Since
Anastasia is animator
Don Bluth's attempt at a sweeping epic along the lines of
Disney's
Beauty and the Beast or
The Hunchback of Notre Dame, it's not surprising that its score duplicates the
Disney formula of balancing big
show tunes from the film with re-recorded MOR
pop versions of the same song. In this case, it's
Aaliyah singing
"Journey to the Past," and
Deana Carter's cover of
"Once Upon a December," and the
Donna Lewis and
Richard Marx duet on
"At the Beginning" -- fine versions of fine songs that sound better in their original incarnation (also included on the disc). Fortunately, the bulk of the album is comprised of selections from the
soundtrack.
Lynn Ahrens and
Stephen Flaherty have written the songs for
Anastasia, and their work is generally quite good; occasionally the lyrics are silly (
"Rumor in St. Petersburg"), but perhaps that should be expected, given the difficulty of making the story of Anastasia into an animated
musical. On the whole,
Anastasia might not live up to the high standards that
The Little Mermaid and
Beauty and the Beast set, but it's as good as
Pocahontas and
The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and that's not bad company at all. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine