Justin Timberlake and Chris Stapleton Wrote Songs Through Facetime for ‘Trolls World Tour’
The pair wrote two songs together for the film's soundtrack.
The musical love fest between Justin Timberlake and Chris Stapleton has grown stronger and stronger since the two took the stage for a mind-melting performance on the CMA Awards in 2015. The duo have collaborated several times since then, and most recently, crossed paths on the soundtrack for Trolls World Tour.
Timberlake serves as executive music producer on the film’s soundtrack and enlisted Stapleton’s help, co-writing two of the songs together. The process wasn’t easy however as the two were separated by nearly the entire country.
“I wrote with Chris Stapleton just like this via FaceTime,” he shared in an interview with Apple Music. “We wrote the songs via FaceTime, he had his guitar, I have my guitar, he was in Nashville and I was in Los Angeles and we were dealing with like a two or three second delay. So every time we would try to do it together, we would try to sing the parts together, it would be a train wreck. But we would record voice notes and send them back and forth and then we got on FaceTime and finished them this way.”
The film picks up after the events from the original Trolls movie in 2016. Branch (Timberlake) and Poppy (Anna Kendrick) find out that Trolls are scattered over six different lands and each are devoted to another genre of music: Pop, Funk, Classical, Techno, Country and Rock. Because the movie covers so many different types of music, Timberlake was pushed to expand the soundtrack to cover all the bases.
“What’s beautiful about this movie and what we’re able to do with the music and where the world just is right now is everybody’s just listens to everything. We’re getting closer and closer to sort of de-genrefying music,” he explained. “I was literally having conversation with Anderson [Paak] and we were talking about what is it, and that being the conversation right now. And we were like, I don’t know man, does a slap or does it not slap? That’s it. And that’s kind of what we tried to do with this soundtrack. If I was to ask you about your playlist in a day, it’s going to go from so many different styles to the other.”
The soundtrack also features songs from Dierks Bentley, Kelly Clarkson, Rachel Bloom, Mary J. Blige and others.
Trolls World Tour was originally scheduled to be released in theaters on April 10, 2020, but will be released via digital rental due to the coronavirus pandemic. For more information, visit trollsworldtour.com.
Listen to Apple Music’s one-hour special with Justin Timberlake now.
Trolls World Tour (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) Track List:
- The Other Side – SZA & Justin Timberlake
- Trolls Wanna Have Good Times – Anna Kendrick, Justin Timberlake, James Corden, Ester Dean, Icona Pop, Kenan Thompson & the Pop Trolls
- Don’t Slack – Anderson .Paak & Justin Timberlake
- It’s All Love – Anderson .Paak, Justin Timberlake, Mary J. Blige & George Clinton
- Just Sing – Justin Timberlake, Anna Kendrick, Kelly Clarkson, Mary J. Blige, Anderson .Paak & Kenan Thompson
- One More Time – Anthony Ramos
- Atomic Dog World Tour Remix – George Clinton and Parliament Funkadelic, Anderson .Paak & Mary J. Blige
- Rainbows, Unicorns, Everything Nice – Walt Dohrn & Joseph Shirley
- Rock N Roll Rules – HAIM & Ludwig Göransson
- Leaving Lonesome Flats – Dierks Bentley
- Born to Die – Kelly Clarkson
- Trolls 2 Many Hits Mashup – Anna Kendrick, Justin Timberlake, James Corden, Icona Pop & the Pop Trolls
- Barracuda – Rachel Bloom
- Yodel Beat – Ludwig Göransson
- Crazy Train – Rachel Bloom
- I Fall to Pieces – Sam Rockwell
- Perfect for Me – Justin Timberlake
- Rock You Like a Hurricane – Rachel Bloom
- It’s All Love (History of Funk) – Anderson .Paak, Mary J. Blige & George Clinton
- Just Sing (Trolls World Tour) – Justin Timberlake, Anna Kendrick, James Corden, Kelly Clarkson, George Clinton, Mary J. Blige, Anderson .Paak, Rachel Bloom, Kenan Thompson, Anthony Ramos, Red Velvet, Icona Pop, Kunal Nayyar & Sam Rockwell
