The Sherman brothers. Alan Menken. Randy Newman. Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez. And now, Fall Out Boy. Which one is not like the others?
With the release this weekend of “Big Hero 6,” suburban Chicago pop-punk group Fall Out Boy is the latest act to try its hand at crafting an iconic Disney song. The quartet’s “Immortals” plays relatively early in “Big Hero 6,” arriving after the film’s young human protagonist has been dealt a series of setbacks.
With its larger-than-life digitally enhanced riffs, consider it the rock ‘n’ roll song as pep talk. “Let It Go” this is not, but “Immortals” is still dealing with serious themes.
Fall Out Boy songwriter-bassist Pete Wentz addressed the song’s thesis with what may be considered a slight spoiler. “When you lose somebody,” he says, “you have to fill in some of those parts with other people. That’s the idea of being immortal. We’re immortal, but … our legacy is through other people.”
The song works well with the score from composer Henry Jackman, as the latter is heavy on the guitars. In an attempt to capture the mash-up of San Francisco and Tokyo that is the film’s setting, Fall Out Boy vocalist-composer Patrick Stump gave the track an ever-so-slight Far Eastern electronic feel in its opening moments.
“I wanted to imagine what a band like us would sound like in San Fransokyo,” Stump says, referencing the film’s fictional city. “I was initially going to go really Japanese, but ⅛the filmmakers⅜ told me not to do that.”
Though this isn’t the first time Fall Out Boy has attempted to write a song for a film, Stump notes it’s the first time a song made the final cut. In the past, he says, the band was asked to sound like other artists. This time around, everyone was a fan.
“It’s a very technologically optimistic film,” Stump says. “That’s kind of unique these days. It’s such a pervasive idea that machines will rise and destroy. In this film, the machine is the heart. The machine is the sweetest character by being logical. Usually cold logic brings you cold harsh results.
“Here, it’s just sweet. I liked that.”
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