Product Description
Glee: The Music, Volume 3 Showstoppers features 20 brand new songs from the hit TV show. The deluxe version features fan favorites like “Gives You Hell,” “Beautiful,” “Total Eclipse of the Heart,” and “Bad Romance,” plus 6 exclusive deluxe edition tracks like “House is Not a Home,” “Home,” “Rose’s Turn,” “Beth,” “Loser,” and “Poker Face.” … More >>
Glee: The Music, Volume 3 Showstoppers
#1 by Antoine D. Reid on June 17th, 2010
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The third volume of music from ‘Glee’ features some of the best numbers from the first season of the show. While the first two volumes’ music ranged from just ‘all right’ to ‘good’, I feel there are definitely stronger, better performances on this deluxe edition of the third volume. As with the other releases from ‘Glee’, there are still some missing numbers but in all, the 19 tracks included in the deluxe edition are pretty good and there are only a few tracks that I’d skip or would have left off.
The Good: What I like about this volume is that there are tracks and performances included from more of the cast. The first two releases felt like nothing more than a promotional vehicle for Lea Michele and her Rachel character. With this release, there are definitely tracks that show off more of the cast. You have Amber Riley’s stand-out moment this year (both in song and in terms of acting) with her cover of Christina Aguilera’s “Beautiful”; Mark Salling taking on “Lady Is A Tramp”; Chris Colfer with “A House Is Not a Home” and “Rose’s Turn”. You also have some of the second half of the season’s guest stars’ performances including Kristin Chenoweth’s awesome take on “Home” from ‘The Wiz’; Jane Lynch (Sue Sylvester) and Olivia Newton-John’s re-interpretation of “Physical”; Idina Menzel with ‘I Dreamed A Dream’. There are also some great cast/group numbers including the Glee-take on Lady GaGa’s “Bad Romance”, U2′s “One” and Bonnie Taylor’s ’80s hit “Total Eclipse of the Heart”. My overall complaint with the past two volumes is that there wasn’t enough variety and too many numbers seemed to feature Lea Michele while the other cast membership were reduced to back-up. This volume represents a shift in the series’ second volume (or second part of the first season) by having more of the cast step-up with numbers. With new voices, sounds and styles, I have to say this is by far the superior of the volumes of music released so-far from the show. Some may also complain that this release is missing the songs from the big Madonna episode but all of those songs were released already on CD so I figure the producers chose not to repeat themselves by adding any of those tracks (even if they would qualify as ‘showstoppers’).
In all, a pretty solid release with minor flaws. I’m glad there was a deluxe version released with more tracks rather than having just one standard edition as with the past two volumes with only a handful tracks. I felt a lot of these tracks were better produced and performed than the first two volumes of music that felt a bit too close to karaoke (but good karaoke). If you’re a fan of the show and haven’t been purchasing the tracks each week as they’ve been released digitally, this is definitely for you.
The Bad: This being a deluxe edition of volume 3, I was hoping there would be fewer numbers left off. However, it seems the powers-that-be still chose to overlook some of the better performances in an effort to either mix it up or save on royalties (who knows). Some numbers I wish had made it onto the actual CD were “Fire” performed by Kristin Chenoweth and Matthew Morrison, “Ice Ice Baby” or “U Can’t Touch This” (only one of these ‘bad’ numbers seemed necessary but neither are included), “The Boy Is Mine” and “Jessie’s Girls”. Considering this is coming out before the show even wraps the season, I’m sure there will be other minor numbers that come with the last few episodes that get released digitally but don’t make it onto this release. Another complaint I have is the timing of the release. Would it have been hard to hold off a week or two in releasing this? The best part of ‘Glee’ is in fact the music and never knowing until the day of the show what numbers and songs are going to end up on the show. Yet, here we are ‘spoiled’ by having 8 tracks that have yet to appear on the show on this release, including (for the most part) what order they’ll appear in the season. If the last two tracks end up being the big numbers in the final episode, that’s going to take away a bit from the surprise or enjoyment of the finale because we’d have been exposed to the music for more than a few weeks. Sure, ‘Glee’ is as much about the performance than it is the songs but in some cases, one ends up being better than the other.
Listen To These: “Loser”, “One Less Bell To Answer/A House Is Not a Home”, “Physical”, “Total Eclipse of the Heart”, “Safety Dance”, “Bad Romance”
Rating: 4 / 5
#2 by David Pearlman on June 18th, 2010
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As with the previous CD volumes drawn from Glee, this one is a mixed bag. Some of the songs work great with the visuals, but are dull or irrelevant as a listening-only experience. The songs that work best are those that add something substantial to the well known hit version, either in terms of arrangement or vocal.
The best songs here are Hello, Goodbye (a nice vocal arrangement), Hello (a beautiful duet), the One less Bell to Answer/A House is Not a Home medley (terrifically sung by Broadway vet Kristin Chenoweth), Home (another Chenowith number, and possibly the definitive recorded rendition), One (in a full cast arrangement that truly elevates this U2 song to another level), and Poker Face (stripped down to a piano ballad and sung as duet).
The worst songs are Physical (a lousy techno-inspired voicebox heavy remake of the Olivia Newton John hit) and the pointless Safety Dance, which loses all the charm of the ’80s hit. The Kiss cover, Beth, is surprisingly bad, owing to poor phrasing relative to the original.
The rest of the songs are fine, but mostly too close to the originals to be very interesting.
Again, as with previous volumes, auto-tuning runs rampant on many of these songs.
There are seven songs that appeared in the show during the period covered by this CD that don’t appear on the CD itself: Fire (Pointer Sisters), Highway to Hell (AC/DC), Ice Ice Baby (Vanilla Ice), Jessie’s Girl (Rick Springfield), Run Joey Run (David Geddes), The Boy is Mine (Brandy & Monica) and U Can’t Touch This (MC Hammer). (Original artists shown in parentheses). Of these, the most interesting is Run Joey Run, a well sung cover of a hammy one-shot from the late ’70s–this one should have been included on the CD. For most of the others the Glee rendition is not different enough from the original.
One last comment: For a show promoted as “family viewing”, the subject material of certain songs will present problems to some parents. Specifically, the lyrics to “Poker Face” are quite racy, and unlike the case for the highly produced Lady Gaga original, here there’s no ignoring them. Some might also find Beck’s “Loser” somewhat problematic. It is doubtful adults will be bothered, but since this show has a substantial younger audience, this is worthy of note…These two songs with questionable lyrical content do not appear on the 14 song (non “Deluxe”) version of the soundtrack, and some parents may wish to consider that version as an alternative.
On the whole, Glee fans will enjoy this CD, but I suspect almost everyone will wind up hitting the skip button to focus on their favorites. Some parents will probably wind up skipping a couple of the songs based on lyrical content, or they can opt to buy the shorter version of this soundtrack that does not contain the objectionable songs.
Rating: 3 / 5
#3 by H. Bokor on June 18th, 2010
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The two best songs on this CD are “I Dreamed A Dream” and “Poker Face.” “Funny Girl” was not included on this Volume, which is a disappointment because Idina Menzel makes an excellent addition to the show and the soundtracks. Overall, good songs, but a few get ridiculous at times. I love this show and the songs they include. I wish they would have a Phantom of the Opera episode! That would be so cool and would make for a great soundtrack. Get some Sarah Brightman in there to show them all how it’s done! Overall, good buy.
Rating: 4 / 5
#4 by Holland Crosby on June 18th, 2010
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Awesome vocals of course, just like the others. But where is Jessie’s Girl and The Boy Is Mine?! Very dissapointed that those werent there since they were such great performances on the show. But I am a huge Glee fan and love the CD nonetheless.
Rating: 4 / 5
#5 by Tim Brough on June 18th, 2010
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There was a time when pop music and classic popcraft went hand in hand. The Beatles, The Jackson 5, The Fifth Dimension, all took assorted Broadway songs and mixed them with pop and rock. The Beatles did “Till There Was You,” The Jackson’s did “Corner Of The Sky,” The Fifth Dimension took on “The Age Of Aquarius.” After a couple decades, that seemed to be too square. Until The Who decided to turn “Tommy” into a Broadway musical – and now Green Day actually winning Tony Awards for “American Idiot” (!?!?), Broadway and modern rock/pop travelled very separate pathways.
Glee has taken that and upended it entirely. Here, they cover The Fifth Dimension AND Broadway in the same song. The medley of “One Less Bell To Answer/A House Is Not a Home” fashions itself in the mold of Barbra Streisand, who has appeared in song throughout the first season. Take songs from “Phantom of The Opera,” “Gypsy” and “The Wiz” AND set the, next to The Beatles, Kiss and Lady Gaga, and you get what is easily one of the most subversive albums to hit number one this century.
Granted, the amount of Auto-tune here annoys me (these kids can sing, really…enough with the gadgets), but when I think of millions of kids being exposed to classic rock (“Dream On”), classic pop (“Hello Goodbye”) and Broadway standards (“I Dreamed a Dream:), I’m secretly thrilled. Add that the show itself is one of the most positive on network TV right now, and I am happy to make these soundtracks the guiltiest of my guilty pleasure CD’s.
Rating: 4 / 5