11. Under the Sea (The Little Mermaid) – Nominated by rychu_supadude
I don't know if Genesis is going to be happy that her top ten prediction doesn't suffer another blow or sad that her favorite song isn't higher. Okay, so I know the answer to that but it made for such a good lead in! Truth be told I had this song a few spots lower before I reconsidered it and decided that just because Sebastian didn't have what I would call a strong singing performance (see: my top ten. A vast majority of them have absolutely stellar singing) that didn't override the absolutely amazing sound of this song. While I have an undeniable love of singers songs are of course about more than just the vocals and no song does a great job of showcasing this more than Under the Sea.
Poor Sebastian though, doing all that awesome work and Ariel just sneaks out at the very first chance. I really don't like the girl at all, and the last song from the movie is going to feature a lot of rage to go along with my love of her singing voice. But anyway what I think this song does so well is just an an excitement to what is being talked about. The point of the song is to convince Ariel to forget her stupid whimsy and to enjoy the life she has by making the sea sound amazing and the song sells it so well. While I don't appreciate his voice all that much the passion and emotion he ranges from sad to passionate to joy is pretty impressive to me. He has a very textured and varied voice throughout this song and no two lines seem to be sung in quite the same tone and that adds a lot to the song from a singing perspective.
Naturally we cannot forget about the blow fish blowing, which makes me laugh every time because I am a horrible person.
So the theme for this song is pretty obvious: Appreciation. Sebastian wants Ariel to appreciate all of the wonderful things she has going on for her and to make her understand the trouble she could get herself into by pursuing dangerous goals. Now I am never one to tell someone to give up on their dreams and because Disney isn't cruel it works out in the end but really it shouldn't have. I love this song so much because through all of the sound and the great scene in and of itself it is one big show aimed at one small little girl that failed because she doesn't know how to see such a wonderful and giant scene that Sebastian painted.
Taking a step back and not trying to see what this song's theme is it is just a pleasurable listen. It is three minutes of fast paced fun that I can hum along to at any time and be pretty pleased. This is a song that has grown on me over the years, and one I wouldn't have been able to appreciate a few years ago as much as I do now. My taste has certainly changed radically in that time.
With that my top ten is known! I can hear some boos already.
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