There have been many great Disney soundtracks over the years. Walt Disney himself insisted that music plays a very important role in his feature length films and shorts. As much as I'd like to say that The Lion King or equally beautiful stuff such as Alan Menken's the Hunchback of Notre Dame or Beauty and the Beast had the best soundtrack (not to mention that terrific trio of James Newton Howard scores for Dinosaur, Atlantis and Treasure Planet), there really is no question in my mind that out of all the soundtracks for the Disney Animated Canon, Bambi is the most accomplished and very resonant even today.

The score and the songs are integrated into the narrative well, each theme referenced throughout, and they evolve over the course of the soundtrack. Not only do we have great songs such as "Love is a Song", "Let's Sing a Gay Little Spring Song" and "Looking for Romance", the score also presents many interesting themes, one of the most memorable being the sinister three-note theme for Man who is never seen on screen but whose actions affect all the animals throughout the film. The only time the ever-present music is absent from the film is when Bambi suffers his personal trauma, and that silence is a very effective way of conveying the shock of the scene. Bambi, to me, is thus the pinnacle of Disney's musical direction and a true classic that stands over other impressive Disney scores.

As for the weakest entry in the canon, I'd almost want to nominate Chicken Little with its atrocious use of songs. However, John Debney's competent, thematic score saves the soundtrack from being a total loss. With that in mind, I suppose the weakest soundtrack overall (with mediocre songs and score) might be the Sword in the Stone for me. That soundtrack does have some nice moments (the squirrel love scene, the wizards' duel and the ending in particular) and isn't awful by any means, but the problem is that most of it is quite bland and forgettable and plays a secondary role to the film itself throughout much of it. When you compare it to the great body of work for the canon, it simply can't compare. It's somewhat surprising to me as George Bruns composed the score, and he's usually no slouch when it comes to scoring films (animated and otherwise); ditto for the Sherman Brothers whose songs were also a miss for the most part. I suppose the film and its music became the casualty of Walt's shifting interest from animation to Disneyland and EPCOT at that point, and it's a shame.