Dreamgirls: Music From The Motion Picture - Overview

Overview

Harvey Mason, Jr. and Damon Thomas of the production team The Underdogs served as producers and arrangers for the film's soundtrack, which is performed by the actors in the film, including Jamie Foxx, Beyoncé Knowles, Eddie Murphy, Jennifer Hudson, Anika Noni Rose, Sharon Leal, Keith Robinson, and others. The soundtrack includes four new songs not present in the stage version of Dreamgirls: "Listen", "Love You I Do", "Patience", and "Perfect World". "Listen" was released to radio the week of October 16 as the first official Dreamgirls soundtrack single; the disco version of "One Night Only" was issued in late summer as a 12" club single and as an exclusive download on iTunes. "Listen", "Love You I Do", and "Patience" were all nominated for the 2006 Academy Award for Best Original Song.

The Dreamgirls soundtrack was nominated for the 2008 Grammy Award for Best Compilation Soundtrack Album for a Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media, losing to The Beatles' Love. However, "Love You I Do" won the Grammy that same year for Best Song Written for a Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media.

The one-disc version of Dreamgirls: Music from the Motion Picture debuted at number 20 on the US Billboard 200, with sales of 92,000 units. In its fifth week of release, the soundtrack reached the top of the Billboard 200 with a low sales week of 68,000 units. In a way Beyoncé Knowles broke her own record because the Dreamgirls soundtrack charted at number-one with the lowest number of SoundScan-tracked sales for a number-one album since the Destiny's Child's #1's album, on which Knowles also appears and which debuted at number-one with 113,000 copies sold. The following week, the soundtrack broke its own all time low record, holding on to the number one spot with a sales decrease of 9% good for 60,000. This record was later broken by Taylor Swift selling 52,000 copies of her album Speak Now in its sixth non-consecutive week at No. 1 in January 2011.