Rio 2 (Sony Music, 2014)
Music composer John Powell ponders, “If you think about music and where it comes from, you can see a great history of musical invention…I was suddenly struck by a question: where did we get melody? Our lives are filled with tunes but when did it start? … I realized it must have been the birds…hundreds of millions of years ago, birds gave the world song. And how much later was it that mankind arrived and was humbled by the birds’ ability sing? … We can only wonder at the force of nature that…was able to attract a mate using a beautiful song.”
It’s no surprise that Mr. Powell musing about birds after being tapped to compose the music for the Twentieth Century Fox Animation and Blue Sky Studios’ family friendly, animated adventure, bird magic flick Rio 2. With director Carlos Saldanha and voices provided by the likes of Anne Hathaway, Jesse Eisenberg, will.i.am, Tracy Morgan, George Lopez, Andy Garcia and Rita Moreno, it was no wonder the studio was looking for a first class act when it came to the music.
Beyond composing soundtracks for such movie hits as the Bourne trilogy, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, X-Men, The Last Stand and Green Zone, Mr. Powell seems to have a knack for composing for the animated variety as well with Shrek, Chicken Run, Ice Age: The Meltdown, Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs, Ice Age: Continental Drift, Rio, Happy Feet Happy Feet 2, Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax and both Kung Fu Panda flicks. How to Train Your Dragon earned Mr. Powell a 2010 Academy Award for Best Original Score and Happy Feet earned him a 2008 Grammy nomination.
Infectiously fun and engaging, the music of Rio 2 allows for a soaring voyage through a musically inspired journey through the Amazon with our animated friends and it just doesn’t get any better than the opening samba version of the 20th Century Fox Fanfare.
Full of sweeping drama and cliff hanging twists and turns, Rio 2 does the music justice by employing some of the hottest names in Brazilian music as guest artists such as Milton Nascimento, Carlinhos Brown, Barbatuques and the kick ass group UAKTI. Lushly orchestrated with a whole host of musicians including The Hollywood Studio Symphony, Rio 2 sets into motion a musical journey of the imagination with “Batucada Pagode,” “Over the Falls” with Milton Nascimento, “River Boat to the Loggers” with Carlinhos Brown and UAKTI and “Battle for the Heart of the Forest” with UAKTI and Barbatuques.
Fans looking for a strictly Brazilian musical experience might just want to check out the discographies of the guest artists, because Rio 2 is all about the cinematic musical experience. Of course, fans with children who loved the first Rio movie might use this music as a way to illustrate the magic of music to tell a story and dramatize action.
Buy Rio 2
Author: TJ Nelson
TJ Nelson is a regular CD reviewer and editor at World Music Central. She is also a fiction writer. Check out her latest book, Chasing Athena’s Shadow.
Set in Pineboro, North Carolina, Chasing Athena’s Shadow follows the adventures of Grace, an adult literacy teacher, as she seeks to solve a long forgotten family mystery. Her charmingly dysfunctional family is of little help in her quest. Along with her best friends, an attractive Mexican teacher and an amiable gay chef, Grace must find the one fading memory that holds the key to why Grace’s great-grandmother, Athena, shot her husband on the courthouse steps in 1931.
Traversing the line between the Old South and New South, Grace will have to dig into the past to uncover Athena’s true crime.
