The Greatest Showman Soundtrack Review
21st Century Fox’s massive smash hit musical “The Greatest Showman”, which features an all star cast including Hugh Jackman, Zac Efron, Michelle Williams and Zendaya. This movie is inspired by the imagination of P. T. Barnum, The Greatest Showman is an original musical that celebrates the birth of show business & tells of a visionary who rose from nothing to create a spectacle that became a worldwide sensation.
This album has some massive songs that tell the story as you go through the album, while also featuring some catchy songs that you’ll be singing along with in no time. With some big group numbers, along with soft love songs and family moments, it really does take you through the whole story.
The album kicks off with the big group number, “The Greatest Show”, and while Hugh Jackman starts off quietly, the song just keeps building to a huge number that gives me chills when I’m listening to it.
This is followed by a much slower track, “A Million Dreams”, which starts off with a young Ziv Zaifman singing, which isn’t one of my favourite songs from the album, but the reprise version of the song, sees the whole family joining together to sing about their dream, telling that story of them going on this journey as a family.
One of my favourite tracks from the album is “The Other Side”, which sees Hugh Jackman in a “singing” conversation with Zac Efron, with Hugh trying to convince Zac to join the show. Its a real fun song that delivers a great duet that has a completely different feel to the rest of the album, but I love it.
“Come Alive” once again sees Hugh Jackman start off quietly, but slowly building up to another big uplifting group epic, but its a track which slips into the background when compared to some of the big hitters from this album.
“This Is Me” is one of the biggest songs from the album and even picked up a Golden Globe award, since its such an empowering track, where the cast of “oddities” sing about accepting who they are and being proud about it. It’s a big song and will no doubt inspire people, but I’ll be honest and say I found it a little too sugary for my liking.
Another fantastic track off the album is “Tightrope”, which I have been humming for days, its so beautiful, its soft yet powerful, listening to the lyrics just gives me goosebumps as it shows the love between them and how life can be like walking a tightrope, but doing it together can make it easier. It might be a bit cliche, but it really hit home to me personally.
“Rewrite the Stars” by Zac Efron and Zendaya, is another highlight off this album, while it might come across a little too much like a track off a Disney Channel movie, I really enjoyed the chemistry between them. One of the hidden aspects to this track is about “Race”, how during that time, their love wouldn’t be enough to allow them to be together even though they both want to be together. Its a beautiful song.
“Never Enough” by Loren Allred is another nice slow number that feels a little generic and it was only song I had to double check when going through the track listing since I couldn’t remember it, even after listening to the album dozens of times later.
“From Now On” is another Hugh Jackman showcase, which again starts slow and quiet, building to a big group number, that is one of the main aspects to this album, its good, but its not one of my favorite tracks from the collection.
OVERALL:
This album is easily one of the best soundtracks I’ve listened to in ages, its an album that I have listened to a couple dozen times already, since its got some incredible songs. If you liked the movie, you’ll love the soundtrack and even if you haven’t seen the movie, this album has some amazing songs that will become “musical” mainstays for years. I’d recommend any musical fan to check it out as it has some fantastic tracks like “Tightrope”, “This is Me” and “The Greatest Show”, make this a a very good soundtrack
REVIEW SCORE: 8 out of 10
You can purchase this album from Amazon.