board and write new material for The Emperor's New Groove. Shaiman, however, jumped ship and left the studio in an understandable panic. They turned to trusted veteran John Debney to step in and, in just a matter of a few weeks, adapt Sting's new material into his score. As Debney recalls, "I heard a bit of what Marc Shaiman had written, but he'd only recorded about eight minutes. A situation like that can be sticky, but this was very smooth. It was really his decision at the end of the day, and Marc was completely gracious about it." The style of music that Debney was asked to write was relatively easy for the composer, for without the usual complexity of the structure of musicals, he could provide the standard sound that had defined his children's movie scores to date. His total contribution ran about 65 minutes in length, and after writing most of the score in three weeks, he recorded it with a 95-piece Los Angeles orchestra.

	Commercial Album: Only $9.99

The overall soundtrack resulting from the last minute efforts of Debney, Sting, and the studio is rather plain, but it suffices in each of its tasks. Sting contributed two new songs, one performed with gusto by Tom Jones at the start of the film (the closest the production comes to a musical number) and the other performed by Sting himself. The latter, "My Funny Friend and Me," appearing at the end of the film, earned the artist an Oscar nomination, but of more interest to Disney collectors will be the fact that the studio decided to include two of Sting's songs for Kingdom of the Sun on the album, too (as well as "Walk The Llama Llama"); judging from "Snuff Out the Light (Yzma's Song)" and "One Day, She'll Love Me," the musical would have been fine in its original form, especially considering the potential that Shaiman would have had integrating these songs into his score material. Debney does work pieces of the two later, upbeat Sting songs into his score, but not with great appeal. He claimed that he wanted to write music "in a much more classical vein than recent animated films," merging "a very Russian sound" and "South American influences with a lot of acoustic guitar." That statement is a bit odd, because while there is a definite, tender touch of acoustic guitar in "Pacha's Homecoming" and a wild viola throughout several cues that could be considered Russian in origin, few of these accents that Debney was talking about really shine through. The most vibrant and memorable score cue is "Run Llama Run," a retro big jazz piece that is definitely comical in every sense (though it doesn't match the rest of the score). Debney's action material in "The Jungle Rescue" and "The Great Battle" is largely anonymous in his career, stirring up surprisingly little volume and not really going anywhere. Disney produced an Academy promo of 17 minutes of Debney's work for The Emperor's New Groove, the highlight of which is easily the 30-second "Main Title." It's a rare case when the commercial album contains more score material than the promo, and fans should be advised to seek the regular Disney product to hear the majority of Debney's score and Sting's two pairs of songs. Overall, Sting and Debney did what they needed to in order for The Emperor's New Groove to float, but their finished product is not as memorable as the story behind its creation.   Amazon.com Price Hunt: CD or Download

Music as Written for Film: ***
Music as Heard on Commercial Album: ***
Music as Heard on Promotional Album: **
Overall: ***

Bias Check:

For John Debney reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.23 (in 49 reviews) and the average viewer rating is 3.01 (in 42,775 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.