Disney and Pixar have released the much-anticipated soundtrack for Soul, a forthcoming animated film about a middle school music teacher and jazz enthusiast. Soul will see a release on December 25th via Disney+, the media giant’s streaming platform which launched on November 19th, 2019.
Last year, Disney and Pixar announced that Nine Inch Nails members Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross would compose the score for the film, along with original music from The Late Show with Stephen Colbert bandleader Jon Batiste and others. This release marks the second score composition from Reznor and Ross this month, following David Fincher‘s Mank in early December.
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While the duo have racked up a bevy of musical accomplishments, everything from winning Oscars, Emmys, and Grammys to Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductions, Soul marks the first children’s film they have scored.
According to Soul‘s Wikipedia page, the film stars Jamie Foxx (Joe Gardner), a middle school music teach who always dreamed of performing on stage as a jazz musician. Gardner’s accidental death causes him to arrive at the “You Seminar”, where he is tasked with helping souls in training in order to return to Earth. Soul also features Questlove, Tina Fey, Daveed Diggs, Donnell Rawlings, Phylicia Rashad, and many more.
In a recent interview with Heroic Hollywood, Reznor explained, “Our first step is always to listen and really try to understand where the filmmakers are coming from: what they’re seeing, what they’re imagining. We spent a lot of time discussing how you’re supposed to feel when you’re first exposed to the ‘Soul’ world.”
Reznor continued, “Then we went back to our studio, which is filled with a variety of real, imagined and synthetic instruments, and spent the first chunk of time experimenting with different arrangements and different instruments and seeing what felt emotionally right to create the fabric of this world.”
Listen to the entire soundtrack below and visit the Disney+ website to watch Soul on December 25th.
Soul (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)