Everyone's talking about Bruno now, it seems. Disney struck gold with the soundtrack to their latest animated smash hit Encanto, earning a place atop the Billboard Top 200 chart for albums. While many of the film's tracks have made waves thanks to viral social media trends (especially TikTok), "We Don't Talk About Bruno" has carved itself a place in music history, as it's now the highest-charting Disney song in twenty-six years. Originally tied with Frozen's once ever-present hit "Let it Go" by hitting number five on the charts, the song finally rose to the number four spot, beating out its chilly counterpart.
"We Don't Talk About Bruno" is now tied with two songs from Disney's renaissance — Elton John's "Can You Feel the Love Tonight" from The Lion King, and Vanessa Williams' "Colors of the Wind" from Pocahontas — both of which also hit number four on the Hot 100. Outside of "Let it Go," the Lin-Manuel Miranda-composed track is the only other song to reach the top five outside of Disney's mid-'90s renaissance, a monumental feat considering it was an era defined by iconic tracks from massive artists. For comparison's sake, "We Don't Talk About Bruno" is only surpassed by Peabo Bryson and Regina Belle's mega-hit cover of "A Whole New World" from Aladdin, which reached number one in 1993.
According to Billboard's statistics, "We Don't Talk About Bruno" is still on the rise too. Its twenty-nine million streams over the past week marked a fifteen percent increase in listens, and it still stands firm atop the Streaming Songs chart. The song's making a push on the digital sales charts as well, jumping from the number six spot to number three. "Bruno" supplanted pop megastar Ed Sheeran's latest hit "Shivers" to take the number four spot on the Hot 100, and now only has Adele, The Kid LAROI, and Glass Animals standing in between it and the number one spot.
The X factor for "Bruno" was certainly TikTok, which has seen users take on the song in a myriad of different ways. Miranda put his Broadway skills to work, creating the song as one giant, climactic, Broadway-style musical piece, complete with Latin American influences and parts of the song for each member of the Madrigal family. The sheer variety in the song creates a lot of entry points, from Pepa and Félix (Carolina Gaitán and Mauro Castillo) recounting their wedding day to Dolores and Camilo (Adassa and Rhenzy Feliz) adding to the mystique of the titular Bruno, that users on the platform have made their own. Of course, it also helps that Encanto is a box office smash, earning $93.1 million domestically and $222.6 million globally.
"We Don't Talk About Bruno" isn't even the only Encanto song charting at the moment. "Surface Pressure" is also making waves at the number fourteen spot, and has also seen a lot of love on social media. With so many massive tracks, it's fair to say fans are going to be fighting over the best song on the absolutely packed soundtrack for some time.
Encanto is streaming now on Disney+.