"A Whole New World" is the signature song from Disney's 1992 animated feature film Aladdin, with music by Alan Menken and lyrics by Tim Rice. A duet originally recorded by singers Brad Kane and Lea Salonga in their respective roles as the singing voices of the main characters Aladdin and Jasmine, the ballad serves as both the film's love and theme song. Lyrically, "A Whole New World" describes Aladdin showing the confined princess a life of freedom and the pair's acknowledgment of their love for each other while riding on a magic carpet. The song garnered an Academy Award for Best Original Song at the 65th Academy Awards, a Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song at the 50th Golden Globe Awards, and a Grammy Award for Best Song Written Specifically for a Motion Picture or for Television at the 36th Grammy Awards, as well as a Grammy Award for Song of the Year, the only Disney song to do so. In the same year, the pop version sung by Peabo Bryson and Regina Belle was also nominated for Record of the Year and Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group With Vocals, winning the latter. Mena Massoud and Naomi Scott performed the song in the live-action version of Aladdin (2019). Zayn Malik and Zhavia Ward did their version of the song for the end credits.

Peabo Bryson and Regina Belle pop duet version

A single version of the song was released that same year and was performed by American recording artists Peabo Bryson and Regina Belle. This version is played over the film's end credits and is referred on the soundtrack as "Aladdin's Theme". The version peaked at number one on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart for a week, ending on March 6, 1993, replacing Whitney Houston's "I Will Always Love You", which had spent a then-record 14 weeks at the top of the chart. It went gold and sold 600,000 copies domestically. The track peaked at number 12 in the UK Singles Chart in 1993. The song is the first song from a Disney animated film to top the US Billboard Hot 100. It was the only Disney song to achieve this feat until "We Don't Talk About Bruno" from Encanto reached the summit in 2022. The single version was later included on Belle's studio album Passion (1993) and on Bryson's studio album Through the Fire (1994).

Critical reception

Alan Jones from Music Week gave the song five out of five. He wrote, "The theme from Aladdin is a huge appealing big ballad duet. A melodic tour de force with wide ranging appeal, it is wisely tipped as the Christmas number one."

Charts

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Certifications

Kane and Salonga version

Bryson and Belle version

Massoud and Scott version

Zayn and Zhavia version

Cover versions

Jose Mari Chan version

In the Philippines, a version of the song performed by Jose Mari Chan, a Filipino recording artist, was released as a single through Bell Films (a subsidiary of Universal Records) in 1993, coinciding with the Philippine theatrical release of Aladdin on April 30, 1993. Then-SM Rookies member Jaehyun, who later debuted as a member of boy group NCT and former member Seo Herin performed the song in Disney Channel Korea show Mickey Mouse Club in December 2015.

Other cover versions