By Jessica Wind (Contributor) – Email
Print Edition: May 9, 2012
If you are anywhere near primetime on Monday nights, you’ve seen the ads for the latest musical dramedy on television. No, not Glee: The College Years, but close. NBC’s musical within a musical, Smash, has released their soundtrack featuring original songs from the show as well as numerous covers. It could easily be called Katherine McPhee ft. her co-stars as McPhee lends her voice to over half of the 13 tracks.
The first song on the album is McPhee’s long awaited single “Touch Me,” which doesn’t appear in the show until episode eight. Its sexy club tone will attract buyers until they realize that it is the only song on the album that feels this way. A quick glance at iTunes proves this; the album, which launched on May 1, reveals immense popularity for the single and considerably less interest for the rest of the ballads and Broadway tunes.
For those that do venture beyond the first track, songs two through eight are covers of popular singles. Listeners will recognize Christina Aguilera’s “Beautiful” (sung by McPhee), Michael Buble’s “Haven’t Met You Yet” (sung by Nick Jonas) and Florence and the Machine’s “Shake it out” (also sung by McPhee), among others. Megan Hilty, McPhee’s nemesis on the show, gets two believe-in-yourself ballads by Jessie J (“Who You Are”) and Carrie Underwood (“Crazy Dreams”), but it is too bad that they are squished between McPhee singing “Stand” (originally Donnie McClurkin) and “Beautiful.” The first half of the album falls flat for both fans of the show and folks searching for exciting covers of already famous songs.
Eventually, at track nine, the original music from the show begins: Broadway-style tunes about Marilyn Monroe. It is at this point in the album that a story seems to emerge and it would be fair to consider the last five tracks separately. Hilty starts with “Let me Be Your Star,” a track that highlights Monroe’s early years in the business. Then McPhee brings us “20th Century Fox Mambo” which moves into the lengths that Monroe went to for her fame. The story continues with a warm duet by Hilty and Will Chase (acting as Monroe and Joe DiMaggio) dreaming of a normal, fame-less life. Then on to “Let’s Be Bad,” again by Hilty and the album closes with the pairing of Hilty and Chase for one more love ballad. By the time the album finishes, you have forgotten where it began.
Hey, wait a minute, what about the other 30-plus songs that have been featured on the show? Unfortunately many of the more “comedy” flavoured tracks didn’t make the cut – a feeble attempt at sticking to a common theme? Viewers are, no doubt, feeling less than fulfilled with the seemingly random selection of songs for this first soundtrack from the show’s first season; non-viewers won’t make it past the first couple of songs, if they even care to purchase the entire thing.
NBC’s The Music of Smash comes off feeling confused and divided, a bad compromise between the show’s pop singles and original music. A select few of the songs shine on the album, but here’s hoping a second release is not far behind.
