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List Price: $18.98 | | Label: Walt Disney Records
Salesrank: 1947
Released: October 3, 2006 |
| Our Price: $11.99 |
| Used Price: $8.11 |
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| Media: Audio CD |
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Editorial Review:
Before Broadway was Disneyfied and Times Square became a mall, the best Broadway musicals were being written for Disney animated features by Alan Menken and the late Howard Ashman. Their songs for The Little Mermaid created the mold from which their even more popular work (Beauty & the Beast, Aladdin) would be cast. Almost every tune in Mermaid has its (slightly inferior) counterpart in Beauty, for example. But there's no topping the Oscar-winning calypso show-stopper, "Under the Sea"--in which a Caribbean crab convinces you that "Darlin' it's better/Down where it's wetter." Other songs, just as delightful, are even more impressive in the context of the movie. The rapturous "Kiss the Girl" accompanies a scene in which, despite the whispered urgings of creatures all around, the romantic hero does not act on the title's advice! That's the kind of abstract dramatic (OK, comedic) conceit you'd expect from Harold Pinter rather than Disney. And the gruesomely hilarious "Les Poissons" gives us a fisheye view of a kitchen where the seafood chef is a sort of French Ed Gein--a sadistic murderer who brutally tortures and chops up his victims, then eats them! Who says Disney never did black comedy? "...I stuff you with bread/It won't hurt, 'cause you're dead/And you're certainly lucky you are...." Lyricist Ashman may not have been Cole Porter, but he was the next best thing. --Jim Emerson
Little Mermaid Reviews:
Buy it Now, You Fool 
2008-07-31 - I have such a soft spot for musicals -- especially Disney musicals. The Little Mermaid is one of my very favorites -- most of the songs are so catchy I can't help but tap my foot and sing along. After a bad day there's nothing better than turning this puppy on full blast. Every song you remember is here, including the wonderful orchestral score.
The bonus songs are terrifying, however. Whoever thought that the Little Mermaid needed to be put to horrific, half-baked pop/r&b and shrieked by children of dubious talent should probably have large rocks thrown at them. Just a suggestion. However, I chose to ignore them, and I rate this disc by the value of the first disc, whose superior quality easily drowns out the second CD's terrifying contributions.
Anyway, just get this CD and enjoy the delightful croonings of Ariel and co! You won't regret it!
Great Originals, Remake by Jonas Brothers unfortunate... 
2008-06-12 - Ive always loved the Little Mermaid and was excited to see this set, but I have to say I was disappointed to hear the Jonas Brothers singing Poor Unfortunate Souls. When Ursula sings this song kids know she's one of the "bad guys" but its a strange message that daughters and their friends get when the hottest boy band out today is singing about girls needing to basically shut up and be pretty to get a man. Stick with the originals and skip disc 2.
Great CD!
2008-03-29 - I bought this CD mainly for the Jonas Brothers song, "Poor Unfortunate Souls". But the whole CD is excellent & I liked it so much that I played it twice the day I got it!
Excellent product
2008-03-01 - The CD certainly captures the essence of the film. My daughters enjoy listening to the CD while they are playing and they don't have to be watching tv all the time!
Loved it then. Loved it now.
2007-04-10 - Little Mermaid was the first video I ever owned myself. Loved it from the first day I saw it. I don't hold the same view as I did as a child but it's still a wonderful story. And the music is just plain fun. The best part of this special edition is Ashley Tisdale's rendition of Kiss The Girl. Let me start by saying I have issues about Disney's need to turn every actor into a singer and every singer into an actor and the promote them to the ends of the earth. And it's not so much Ashley Tisdale - though she's very talented - that makes me love this version of the song. Whoever revised the arrangement is who I'd like to really thank. I love every thing about how this version was put together. Upbeat. Fun. Totally "sqeeable". But then I'm a hopeless romantic.
