Tom: Wait, didn’t we just…
Tim: Happy New Year! Yes, I know we’ve already featured a track from this film, but (a) I saw it yesterday and it’s good, (b) I could happily spend a week writing about the songs, and (c) I think this is suitable to start a year to.
Tim: Well I like it anyway. Powerful, confident, a good starter, and to be honest, now I think about it, not the best track for a review site, because it can’t really be held to many standards that we might judge most regular tracks by.
Tom: Yes, I was going to say. I don’t really have much context for this: it certainly seems like a Big Number, but bear in mind my standard’s the Hamilton soundtrack, so I have to adjust my expec…
Huh. The chorus just kicked in, as I write this. That is a very very good chorus.
Tim: As the opening number for a musical, it has to set the scene (check), get everyone worked up (check), and ideally bring in a number of cast members, which is does fairly successfully: here we have Hugh Jackman taking the lead, Keala Settle joining in vociferously, Zac Efron taking over in the last chorus and then duetting with Zendaya for the closing lyrics, with everyone else trying their best to make themselves heard. Given those targets: a good opener, I think.
Tom: Sure, I’ll go for that. I almost want to see the rest of the film now. Almost. Not quite.
Tim: Incidentally, although I won’t foist any more tracks from the film on you, I will recommend A Million Dreams and Rewrite the Stars in particular as worth checking out, and also… actually, just see the film. It’s not as good a film as it could have been, given P.T. Barnum’s life as the source material, but it is a top notch feel good musical.