Having spent a year with Once More with-- Er, Subspace Rhapsody I have to come clean with what I probably knew about in the beginning. The tunes are fun. The performances range from "Well that was fun to hear them sing" to "Wow, has she recorded anything else?"
But.
The lyrics are almost uniformly terrible. And by that I mean that (nearly) none of them sound like words or often even thoughts that the characters would say or have.
Status Report is actually some nice table setting with technobabble set to music.
Connect to Your Truth is just a silly little song, so whatever. And the less said about Private Conversation the better.
La'an's How Would That Feel at least gets a (slight) pass for being a song about saying things she would never say. And the visuals and the performance carry the emotion that the lyrics lack. (This is the case for all of these really.) And when she pulls out the watch... Ok, need a moment...
Then we get to Uhura's Keep Us Connected. The tune is great. The instrumentation is amazing. The lyrics are garbage. "My whole life has been fix this and save you." Sorry, what now? Who is Nyota Uhura routinely saving? But damn Gooding sounds great singing it.
We Are One is in the same spot: "Our security is only as strong as our unity" -- What? If you're not with us, you're against us? Right? With the exception of Spock ("won't miss singing!") this is mostly a mish mash of words about TEEEEAM! And MISSION! And and and STAR TREK words!
Oh, and Chapel's "I can't believe how much I'll miss this crew" hits me in the gut every single time. Because I will miss this crew so much. It will be almost as long between seasons as it was between The Wrath of Khan and The Search for Spock!
The Klingons are terrific. Fair point.
It's a fun number to cap out a fun episode. And I cannot listen to the Jeff Russo Star Trek theme from Disco without doing that little dance move that Pike and Pelia do.
There are THREE songs that actually sound like the people singing them.
Keeping Secrets sounds like Una. It's fairly generic but it also nicely reflects back on her plot lines in the past episodes. (And it suffers from the TV edit.)
I'm the X is 75% great and is a terrific companion to another song (hey, I haven't gotten to it! Spoilers!) but still has enough lyrical flailing to keep it from being perfect. "Unbending reason must bе my true north Lest I drown in this sea of pain" Yeah, that's the ecccchhhhhh.
It's otherwise really good (the play on "I'm the ex" is just clever enough), but for heaven's sake: They had the chance to write THE ode to SPOCK. And they kinda flubbed it. The melody and the instrumentation, and of course Peck's performance paper over the problem spots. I mean, it's still my second favorite song. And there are less than Keep Us Connected. Lots less.
Which leaves: I'm Ready. I can't just say that I love Bush's performance (I do) because that's not what we're talking about here. (Do I love Uhura, Ortegas, and Sam joining in? Yes, I do. Does it make it just a little more weird and cruel that they leave out Spock? Yes it does. Stupid, mean, plot driven space anomalies!)
Maybe this song's lyrics are just the one eyed man in the valley of the blind. But dammit, they should have all been at least this good!
Still love this episode. Still love this album. But man, if it had been as good as... I know you can't afford the Frozen writers and maybe Lin Manuel Miranda only does Star Wars, but for Pete's sake, go get the Phineas and Pherb people! (That's what my baby says!) (Hey, Lopez - Frozen - actually wrote a song for P&F! And he did WONDER PETS?!?)
