Hear John Legend and Ariana Grande’s New ‘Beauty and the Beast’ Theme Song
When you were a kid, did you ever spend time with like, an aunt who listened to those adult contemporary radio stations — the ones that were all Michael Bolton and Toni Braxton and Celine Dion? You know, the stations that played “Margaritaville” and the Beauty and the Beast theme song every hour on the hour. If you don’t remember, then maybe Ariana Grande and John Legend’s cover of “Beauty and the Beast” will jog your memory.
It’s not bad, but the Grande / Legend cover of the title track from Disney’s upcoming live-action remake of Beauty and the Beast is exactly the sort of thing you’d expect to hear sandwiched between Celine’s “Because You Loved Me” and Boyz II Men’s “I’ll Make Love to You” on a Sunday afternoon coming from some elder relative’s kitchen radio, or on one of those romantic compilation CDs from Time Life that you’d order from an 800 number on TV.
All of which is to say that this “updated” version of the classic Beauty and the Beast tune sounds a bit generic; the vocals are nice enough (though hampered by Grande’s lack of enunciation), but the instrumental track sounds almost like muzak — which gives it that adult contemporary feeling.
Hopefully Luke Evans’ take on the Gaston song is much better than this.
Beauty and the Beast stars Emma Watson, Dan Stevens, Josh Gad, Emma Thompson, Gugu Mbatha-Raw and Ewan McGregor, and hits theaters on March 17.