Quick Hits, Vol. 211 (The Greatest Showman: Reimagined, Queen Latifah, Kasey Chambers, The Midnight Hour)

The Greatest Showman: Reimagined.  I don't know about your household, but if I looked up the re-viewings of this movie on our electronic devices, mainly by my eight year old, it would not shock me if it was over 100 times.  She has watched this freaking movie so so very many times.  And I liked it well enough, but one viewing got me to a pretty solid understanding.  So, I have also heard these songs a good number of times - from the backseat, from the living room, from Alexa - and so this pop star covers version of the soundtrack makes pretty solid sense.
The downfall of the album is that everyone is pretty much just doing an exact re-creation of the original song.  So Panic! At the Disco does "The Greatest Show," pretty much just like the original.  P!nk does "A Million Dreams," and while her voice is great and all that, its pretty much just the same song with an orchestral and piano tune.  Zac Brown Band makes "From Now On" worse by countri-fying it, and "This is Me" gets a cool twist with a verse from Missy Elliott, but most of this is pretty un-reimagined.  The straight-forward "Rewrite the Stars" done by James Arthur and Anne-Marie is the most streamed, at 69.2 million.

Weird that they auto-tuned Arthur so much - his voice should be able to handle those notes.  Maybe they just did it for show, but it is annoying to me.  Almost as annoying as all of the shots of Anne-Marie making sexy eyes at the camera as she just sits there and waits for Arthur to finish his verse.  That version of the song kinda sucks.  Tracks very closely to the original, but too much auto-tune and breathy false urgency.  I'm going to show this album to the kids, but I don't need it for myself.

Queen Latifah - All Hail the Queen.  Of course I know who Queen Latifah is, but I don't think I've ever tried any of her albums, I've just known about her as a pop culture rapper and actress.  Threw this one into the Q, and some of these songs are legitimately great.  "Ladies First," of course, but also "Dance for Me," "Mama Gave Birth to Soul Children" (with De La Soul), "Wrath of the Madness," and "Princess of the Posse" are all solid.  She's got a great flow, I wish I had gotten more in to back in the day.

Weird thing?  The video version of that song is what I remember, starting off (and later coming back in the middle) with those ladies voices singing the name of the song.  The album version doesn't have that hook in it, which is super weird.  Made me question whether or not I remembered my memories of this song.  ooooooooh ladies first, ladies first.  Great tune.  Going to keep a few of these and let the rest go.

Kasey Chambers - Campfire.  Before I was obsessed with Kacey Musgraves, I was obsessed with Kasey Chambers.  The Captain and Barricades & Brickwalls were excellent Americana/alt country tunes around the turn of the century.  This however?  Sucks on furry Wallaby toes.  Her voice grates right on through my soul and I can't take it anymore.  The most streams is at 82k, so everyone else has the same feeling for sure.  Here it is, the album opener, streamed before most people ran for the hills.  "Campfire Song."

I guess her voice sounded like that back in the day too, but it sure seems like it has gotten more strident.  Out.

The Midnight Hour - The Midnight Hour.  A friend suggested this album to me, and I now question that friend's entire musical worldview.  Its not horrible or anything, but this guy made it out to be a rap fiend's dream, something right up my alley.  Instead, its a jazzy set of songs that mostly feature mediocre raps or sung hooks.  The only one that catches my ear is the CeeLo Green powered "Questions."  Which only probably catches my ear because it was almost entirely used on Kendrick Lamar's untitled album a few years ago as the backing track for his track #6.  So this version just spins out more of the CeeLo and removes the Kendrick verses.

You have Ali Shaheed Mohammad, a portion of rap God group Tribe Called Quest.  Then you have Adrian Younge, a producer who made one of those boss Ghostface Killah records from a few years back.  They combine for this cinematic, soulful, jazzy background music.  CeeLo kills it, cleans it, and then stuffs it to put on my wall.  But most of these cats (the freaking Lil Wayne-sounding Bilal is horrible) kill it and then mangle it and treat it like Tommy Boy did to that roll he wanted to love.  Or, they just end up boring - its 20 freaking songs and an hour long.  So, know that when you commit to this, you are going to be hearing very similar-sounding jazzy Luke Cage rhythms for the next full hour, with very little variance.  No thanks.