Credited to Various Artists, Beauty and the Beast: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack features performances by the film's main cast – Paige O'Hara, Richard White, Jesse Corti, Jerry Orbach, Angela Lansbury, Robby Benson and David Ogden Stiers – in order of appearance.

Additionally, the album features recording artists Celine Dion and Peabo Bryson, who perform a pop rendition of the film's theme song of the same name, which simultaneously serves as the soundtrack's only single.

An animated musical that features songs written by lyricist Howard Ashman (who is also the film's producer) and composer Alan Menken, The Little Mermaid was both a tremendous critical and commercial success.

[2][3][4] Lyricist Howard Ashman and composer Alan Menken intended for the songs in Beauty and the Beast to serve as plot devices and assist in the telling of its story.

[6] Menken also revealed that the film's songs and score tend to convey a wide variety of emotions, ranging from poignancy to humor and joy.

[6] Menken believes that all properly structured musicals should feature an "I Want" song because they are essentially "about a character having a big dream, then [there's] some obstacle to that quest.

[6] When it came time to write the film's large-scale "scintillating"[12] musical number "Be Our Guest", Menken originally composed and provided Ashman with a simple melody that was initially intended for temporary use only, simply for the purpose of allowing his co-writer to start developing the song's lyrics.

However, Menken eventually gave up on his attempt to improve upon the song's simple melody, and it ultimately became the version to which Ashman wrote his lyrics.

[6] When the film was released, it garnered three separate Academy Award nominations for Best Original Song for "Belle", "Be Our Guest" and "Beauty and the Beast".

In order to prevent this from happening, the studio fought in favor of the film's title song and decided to release a pop rendition of "Beauty and the Beast" as a commercial single in an attempt to persuade voters to vote for it.

[15] Menken recruited musician Robbie Buchanan to arrange[16][17] "Beauty and the Beast" into the form of a pop duet[18] while Walter Afanasieff was responsible for producing the track.

However, the studio feared that she would not draw much media attention because of her relative obscurity in the United States, so they hired American singer Peabo Bryson, who was a more well-known recording artist at the time, to perform alongside her.

Tavia Hobart of AllMusic awarded the soundtrack a nearly perfect overall score of 4.5/5 stars, describing Ashman and Menken's compositions as "positively delightful."

[9] When Beauty and the Beast was released in November 1991, several film and entertainment critics awarded specific praise to its music, both songs and score.

In total, the soundtrack won five Grammys for Best Album for Children and Best Instrumental Composition Written for a Motion Picture or for Television for the soundtrack, and Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals (Celine Dion & Peabo Bryson), Best Pop Instrumental Performance, and Best Song Written for Visual Media for "Beauty and the Beast".