Justin Timberlake Breaks Down the 'Trolls World Tour' Soundtrack (ft. Ludwig Göransson)

That was me, watching the picture.

And I remember I play this.

[guitar sound]

Let's be clear though like, literally.

That was Ludwig's moment.

Where he was just living out his old,

like metal fantasies.

[guitar sound]

Hey I'm Justin Timberlake.

Hi, I'm Ludwig Goransson

And today we're gonna breakdown how we produced

the sound track for Trolls World Tour.

From miles and miles away from each other.

♪ They're gonna listen, listen, forget everything ♪

♪ You think you've gotta hide it ♪

I remember, I got a call at.

And you called me.

And you told me about this project.

And,

I think I mean like 10 seconds in.

Where you said like basically we have

to incorporate all different genres of music.

And this whole movie is basically about music.

[Narrator] Our ancestors created six strings.

Each for a different types of music.

I was going out on a world tour, but we were.

While I was on that tour.

The stage that we were at on this movie.

Was sort of just trying to get

the songs together.

Which scenes in the movie?

Would we want to do an original song?

What we were gonna cover.

[guitar sound]

And then,

I think just like

the day after you got back from tour.

You would call me up

and was like, hey let's get in the studio,

and write these songs.

And so we booked like I think three weeks.

At three different studios.

With different song writers and producers.

Just like a mishmash of people

that we just wanted to be creative with.

And especially for, just saying.

For the last song.

For kind of the climax of the movie.

We, me and Justin,

went in the studio with Sarah Aarons and Max Martin.

Who's one of my big idols.

If else we,

I think we recorded

this song in like 10 different studios.

Seven different engineers.

18 gospel singers.

In three continents.

In four different countries.

We have on lead vocals

Justin Timberlake, Anna Kendrick, Mary J. Blige,

Kelly Clarkson, Anderson Paak, Anthony Ramos,

Sam Rockwell, Red Velvet, George Clinton.

To make this whole arrangement in the song.

It took a lot of time,

and a lot of effort

to kind to bring all these people

and all these musicians together.

♪ Start moving ♪

♪ Watch the way, I do it ♪

It's important to know.

When were breaking this scene down.

Is that, right before this happens.

This world goes silence.

I'm gonna unite the six strings.

And destroy all music.

[scream]

But your able to hear someones heartbeat.

And,

we sort of started from

that place and I said, you know.

When you think about, like.

How is music really created

before we even had instruments.

You know, and it was probably people just banging on.

The same way a gospel choir can just stomp,

and clap, and sing, and it sounds like just so.

It's almost orchestral.

So we kind of just started.

We all were in the studio

and were just stomping and clapping.

Like that.

♪ Louder than ever, ever ♪

And then, you know Ludwig started coming up with

the ideas on the guitar.

It was just like. It was just a three kind of.

[guitar sound]

Yeah

♪ You think you've gotta hide it ♪

♪ Don't keep it on the shelf ♪

So it was just those cords over

and over on that beat.

That's how we started.

That's how the song started.

♪ Lift your waist ♪

♪ Start moving ♪

♪ Watch the way I do it ♪

♪ See me do it like nobody else ♪

♪ We sing it all together ♪

And the instrumentation changes here.

Because were now in the funk grind.

Instead of having like, all these percussion.

♪ Don't keep it on the shelve ♪

Like table percussion would change

that to a real drum kit.

♪ We sing it all together ♪

Kinda going for like a drum trigger sound.

Where you hear a lot of like

the early Prince recordings.

And like, very tight snare sound.

That sly that you used

to hear in all the songs in the 80's.

And Mary J takes over, and you know.

She saved me

and say no more.

Mrs. Mary J. Blige man.

♪ We sing it all together, if we sing it all as one ♪

♪ It's louder than yourself ♪

We had everyone sing the versus.

Thanks to doing that we gave our producers

and director Dina, Walt, and David.

We gave them the options of hearing

the different versions.

And hearing who would sound best there

and who was on best there.

♪ I've been right here where your standing ♪

♪ I've been standing on the ground ♪

♪ The walls are caving in, all the walls are ♪

And so they can kind of pick and choose.

And we also were also working very close

with them on this song, and every song.

But especially on this one.

I think that's why animated movies are always

so well done.

Is because the animation actually comes in the ad.

And a storyline plot.

You know, humor.

All of that gets tested and tracked

before they go into final stages of animation.

Obviously we're very lucky to be able

to write the song first,

and then they would start animating the song.

So you have my character and Anderson's character

who have start singing backgrounds for Mary J. Blige.

So our characters are starting to come together.

And before you know it.

The pop and the funk trolls have started

to melt styles.

And now, the techno comes in and that.

And everybody's kinda singing together.

♪ Don't you stop it, don't you fight ♪

♪ Let me hear you say sing ♪

Not to requote the lyrics of the song,

but everyone's actually singing together.

♪ If you got it, can't dent it ♪

♪ Let me hear you ♪

♪ It's waiting for you ♪

♪ Already know, that you do it like nobody else ♪

It's interesting because you would think going through all

these genres you would just like get lost musically.

Which is like, what's going on?

But I think the structure of the song makes

so much sense.

So it's kinda easy to follow.

And then you go into the hook of the song.

Like the big chorus.

♪ Nobody else, just sing ♪

♪ Sing it together, louder than ever ♪

I do believe Sara was the first one

to kind of crack the melody on the hook.

Sara kinda started doing the.

♪ Just sing, sing it together ♪

♪ Louder than ever, ever ♪

♪ Forget everything ♪

So now we figured out a way to just melt sort

of three styles and now their all singing together.

But everything breaks down again.

Right when you get to the part

where your actually telling people.

Just sing, sing together.

There really is barely any accompaniment with them.

So some acoustic guitar.

People clapping, and snapping, and singing.

♪ Like it's what we've been missing ♪

♪ And there gonna listen, listen ♪

I was saying to Ludwig, I was like.

You know, the one genre of music

that so many popular genres of music borrow from

is gospel.

And when we got the choir on this song.

That's when it started to really feel, like.

Whoa, like this really makes scenes.

It gave it a through line.

♪ And there gonna listen, listen ♪

♪ Forget everything, just sing ♪

And it's interesting how you know.

You can take all the instruments out

with just a handclap.

And if you have a really simple easy melody,

and 20 voices singing it.

It's gonna sound bigger than anything.

♪ Just sing, sing it together ♪

♪ Louder than ever, ever ♪

Then go into the K-pop.

K-pop and the Reggae tone, right?

K-pop and the Reggae tone,

and we actually recorded them.

They were in Korea.

We recorded over 800.

Yeah it's not this similar to what were doing right now.

♪ 리듬 타봐 멈추지마 노래불러줘 ♪

♪ si lo tienes, no lo niegues ♪

♪ Te quiero oír cantar ♪

And then also I added the.

The last thing was edit

Barb's guitar solo in the end.

♪ Just sing ♪

It was just me watching the picture,

and I remember I played this.

[guitar sound]

Let's be clear though Ludwig.

That was Lugwig's moment.

What he was just living out his whole,

like metal fantasy.

♪ Just sing, sing it together ♪

♪ Louder than ever ♪

I mean listen.

Every song had like 20 iterations of itself.

There were times when Ludwig

and I would say, okay.

Let's just take a break from this for a day,

and we'll come back tomorrow.

And see if we hear something different.

And then of course I would go home,

and Ludwig would sit at his laptop all night.

And then come up with all these ideas.

And then I would come back

and I would be like, oh yeah like that.

But yeah, those lyrics.

The first lyrics.

You think you gotta hide it.

Don't keep it on the shelf.

Let your waist start moving

and watch the way I do it.

Cause I do it like nobody else.

If we just start from that place.

Where it's sort of encapsulating the idea

that, like.

You're different from me,

and I'm different from him.

That's what makes us great.

And we should embrace that about each other.

And this felt like an opportunity

to create a song for young people to say, you know.

You may sing it differently from this person,

but that doesn't mean you.

That doesn't mean you shouldn't be singing it together.

So, that's really where it came from.

So there you go.

That's how we produced Just Sing in

the soundtrack of Trolls World Tour.

Thank you so much for having us.

Ludwig, I'll call you later today.

Okay, I'll see you on the other side.

Alright brother.

Bye you guys.

Bye.