Howard packs a lot into his “Prologue” – a bit of action material, then the big theme for Raya is revealed (briefly) for the first time, then there’s more action – along with the typical Howard thunderous orchestral bombast there’s a huge array of synths, including of various “Asian” sounds (there are somewhat more authentic actual exotic solos in the mix, too). It is not a musical harbinger of what is to come in the score, which it’s worth saying straight away sounds absolutely nothing like I expected it to, and doesn’t really sound like any previous Disney animation score (including Howard’s) – which is as refreshing as it is surprising. It’s a fairly generic modern pop ballad which is auto-tuned to a comical level (think of Cher’s “Turn Back Time”). There’s a single song which opens the album, “Lead the Way”, written and sung by Jhené Aiko. James Newton Howard wrote three scores for Disney animations at the turn of the century – not the most memorable of Disney animations, it has to be said, made while they were in between the Alan Menken renaissance period and the next great resurgence a few years later – but his music proved to be very popular and it’s great to see him tackling one of these again. With a fine voice cast led by Kelly Marie Tran, Raya and the Last Dragon would probably have made a fortune had it (as planned) been released in cinemas in a non-pandemic world, and I’m sure it will make a fortune anyway, though in this household it will lead to a series of explanations about why we must wait for it to be widely available on Disney+ rather than only via “premier access”. 500 years after dragons sacrifice themselves to save humanity in the face of attack by monsters, the monsters are back – and it’s up to young warrior Raya to track down the last surviving dragon to help save everyone once more.
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