The Lion King (1994 soundtrack)


The Lion King: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack is the soundtrack album for the 1994 Disney animated film, The Lion King. It contains songs from the film written by Elton John and Tim Rice, and a score composed by Hans Zimmer. Elton John has a dual role of performer for several tracks. Additional performers include Lebo M, Carmen Twillie, Jason Weaver, Rowan Atkinson, Joseph Williams, Whoopi Goldberg, Jeremy Irons, Cheech Marin, Jim Cummings, Nathan Lane, Ernie Sabella, and Sally Dworsky. The album was released on May 31, 1994 on CD and audio cassette. The soundtrack was recorded in three different countries: the U.S., the U.K. and South Africa. It is the best-selling soundtrack album to an animated film in the United States with over 7 million copies sold, with 4,934,000 copies sold in 1994.
An expanded version of The Lion King soundtrack, featuring 30 minutes of previously-unreleased material, was released as part of the series on June 24, 2014. In 2014, Hot Topic released a vinyl picture disc of the soundtrack.

Track listing

''The Legacy Collection'' release

released an expanded edition of The Lion King soundtrack containing an additional thirty minutes of previously unreleased material from the film, as well as a collection of demo versions of cues. This revision contains a new remastered mix by Alan Meyerson.

Chart and commercial success

The soundtrack shipped over 10 million copies in the U.S. and eventually went 10x platinum in 1995, thus becoming the biggest-selling soundtrack ever from an animated film. Its certification was promoted to Diamond when the award was instituted in 1999. According to Nielsen Soundscan the soundtrack, as of April 2014, has sold a total of 7.873 million copies in the US. It is also the best-selling vinyl album in the Nielsen SoundScan era, with 1,043,000 copies sold as of June 2014.
In 2010, Rhapsody called it one of the all-time great Disney and Pixar Soundtracks.

Charts

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Decade-end charts

Certifications

! colspan="3" | Original album release
! colspan="3" | Original cast recording
! colspan="3" | Sing-Along shortform
! colspan="3" | Hans Zimmer Re-release

Accolades