 Because Disney could not afford to hire a "big singer", they drafted Canadian singer Celine Dion, who was relatively new to the music industry at the time, to record "Beauty and the Beast".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.The newly arranged song was released as the album's lead single on November 25, 1991.