My review of the soundtrack of Galavant can be summed up in four words: Good? It’s Alan Menken.
More Alan Menken is always a good thing and his partner in comedy crime on Galavant is Glenn Slater. The duo is best known for the music from Tangled, but they also expanded the score for The Little Mermaid Broadway show and wrote the musical version of Sister Act. Slater’s lyrics are, to quote one of their songs, “Comedy Gold.” Some of the songs are so fast that while watching the series, I missed some of the more brilliant lines. It’s great to have some of the best songs from the show on a soundtrack to really appreciate what these two have done.
In addition to witty lyrics, some of the song titles are even brilliant. “Oy, What a Knight” is an upbeat Jewish number with plenty of Yiddish thrown in, but the title is obviously a play on The Four Seasons’ “Oh What a Night.” “Hey, Hey, We’re the Monks” is a barbershop quartet featuring Weird Al Yankovic, which is a hilarious rip-off of “Hey, Hey, We’re the Monkees” from The Monkees TV series. The lyrics work in perfect harmony with the Alan Menken melodies and the team gets to show off their range with a great diversity in styles from song to song.
The star number is “Galavant,” which is another example of the brilliance of both the melody and the lyrics. Some of my other favorite songs include “Lords of the Sea,” “If I Could Share My Life With You” and “Goodbye My Friend.” All of the songs are presented in episode order, which is great because if you’ve seen every episode, you can listen to the story unfold through the songs.
While this soundtrack is nearly perfect, diehard fans of Galavant might be a little disappointed with this release. With fourteen tracks, a better name might have been “Highlights from Galavant” as it is missing quite a few songs. Even if you exclude all reprises, there are still four songs missing from the first six episodes (“Heroes Journey,” “Stand Up,” “Dance Until You Die,” “I Love You”) and only one song from episode seven or eight is included, which leaves me to believe even more songs will go unreleased. Perhaps strong sales will lead to a “Deluxe Edition” that will please all of you Galafans (that’s my nickname for you Galavant fans), but even if this soundtrack isn’t complete, it’s still wonderful. I really hope ABC gives Galavant another season if for no other reason than to have more Menken/Slater songs to sing-along to in my car.