Morning Music: Glee

I will start with a disclaimer: I absolutely love musical theatre.  I love camp, cheesy costumes, over exaggerated dance moves and, yes, even jazz fingers hold a special place in my heart.  So perhaps my bias towards absolutely loving this television show has more to do with a love of song and dance, ridiculous plotlines and jazzy ways to work in dance routines than it has to do with quality.

Image VIA http://www.gleeimages.com

The premise is simple: a high school teacher starts a glee club, which is unabashedly uncool.  He convinces the star football player to join and somehow a quirky cast of characters assembles to form the glee club.  The female lead, played by Lea Michelle, has two dads and a holier-than-thou attitude.  But somehow, characters like hers are totally likable.  I don’t want to spoil any of the plot by revealing what happens, but there are showmances, show-pregnancies and all sorts of scheming, backstabbing and musical pizzaz.

Over Christmas, I got the Glee: The Music, Volume 1.  And I have been listening to it like an obsessive fangirl.  It manages to mix classic showtunes (Don’t Rain on My Parade from musical Funny Girl), classics (John Lennon’s Imagine), 80s rap (Young MC’s Bust a Move), 90s pop (Jennifer Paige’s ever-infectious Crush) and contemporary (Kanye West’s Gold Digger).  The entire album is novel, but not in the way that you discard it after a primary listen.  I admit listening to nearly two hours of choir-styled remixes can be a bit daunting, but adding this in a shuffled playmix makes for a music-gasm every time it pops back up.

My favourite tune on the album?  Hands down, the innovative vocal arrangement of Journey’s Don’t Stop Believin’. I found this sneaky YouTube copy of that portion of the episode.  Just gorgeous.  Colour me a gleek, I am in love.

They are currently on hiatus until April 13, so you have until then to catch up.  If you’re in the UK, they’ve just begun airing on E4.  You can thank me later.