Album Review: Hannah Montana OST
Hello all. Sorry for the lack of updates lately, but trust me, there has been a good explanation for it. OK on to the actual post.
Hannah Montana OST
Well, I was incredibly disappointed when the tracklisting to this soundtrack was released and confirmed about a month ago, and here's why:
1) "The Best of Both Worlds"
2) "Who Said"
3) "Just Like You"
4) "Pumpin' Up the Party"
5) "If We Were a Movie"
6) "I Got Nerve"
7) "The Other Side of Me"
8) "This Is the Life"
9) The Click Five - "Pop Princess"
10) Jesse McCartney - "She's No You"
11) Everlife - "Find Yourself In You"
12) B5 - "Shining Star"
13) Miley Cyrus & Billy Ray Cyrus - "I Learned From You"
Yawn. Hannah Montana's first 6 singles to Radio Disney, plus two songs ("Just Like You" and "The Other Side of Me") that hadn't had full versions released yet, but had been played on the show many times, including snippets that were more than a minute in length. No new Hannah Montana songs at all, unless the ballad with her dad counts. Which it totally doesn't. I was really looking forward to some more Hannah songs! Screw you Diz!
As to the Hannah songs on the mix, there were three that I had not yet heard full versions of (the two aforementioned ones plus "This Is the Life" which got no RD plays at all). You know what, this whole thing doesn't really flow as an album at all, so the most appropriate way to review it is probably track-by-track:
1) "Best of Both Worlds" - Still great. The lyrics are very theme song-ish, which is appropriate, but not meaningful outside the context of the show. I love the guitar riff. 9/10.
2) "Who Said" - You know, I've never really dug the melody to this song too much, though I love the musical backdrop (esp the twangy guitar!). The lyrics are better than BOBW, but still a bit too rah-rah to have any consequence at all. Still, a solid song. 7/10.
3) "Just Like You" - Pleasantly surprised, the full version is superior to the snippets on the show. But the lyrics to the song are revealing her pop star/regular girl double life! Be more careful Hannah! I like the "I'm the lucky girl..." part a lot, but the song doesn't seem to go anywhere. Plus the melody doesn't seem to match her voice very well. 6/10.
4) "Pumpin' Up the Party" - HORRIBLE. Dear God, what were they thinking. OK the story of this song. The chorus to this song was featured briefly at the very beginning of the Hannah episode "Mascot Love". And, hey, it's a really catchy chorus, despite it's stupidity. Fans started to get anxious...hey, here was this awesome chorus, with no song attached. We want the full version! The full version of this song was very highly anticipated, and RD released it together with "I Got Nerve" with great fanfare! It was played constantly when first debuted. But now they never play it, because even little kids know the difference between a listenable song and an unlistenable one. Still a catchy chorus, but it's amazing they managed to screw this up so badly. 1/10.
5) "If We Were a Movie" - Hannah's only love song! The others are all really rah-rah inspirational stuff ("I Got Nerve", "Who Said") or songs with lyrics that are directly applicable to the show and have no real general meaning ("The Best of Both Worlds", "Just Like You"). Consequently, this is the best of Hannah's songs lyrically, and plus it's got a great melody. I'm not a huge fan of the verses, which prevents this from being one of my very fave Hannah songs, but it's a good one. 8/10. Plus in the 1 minute Typhoon Lagoon video of this song, she does a "sexy" hip roll about 40 seconds in that is hilarious.
6) "I Got Nerve" - I love this song so much. Yeah, the lyrics are nothing special, but I like the melody of the verses a lot, I love the prechorus, and I REALLY love the chorus a lot. Plus Miley is a great singer. Good guitar riff too. I could listen to this song for hours on end. One of the top 10 and possibly top 5 singles of the year. 9.5/10.
7) "The Other Side of Me" - Horrible once again. Was this always a dance song on the show? I don't seem to remember it being that way. Why do they keep trying to do dance songs with Hannah, when Miley's voice is clearly not suited to it. The two dance tracks on this album are clearly and by far the two worst tracks on the album. 2/10.
8) "This Is the Life" - Whoa, where did this come from? I had only heard brief snippets of it on the show. Given how badly the song flopped on Radio Disney I was expecting it to be very bland and stupid, but it's not! It's got a really great melody, and it's perfectly suited to Miley's voice. It's got a real kind of country twang to it that I love. Giving it a 9/10, this could be the second best song on the album. A top 10 single of the year contender.
So based entirely on the Hannah Montana songs, the album would get a 6.44 using the Poptimists scientific album score criteria. That's not a bad score, it's got a couple clunkers, but a lot of great songs. The real problem is the remaining 6 tracks. They aren't awful really, but they are all highly mediocre, they have absolutely nothing to do with the show, and they add nothing to the album at all. I'm really disappointed that Disney put them on, although I should really have learned to expect nothing else other than greedy greed from them by now. The duet is OK, but again adds nothing. I don't skip it on the album, but I can't imagine anybody intentionally choosing to listen to it.
OFFICIAL OPINION OF THE TCR: Miley is a really great singer. She is far superior as a singer to any other Disney product, especially Hilary. Tho some of the songs she's been given are no where near as good as some of the songs Hilary has been given. But a lot of the songs have great melodies and good backing tracks too! Hannah is my favorite singles artist of the year. Five of the above songs would make my top 50 or so of the year (all the RD singles except "Pumpin' Up the Party"), with probably at least 3 in the top 25. That being said, don't waste your money on the album. The highs are high indeed, probably the best top 4 songs of any album released this year. But 3 of those 4 songs are still played on very heavy rotation on Radio Disney. Just listen to Radio Disney, you'll hear about 10 HM songs a day and it's free. Plus if you're less than 14 you can enter their contest to receive a phone call from Miley! Leave this one for the kiddies, where it belongs.
(same picture of Miley they always use because it's the only one ever taken where her mouth was not open.)
Hannah Montana OST
Well, I was incredibly disappointed when the tracklisting to this soundtrack was released and confirmed about a month ago, and here's why:
1) "The Best of Both Worlds"
2) "Who Said"
3) "Just Like You"
4) "Pumpin' Up the Party"
5) "If We Were a Movie"
6) "I Got Nerve"
7) "The Other Side of Me"
8) "This Is the Life"
9) The Click Five - "Pop Princess"
10) Jesse McCartney - "She's No You"
11) Everlife - "Find Yourself In You"
12) B5 - "Shining Star"
13) Miley Cyrus & Billy Ray Cyrus - "I Learned From You"
Yawn. Hannah Montana's first 6 singles to Radio Disney, plus two songs ("Just Like You" and "The Other Side of Me") that hadn't had full versions released yet, but had been played on the show many times, including snippets that were more than a minute in length. No new Hannah Montana songs at all, unless the ballad with her dad counts. Which it totally doesn't. I was really looking forward to some more Hannah songs! Screw you Diz!
As to the Hannah songs on the mix, there were three that I had not yet heard full versions of (the two aforementioned ones plus "This Is the Life" which got no RD plays at all). You know what, this whole thing doesn't really flow as an album at all, so the most appropriate way to review it is probably track-by-track:
1) "Best of Both Worlds" - Still great. The lyrics are very theme song-ish, which is appropriate, but not meaningful outside the context of the show. I love the guitar riff. 9/10.
2) "Who Said" - You know, I've never really dug the melody to this song too much, though I love the musical backdrop (esp the twangy guitar!). The lyrics are better than BOBW, but still a bit too rah-rah to have any consequence at all. Still, a solid song. 7/10.
3) "Just Like You" - Pleasantly surprised, the full version is superior to the snippets on the show. But the lyrics to the song are revealing her pop star/regular girl double life! Be more careful Hannah! I like the "I'm the lucky girl..." part a lot, but the song doesn't seem to go anywhere. Plus the melody doesn't seem to match her voice very well. 6/10.
4) "Pumpin' Up the Party" - HORRIBLE. Dear God, what were they thinking. OK the story of this song. The chorus to this song was featured briefly at the very beginning of the Hannah episode "Mascot Love". And, hey, it's a really catchy chorus, despite it's stupidity. Fans started to get anxious...hey, here was this awesome chorus, with no song attached. We want the full version! The full version of this song was very highly anticipated, and RD released it together with "I Got Nerve" with great fanfare! It was played constantly when first debuted. But now they never play it, because even little kids know the difference between a listenable song and an unlistenable one. Still a catchy chorus, but it's amazing they managed to screw this up so badly. 1/10.
5) "If We Were a Movie" - Hannah's only love song! The others are all really rah-rah inspirational stuff ("I Got Nerve", "Who Said") or songs with lyrics that are directly applicable to the show and have no real general meaning ("The Best of Both Worlds", "Just Like You"). Consequently, this is the best of Hannah's songs lyrically, and plus it's got a great melody. I'm not a huge fan of the verses, which prevents this from being one of my very fave Hannah songs, but it's a good one. 8/10. Plus in the 1 minute Typhoon Lagoon video of this song, she does a "sexy" hip roll about 40 seconds in that is hilarious.
6) "I Got Nerve" - I love this song so much. Yeah, the lyrics are nothing special, but I like the melody of the verses a lot, I love the prechorus, and I REALLY love the chorus a lot. Plus Miley is a great singer. Good guitar riff too. I could listen to this song for hours on end. One of the top 10 and possibly top 5 singles of the year. 9.5/10.
7) "The Other Side of Me" - Horrible once again. Was this always a dance song on the show? I don't seem to remember it being that way. Why do they keep trying to do dance songs with Hannah, when Miley's voice is clearly not suited to it. The two dance tracks on this album are clearly and by far the two worst tracks on the album. 2/10.
8) "This Is the Life" - Whoa, where did this come from? I had only heard brief snippets of it on the show. Given how badly the song flopped on Radio Disney I was expecting it to be very bland and stupid, but it's not! It's got a really great melody, and it's perfectly suited to Miley's voice. It's got a real kind of country twang to it that I love. Giving it a 9/10, this could be the second best song on the album. A top 10 single of the year contender.
So based entirely on the Hannah Montana songs, the album would get a 6.44 using the Poptimists scientific album score criteria. That's not a bad score, it's got a couple clunkers, but a lot of great songs. The real problem is the remaining 6 tracks. They aren't awful really, but they are all highly mediocre, they have absolutely nothing to do with the show, and they add nothing to the album at all. I'm really disappointed that Disney put them on, although I should really have learned to expect nothing else other than greedy greed from them by now. The duet is OK, but again adds nothing. I don't skip it on the album, but I can't imagine anybody intentionally choosing to listen to it.
OFFICIAL OPINION OF THE TCR: Miley is a really great singer. She is far superior as a singer to any other Disney product, especially Hilary. Tho some of the songs she's been given are no where near as good as some of the songs Hilary has been given. But a lot of the songs have great melodies and good backing tracks too! Hannah is my favorite singles artist of the year. Five of the above songs would make my top 50 or so of the year (all the RD singles except "Pumpin' Up the Party"), with probably at least 3 in the top 25. That being said, don't waste your money on the album. The highs are high indeed, probably the best top 4 songs of any album released this year. But 3 of those 4 songs are still played on very heavy rotation on Radio Disney. Just listen to Radio Disney, you'll hear about 10 HM songs a day and it's free. Plus if you're less than 14 you can enter their contest to receive a phone call from Miley! Leave this one for the kiddies, where it belongs.
Labels: Album Review, Disney, Hannah Montana
posted by Greg at 8:48 PM
1 Comments:
Thank you for revealing "Pumpin' Up the Party" as an abomination it is! The repetitive chorus just kills it. "If We Were..." and "This is the Life" are my favorites, too. They don't get stale after repeated listens. How can you not love "Just Like You" and "The Other Side of Me," (the speaking part is too cute!)?! Haha, I read somewhere were contenders for the theme songs along with BOBW. IMO think she has a versatile enough voice to handle the pop songs, too, which is fortunate because that's probably what the HM gig will stick her with for the next couple of soundtracks.
Miley said the first season's soundtrack was just supposed to explain the show, so perhaps the self-aggrandizing meaningless lyrics are excusable this time around.
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