When Disney announced that it was to stop making traditional, hand-drawn animations, I must admit that I felt a large twinge of disappointment.  While its recent films had hardly been world beaters, and while acknowledging the enormous success of Pixar films (not to mention the enormous commercial, if hardly creative, success of some of Dreamworks and Fox's computer animations), it still seems that an element of heart and magic was being lost to the world.  The studio that brought us Snow White, Bambi, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast and all the other classics was abandoning the tried-and-true methods of making its films in favour of a cheaper, quicker option.  That strikes me as enormously sad.  

If Chicken Little is an indication of how things are to become, then it suddenly seems even more sad.  An updating of the classic Boy Who Cried Wolf fable, it sees a chicken claiming the sky is falling in on him; the twist is, it is.  With Shrek-style pop culture references (that should be well beneath Disney, but sadly aren't any more) and without the kind of humour likely to appeal to adults as well as children, it seems the sort of thing that should be left to holiday showings on the Disney Channel rather than released into theatres, allowing the studio to focus on more worthy material.

If it seems a hell of a long fall from The Lion King to Chicken Little in a decade, then the same is most certainly true of the soundtrack.  Opening with four newly-recorded songs, none of which have anything to do with the movie dramatically (though Five for Fighting's "All I Know" is certainly very nice), then featuring two placed songs from Diana Ross and REM, and finally three silly cover versions by the cast, this seems a lifetime away from "Circle of Life" or "Be My Guest" or "Under the Sea", which is a really crying shame.  It's a collection of songs which might appeal to the kids in the few weeks after they see the movie, but how many of them are going to be playing the Chicken Little Cast's "Don't Go Breaking My Heart" a few years from now, compared with the number of 1995's kids who still play the songs from The Lion King?

For the score, at least the reliable services of John Debney were employed.  Debney previous scored the studio's The Emperor's New Groove, writing an enjoyable score, and he follows suit here, though it's a far more up-front effort.  Unfortunately, well under half of the very short album is devoted to the score, so Debney fans are left wanting a whole lot more.  What is here is great fun, though perhaps this only adds to the overall frustration with the package.  With a big orchestra and choir, Debney paints in broad symphonic strokes, writing some memorable themes add embellishing everything with over-the-top, larger-than-life orchestrations that reflect the somewhat apocalyptic nature of the story.  Adding drama where appropriate and comedy where appropriate, Debney's contribution is hugely impressive and puts the rest of the album (and probably film) to shame.  Of course, there'll never be an expanded version of the score, but I'd be first in line if there were.