Biography
Disney had already established itself as a leader in family-oriented and children's cinema when it moved into recorded music during 1949 by creating the Walt Disney Music Company to publish scores connected to its motion pictures, beginning with the score for the next year's Cinderella. Throughout the 1950s the studio introduced its own record lines, among them Disneyland Records, which focused on film soundtracks together with stories and songs drawn from The Mickey Mouse Club, and Buena Vista, which issued material by Disney performers including Fess Parker, Annette Funicello and Darlene Gillespie along with singles taken from studio productions. In 1989 the various lines were merged under the single imprint Walt Disney Records, an entity that re-released classic soundtracks while also producing read-a-long and sing-a-long sets, anthologies mixing vintage and recent Disney material, and scores for newer releases, several of which achieved multi-platinum status such as The Lion King, Beauty & the Beast, Aladdin and The Little Mermaid. Cinematic and musical momentum carried forward into the new century as the acquisition of four major properties—Pixar, The Muppets, Marvel, and Star Wars—further expanded its reach.
Albums