Hot on the heels of Glee: The Music, Vol 3 - Showstoppers and Glee: The Music, The Power of Madonna comes the final musical Glee product for this season, Journey to Regionals, an EP containing all six songs performed on last night's season finale (stop reading if you didn't watch and don't want spoilers)."Journey" was a fitting end to the first season of Glee, which quickly became one of my favorite shows on television. It, along with Modern Family, are going to give 30 Rock some serious competition for the Best Comedy Series Emmy Award this year. My money's on Modern Family, which I enjoy, although I'll be rooting for Glee.
Musically, this EP is probably the least satisfying Glee release, although that's not going to stop it from topping the Billboard 200 next week. It's currently ahead of the Eclipse Soundtrack and new Christina Aguilera album at iTunes, despite Vol. 3 still hanging around the top 10.
The new version of "Don't Stop Believin'" is the highlight, which, unlike the original version, features the full New Directions line-up. Naya Rivera (Santana) sounds great on it; I'd love to hear more solos from her next year. New Directions sang two (really three) other Journey songs: "Faithfully," a nicely rendered Rachel/Finn duet, and a full group mash-up of "Any Way You Want It" and "Lovin', Touchin', Squeezin'."
As much fun as it was to have New Directions do three Journey songs, it wasn't enough to clinch Regionals, which, of course, went to Vocal Adrenaline, which led by Jonathan Groff, did a rather fantastic rendition of "Bohemian Rhapsody." Wounded by their loss and thinking the club would be canceled, the New Directions kids sang Lulu's "To Sir, with Love" to Will Schuester in tribute to his leadership. Later, after finding out the club would in fact survive another year, Will and Puck teamed up for a ukelele-backed version of "Over the Rainbow." Both of these were nice moments, but not musical standouts.
I should do a top 10 best musical moments of the first season of Glee. There are some definite standouts, but narrowing my favorites to 10 will be hard.
Best: Don't Stop Believin', Bohemian Rhapsody
1 comment:
the finale pulled the season back together for me, after a disappointing "back 9" that almost turned me right off. I'd like less tracks in each episode again so they can focus on plot again - comedy plot, the writers aren't great at doing drama without making it seem like a very special episode of Blossom!!
Post a Comment