PEOPLE IN THE NEWS
Tony-winning NEW YORK — Idina Menzel — or Adele Dazeem if you’re John Travolta — is enjoying massive success with “Let It Go” from the animated film “Frozen,” but the entertainer is still perplexed that she’s finally triumphing on the pop charts with a show tuneesque track.
“I’ve tried so hard to crossover, to convince people just because I was in a Broadway show I didn’t have the street cred to be a rock or a pop singer,” she said in a recent interview. “And then the one time I have it, it’s the arrangement from the Disney movie.”
“I’m singing at the Oscars — I’ve never sang at the Grammys,” Menzel added, laughing.
Menzel’s musical moment grew even stronger when “Let It Go” won best original song at last Sunday’s Academy Awards. (The Oscar went to the songwriters and producers, Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez). The song has sold close to 1.5 million tracks and is a Top 20 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. Idina Menzel performed the Oscar award-winning song “Let It Go” from the “Frozen” soundtrack at the Academy Awards.
The “Frozen” album, a platinum success, has been No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart for five weeks and counting, the most for a soundtrack album since “Titanic” in 1998.
Menzel voices the lead character Elsa in the film, which won the best animated feature Oscar. She said, “I’m aware enough to know of something special and to try and be in the moment.”
Menzel is having more than a moment in music though, thanks to Travolta, who uttered “Adele Dazeem” at the Oscars instead the singer’s name. He has since apologized.
But Slate magazine created the ultrapopular “Travoltified” tool, where you can put in your name and see what Travolta would call you, and it dominated Facebook and Twitter this past week.
But after that fades, Menzel still has “Let It Go,” which is having a pop culture moment because of the thousands of videos posted of young girls and boys — and some adults — singing covers of the song. Cutely, Menzel took her younger sister, a second-grade teacher, to the Oscars as her date (“Frozen” is about two sisters who are best friends, but have to keep distance because of Elsa’s uncontrollable powers).
Menzel’s song has even eclipsed Demi Lovato’s version of “Let It Go” — technically the “single version.” Disney Music Group president Ken Bunt said he’s not surprised Menzel’s song has become more successful commercially, and adds that the soundtrack is a winner because the film plays like a cartoon musical.
Menzel, who has released three albums, said some members of her team want her to capitalize on her recent pop star fame: “I’d like to, but also, that’s the trap.”
“Like, ‘I better get in there and oh, make an album now. I have some success and attention,’ ” she recalled.