Cars (soundtrack)
2006 compilation soundtrack album; various artists

Cars: Original Soundtrack is the soundtrack album to the 2006 Disney/Pixar film of the same name. Released by Walt Disney Records on June 6, 2006, nine songs from the soundtrack are from popular and contemporary artists. The styles of these songs vary between pop, blues, country, and rock. The remaining eleven pieces are orchestral scores composed and conducted by Randy Newman. The soundtrack was released three days before the film's release into theaters. It was also the fifth Pixar film not to be scored by Michael Giacchino or Thomas Newman. On November 25, 2006, the soundtrack's position on the Billboard 200 shot up from #126 to #47, with a 209% sales increase of 25,000 units, likely due to the Cars DVD being released earlier that month for the Christmas shopping season. This was the first Pixar soundtrack to ever achieve Gold Certification in the United States. It is now Platinum in the U.S.
Reception
At the 49th Grammy Awards the soundtrack was nominated for the Best Compilation Soundtrack Album, while the John Mayer version of "Route 66" was also nominated for Best Solo Rock Vocal Performance and "Our Town" won the award for Best Song Written for a Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media. The track was also nominated for Best Original Song at the 79th Academy Awards.
The public source identifies “Cars (soundtrack)” as 2006 compilation soundtrack album; various artists. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Cars, soundtrack and compilation.
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This entry incorporates text from “Cars (soundtrack)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.