Walt Disney Records Legacy Collection: 20 hours' worth of rarities, 12 books' worth of history

Each of the 12 discs comes with a rich illustrated book, featuring new art by Lorelay Bove. The books include liner notes in which composers, musicians, animators and other production personnel recount previously untold oral histories of the music that underpins Disney's animation, unifying it every bit as much as the storytelling and art styles.

There's more than 47,000 words of liner notes in those pages, and more than 20 hours' worth of audio on the discs. Listening to the demos in which the legends of Disney music, from Ashman and Menken to the Shermans give notes to singers whose music I've thrilled to literally all my life is an incredible experience, like getting in a time machine.

The archivists who produced this collection went beyond all reason and commercial consideration in pulling this together (I know a few of them). They are part of the trufan machine at Disney who gild releases that celebrate craft and pride, spending money that isn't needed to maximize profit, but is definitely required to maximize art. Disney is full of those people, they're like the people who joined Google because "don't be evil" mattered to them. Like those googlers, these Disney personnel don't harbor any illusions about the company's complement of people who don't share their beliefs (or at least, wouldn't let them get in the way of profits). But they're there because they believe it and it matters to them. People with a sense of mission make everything worth caring about in this world.

The 20 hours of audio in this collection tell a story. Not the story in the movies -- the story of the movies. The story of how successive generations of composers, musicians and storytellers taught their progeny all they knew, and of how their progeny ran with that knowledge, expanding the art, bringing in material from the stage and other studios and pop. (more")