Music News

Songs like “A Sentimental Man” are a staple in musical theater; brief soliloquies from tertiary characters meant to inch the plot slightly forward or develop our protagonists’ character just a little bit further. Yet, there is a reason why comedian Sarah Smallwood Parsons referred to this song lovingly as “That Song in Every Musical That No One Likes.” Jeff Goldblum doesn’t add much (other than his own signature quirks), to this penultimate track, making “Sentimental Man” still the most skippable song in Wicked. Unless you’re going for a full listen-through of the soundtrack, you’d be forgiven for moving right past this one to get to the big finale number.

“Something Bad” isn’t bad per se, it just commits a mortal sin in the world of movies, musicals and movie musicals; it’s boring. With very little time to establish an important bit of plot for the story, Peter Dinklage and Cynthia Erivo do what they can to give this odd dirge some life, with the additional dialogue to underline the impending fascism of Oz doing important heavy-lifting here. The musical steps taken to underline the horror of Dillamond’s bleating “baaaaaad” certainly gives the song a grim undertone the original never quite had — but that doesn’t make “Something Bad” into something all that good, either.

Where “Dear Old Shiz” shares the same problem with tracks like “Something Bad” or “A Sentimental Man,” the sheer technique of what’s being sung here gives it just the slightest leg up. “Dear Old Shiz” gives the ensemble of Wicked a chance to show off their best choral vocals, even if in the grand scheme of things, it’s not a vital (or all that interesting) track to the overall soundtrack.

While “One Short Day” didn’t really need any additional bloat (it’s meant to be a “short” day, after all), there are exactly two reasons why we’re happy to see this expansion on the Broadway show’s late act set piece — and their names are Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth. It seemed inevitable that the original Elphaba and Glinda would appear in some capacity in the film, and it’s genuinely nice to hear them singing together again, even if what they’re singing is some clunky exposition. Chenoweth’s dizzying coloratura and Menzel’s reprise of her iconic battle cry will make you just giddy enough to overlook the unnecessary additions to this otherwise fine song.

Kudos to Cynthia Erivo for doing everything in her power to try and make “I’m Not That Girl” more than what it is — a bit of mid-Act I filler. Adding in stunning riffs and emotionally raw vocals to sell Elphaba’s self-doubting soliloquy, Erivo manages to lift the song just a little bit higher than Menzel’s original performance. But “I’m Not That Girl” is still … well, not quite that girl when compared to some of the soundtrack’s better offerings.

Kicking things off with a celebratory opening number, “No One Mourns the Wicked” sets the tone for what’s to come throughout the rest of the soundtrack. Updated orchestrations make the song feel fresh, and Grande lets her octave-jumping soprano take control here, even though we wish she had leaned just a little bit further into Glinda’s more operatic side. “No One Mourns the Wicked” lovingly touches on the bombast and grandeur of the original, while never actively recreating it note-for-note.

A good movie musical takes the elements that worked from its source material and simply recreates them for the screen; a great movie musical takes those pieces and amplifies them for a new medium. While “What Is This Feeling?” occasionally falls into the former category, it often doubles down on the song’s built-in comedy to create gold (see Grande’s bratty “Yeah, well, my face is flushing” at the song’s outset as a prime example). Meanwhile, our leading ladies take their first opportunity to duet together and run with it, showing off the vocal chemistry that oozes out of their mutually petty performances in this high-spirited number.

Future movie musical directors, please take note: this is how you update a song for the screen. The new, poppy orchestrations from Schwartz on “Dancing Through Life” makes a decent track from the original stage musical absolutely sing in its movie version. That’s also in no small part thanks to a swoon-worthy performance from Jonathan Bailey, who blends his raw West End talent with his Bridgerton sex appeal to make his Prince Fiyero sway and sweep his way through the updated score. While Grande gets a few shining moments on the song, the other real song-stealers arrive in the form of Ethan Slater’s Boq and Marissa Bode’s Nessarose, as they make the most of their big musical moments in the film. Added together, every moving part makes this “Dancing Through Life” feel that much more “swankified” than its 2003 counterpart.

Kristin Chenoweth set the bar in outer space with her Tony-nominated performance as Glinda (Galinda, if you’re nasty) in the original Broadway version of Wicked — the bar was so high, in fact, that upon Grande’s casting announcement, die-hard fans of the musical were immediately skeptical of the pop singer’s ability to rise to the challenge. Let Grande’s rendition of “Popular” put those concerns to rest. Throughout this effervescent, makeover-montage number, Grande unleashes her comedy chops to give her Galinda the outsized vapidity needed to earnestly tell her new friend about the “personality dialysis” she plans to enact on her. Even the addition of a series of stratospheric key-changes in the song’s final moments only add to its maximalist vision of the soon-to-be-Good Witch’s earnest-yet-shallow attempt to build a bridge into Elphaba’s heart. It’s campy, it’s hilarious, and it’s just as technically impressive as you’d want it to be coming from Grande’s killer voice.

“The Wizard and I” has always been about building from nothing into everything, emotionally and musically speaking. Nowhere is that more evident than in Cynthia Erivo’s masterful performance, as she takes Elphaba’s small seed of hope and grows it into a mighty, elegant tree of joy in real time. Even just through audio, you can hear the exuberance coursing through Erivo’s character, as she subtly glides her way through the first few choruses, before opening her voice up to its full “unlimited” potential in its resplendent final verse. There are few songs on the “Wicked” soundtrack as hotly-anticipated as “The Wizard and I” (more on those later), and Erivo makes sure to do both make Idina Menzel proud and to put her own, unique stamp on the track with this absolutely stunning rendition.

As one of the most transformational songs of 21st century musical theater, “Defying Gravity” is that song that, even if you haven’t seen Wicked, you probably know. Idina Menzel put every ounce of her soul into her soaring performance of the musical’s crown jewel, helping cement the song’s place among the great showstoppers in Broadway history. Thanks to that reputation, “Gravity” is the undisputed make-or-break moment for any Elphaba actress wishing to leave her mark on the role.

Cynthia Erivo doesn’t just put her stamp on the song — she sings it in a way that makes you feel as though you’re hearing it for the first time. The orchestrations have remained largely unchanged (save for a few expansions towards the end of the track), leaving Erivo to shatter through every expectation and skyrocket up her vocal range with awe-inspiring dexterity. Grande provides a necessary and vital assist here, both through her early-song acting and her gorgeous harmonies about halfway through. But it’s on the song’s infamous bridge that Erivo lets go, wringing out every note for all it is worth and letting the unbridled emotion of the moment flow through her voice. By the time she bellows out her own variation on the iconic battle cry, Erivo distinguishes her “Defying Gravity” as one of the single best movie musical interpretations of a song that this reviewer has ever heard, and one that more than surpasses the already astronomical expectations surrounding it.