The Disneyland Dilettante: The Second Sense: Esplanade Music Loop Updated!

Monday, June 12, 2017

The Second Sense: Esplanade Music Loop Updated!

Pretty short this week, but I've been busy and I'd rather give you something than nothing.

Over a year ago at this point, I did a post focusing on the music loop that plays non-stop in the Disneyland Esplanade. Outside of the winter holiday season, the same one had been in use since the opening of California Adventure, despite numerous changes occurring in both parks that made some tracks irrelevant and invited replacements to hint at the newer attractions.

Well, as of about a week ago, according to reports from my colleagues at Mousebits, the loop has finally been updated! I haven't gotten a chance to hear it yet, but we do have a breakdown of the track list, and in the broad strokes at least, the changes line up with many of my suggestions. Tracks representing attractions which have gone extinct since 2001 have been dropped, and quite a few new ones have been added to illustrate what has debuted in the interim. Beyond that, even many of the melodies that are still relevant have been traded for variations or substitutions. Less than a third of the music from the previous loop remains—a significant transformation!

Some of the additions also seem to represent a departure from previous methodology in assembling entrance gate loops. The older Esplanade loops have been primarily playlists of instrumental versions of songs—recognizable standalone melodies. I had assumed that when the newer rides were finally represented, the additions would follow suit. Instead, the loop's designers have typically opted to take a snippet of the ride's queue music (which itself is usually a remix of score music from the film on which the ride is based). As a result, the new loop may be more directly representative of the actual attractions to be found in the park than any previous version. But I suspect this move stems more from a desire to emphasize a sense of fast-paced adventure. A very high proportion of the newer rides are based on Pixar movies, most of which don't feature any songs until the end credits, after the adventure is over. Additionally, using queue music makes the Esplanade more directly parallel the queues themselves...which is reasonable enough, given that they serve similar functions.

Some other highlights/interesting points:

Pirates of the Caribbean is now represented with a medley of “Yo Ho (A Pirate's Life For Me)” and the famous “He's a Pirate” theme from the film franchise.
Main Street, USA now has some presence in the loop, although oddly enough, the two tracks used—“Fortuosity” and “Surrey With the Fringe on Top”—are no longer played on Main Street, being from an earlier iteration of its music loop.
“Baroque Hoedown” makes an appearance! Does this point to an intention to keep showing the Main Street Electrical Parade?
Fantasy Faire gets a nod with a medieval-courtly arrangement of “Touch the Sky” from the film Brave—the same version which plays as part of the Fantasy Faire loop and was included on the most recent official Disneyland Resort album. Ever since hearing it, I've thought this was an inferior choice for promoting “Princessland.” It's not one of the better-known “Princess movie” songs and, more importantly, the music suffers in the conversion to the medieval style. “Touch the Sky” is, in its original form, fast-paced Celtic pop-rock. The tune really doesn't work as a lute ballad.
Potentially distressing: After 25 years of distinguished service in various Esplanade music loops, “Grim Grinning Ghosts” has been omitted entirely. No, this doesn't mean the Haunted Mansion itself is in any danger, but it's strange for such a tentpole attraction to lose its representation like this. It may be down to the overwhelming emphasis these days on movies movies movies (hence the new Pirates track). The Haunted Mansion movie wasn't any good and relatively few people are even aware of it now, so maybe the designers didn't think it would be exciting enough for new guests to hear before entering the park.
In case you were wondering if the loop now includes any music from Frozen...of course it does. But in a reasonably tasteful move, apparently they went with an instrumental medley that plays during the curtain call for the live show in the Hyperion Theatre. “Here's some Frozen music to go with our Frozen attraction,” is much preferable to “Here's some Frozen music because we still have Elsa dolls on the shelves, you guys,” even if the motive is ultimately the same.

I could spend all day examining the parts, but what about the whole? Does the new Esplanade loop work? Well...I don't know yet. Like I said, I haven't gotten a chance to hear it. I'm working on reconstructing it to the best of my ability based on the track list, but it involves a lot of editing and cross-fading and some of the specific recordings are hard to come by. I probably won't have a proper opinion until either someone uploads an induction recording of the whole thing, or I visit the resort and spend over an hour just bumming around the Esplanade so I can listen to it in its entirety.

But hey, at least they finally updated it!

Maybe they'll do the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique next!

Complete Track List: