It’s not lost on Abigail Barlow and Emily Bear how stratospheric their rise is from TikTok to Disney. The pair – aged 26 and 23, respectively – are the first all-female team, and the youngest songwriting duo, to create a soundtrack for a Disney animated film – Moana 2.
“It is surprising,” says Bear. “Like, I feel like this should have happened 20 years ago, 30 years ago. And hopefully, you know, it’s just the first of a million.”
Adds Barlow: “We’re happy to break that glass.”
Songwriters Emily Bear and Abigail Barlow are the first all-female composing team at Disney.Credit: Edwina Pickles
The American pair, who perform under the name Barlow & Bear, came to the attention of Disney after their TikTok project The Unofficial Bridgerton Musical became a viral hit with more than 60 million streams, before winning them a Grammy for best musical theatre album in 2022.
From there, they were tapped to take over songwriting duties from Lin-Manuel Miranda for the sequel to the 2016 animated blockbuster Moana. Now, only the judgment of millions of children and their exhausted parents, desperate for a musical distraction, awaits.
“We are the Disney generation, so our childhood was filled with every Disney animated movie classic ever,” says Bear. “And it’s everyone who writes music – it’s their dream to write music for a Disney movie.”
Moana 2 is set to rock the box office.Credit:
Their Unofficial Bridgerton Musical, which led to them being sued by Netflix, eventually settling, featured songs about season one of the racy Regency drama, including song titles such as Every Inch of Him and Alone Together. Moana, who is 18 in the new film, is grown up, but, you know, not Bridgerton grown up …
“Yes, they’re two very different things,” says Barlow. “But when we met, and we started writing that first project, I think it taught us how to tell stories through music. So, regardless of what the story was, it really is like a science at the end of the day.”
Adds Bear: “Musical theatre is all about putting yourselves in the shoes of whoever you’re writing and honouring their view on the world. So it doesn’t matter if it’s a very raunchy TV show or a very strong Disney heroine.”
Moana 2 picks up a few years after the original. Moana is now a respected wayfinder who, heeding the call of her ancestors, embarks on a journey through Oceania to connect with new islands. Auliʻi Cravalho and Dwayne Johnson return as the voices of Moana and Maui, and Kiwi actors Rachel House and Rose Matafeo join the cast.
Barlow & Bear are Grammy-winning songwriters.Credit: Edwina Pickles
“Moana went through a big change in the first movie,” says Bear. “But the world has expanded, and so has she, and I think we’ve never really seen a Disney heroine allowed to age and grow and learn from mistakes, which we really resonated with because you have to accept yourself when you mess up and allow yourself to grow from it. And so knowing that she was going through that, that inspired us to be a little stronger.”
The pair wrote five songs for the film, working with Samoan musician Opetaia Foa’i and US composer Mark Mancina, who both worked on the first film, to create an authentic Polynesian sound. They were also keen not to follow directly in Miranda’s footsteps, whose song How Far I’ll Go from the first film received an Oscar nomination.
“[Miranda’s] music is beloved and treasured for a reason,” says Barlow. “It’s gorgeous and lush, and so we wanted to pay homage to that. But we also wanted to have one foot in, one foot out of the world.”
Adds Bear: “Because as the characters have grown and evolved and the world has gotten bigger, we think the music should reflect that. And why would you want to make the same movie twice? We want to respect the sacred world that they built, while also moving the story along and evolving the sound.”
The pair describe their sound as “an earworm that makes you feel things”, blending Barlow’s pop sensibilities with Bear’s jazz and classical background (Bear is a child prodigy who was mentored by Quincy Jones, has music credits with major film studios and also toured with Beyoncé as her piano player).
Speaking of earworms, Disney’s biggest song of recent years remains Let It Go from Frozen – how aware were they of writing not just for a young audience but for their parents as well?
“We just wanted to step into the character’s shoes,” says Barlow, “and when that’s at the forefront, when you go in with that as the goal, I think it becomes less about, ‘Oh, a million people are going to listen to this’, and [more]: ‘We hope they love to sing it in the car’. I think they just want good music.”
Moana 2 is released on November 28.
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