 The Lion King is one of my favorite animated movies for a multitude of reasons, one of which being the fantastic music. Today, I rank them on another episode of Hot Takes. For the Lion King Pyrrhus out there, if that's even a thing, this song isn't even in play as it wasn't originally introduced in the theatrical run. Zazu's morning report was injected into the film at the 10th anniversary platinum release. Although the creators and most of the cast match the art and sound perfectly, it feels very out of place and doesn't move the needle on the story. It's a case where more isn't necessarily better. This is the only song and small portion of the film I could skip right over and not lose an ounce of sleep about. Watching some lions frolic in play and some sort of incestual mating ritual never struck a chord with me. Joseph Williams and Sally Dworski have great singing voices, but the love story aspect? No. No, that was never really my cup of tea. Akuna Matata is a wonderful phrase. It's also a wonderful song performed by our bug-loving trio Nathan Lane, Ernie Cibella and Jason Weaver. I took all of three seconds to Google the term Akuna Matata, which is in fact a real phrase in Swahili that roughly translates to there are no troubles. So the writers did their homework, which is nice. There are some amazing visuals during this song such as the incredibly iconic day-to-night log walk, which as we know was later butchered in the 2019 thing that came out. This is incredibly unsettling to me, but I have been giving JTT, the voice actor of Simba, credit for years for doing the singing portions of Simba when in fact he wasn't doing them at all. No, no, no, no, no, no, Jason Weaver was putting in that work. Much like Matthew Broderick as older Simba, JTT was just mooching off the work of others, taking the credit when he didn't deserve it. That's not fair to him. I don't know if the actor ever pretended he was singing, but I certainly thought he was, and that's on me. Jason Weaver crushes it as the stuck-up little rascal Simba parading around the pride lands, proclaiming how he can't wait for his dad to die so he can be king. Obviously that wasn't his intent when he was singing the song, but that's kind of how it comes out, Simba. Don't worry, your dad will be dead soon. The bright color palette along with the animals stomping to the beat of the music is classic Disney. It's vintage Disney. It's the same thing, whatever. This is how you open a film. Carmen Twilly is not messing around on the vocals. She gives the audience the low down on the circle of life and the prestige that comes with such a position of power. Being a lion is a pretty sweet gig. Your food will come out and bask in your greatness as you're welcomed into the pride via ceremonial forehead branding by a wise old baboon. It's not just my favorite song in The Lion King. It's one of my favorite Disney songs, full stop. Yeah, it's that big of a deal to me. Scar is such a terrific villain that's brought to life by amazing animation and brilliant voice work by Jeremy Irons. He along with the help from veteran actor Jim Cummings makes Be Prepared a song full of so many great moments. The snappy lyrics written by Tim Rice and Elton John are playful, menacing, dark, humorous, and compliment the animation oh so well. Everything is thought out from the constant switching of colors as the song intensifies to the propaganda-framed visuals that end with a wide-framed shot of Scar finally at the top of the food chain. As he would say, it's sensational. There are not as many songs on the Lion King soundtrack as I initially thought. There are some smaller moments that perhaps threw off my count, so let me give a special shout out to Timon and Pumbaa's The Lion Sleeps Tonight, their hula dance number, and Scar just living his best life with Zazu singing I've Got a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts. Well, that's my ranking. It was nice. It was simple. It was short. It was perfect. But in case you don't think so, let me know yours in the comments below. Like the video if you like the video. Subscribe for more rankings, hot take type things. I have plenty more on the way, so hopefully I'll see you around on the next episode of Hot Takes.