Glee: The Music, The Power of Madonna (a J!-ENT World Groove Digital Album Review)

1. Express Yourself
2. Borderline/Open Your Heart
3. Vogue
4. Like a Virgin
5. 4 Minutes
6. What It Feels Like For a Girl
7. Like a Prayer

The FOX musical, comedy-drama known as “Glee” has received a lot of praise for its first season on television. The drama about a high school choir ala glee club at William McKinley High School in Lima, Ohio and during the episode, we see characters who have song to sing or songs incorporated to the storyline and part of the charm of the show is that people can sing and the songs are quite popular.

So far, both album soundtracks “Glee: The Music, Season One” Volume 1 and Volume 2 have done well not just in the US but also overseas on the album charts and their Journey rendition “Don’t Stop Believin’” doing well on the singles charts in various countries.

And now, timed with the release of “The Power of Madonna” episode (aired on April 20, 2010), the latest GLEE release “Glee: The Music, The Power of Madonna” is now available on digital format and the hype built around this episode, especially with the viral video of Sue Sylvester’s (played by Jane Lynch) rendition of Madonna’s “Vogue” has caught media attention.

For the most part, for this release, everyone in the cast seems to have their part in the music (including the character Miss Emma Pillsbury) and for those who enjoyed the episode, the fellow Gleeks will definitely have their fun with this latest release, especially Mercedes and Kurt fans who have a prominent role in these Madonna covers.

And since I have been covering Glee DVD and soundtrack releases, I’m a bit biased towards the series, enough to say that I enjoyed the soundtrack. So, I went to a friend who was not familiar to the series to give the music a listen and of course, he was not digging it and preferred the originals. And I don’t blame him because the Madonna original versions are fantastic.

But as a fan of the show, definitely enjoyed all of the songs especially the lyrics to Sue Sylvester’s version of “Vogue”. It took me awhile to warm up to “4 Minutes”, as I still enjoy the Madonna/Timberlake track but seeing how the marching band was utilized for the song and in the episode, I enjoyed the cover little by little.  Of course, there is no comparison to the original Madonna tracks which I enjoy to this day but for fans of “Glee”, it was definitely a fun episode to see the cast singing Madonna songs and to have an album release with those songs.

Overall, if you are a fan of “Glee” then “Glee: The Music, The Power of Madonna” will probably entertain you, but if not, you can always listen to the awesome and original Madonna versions of the songs instead.