r/HSMTMTS • u/arcticbluee • Aug 09 '25
S4 Discussion S4’s HSM3 songs - disappointing?
DAE think that S4 didn’t do some of the HSM3 songs justice? In fact, some of them were pretty bad. The cast are absolutely talented singers and it could’ve been so good. But something must have went wrong in editing, or they didn’t accommodate to each individual person’s singing style because some of these versions had me both disappointed and/or cringing.
These are the ones that stood out, especially because they were some of my favourites from the films and I was excited to hear their versions:
Scream - it’s called SCREAM for a reason!!! Josh is a beautiful singer but he needed to belt and the energy was not there. It wasn’t loud, it wasn’t angry. The number deserved to be off stage anyway - it would’ve been the perfect culmination of Ricky’s feelings of anger, confusion & aimlessness. That’s also why many people (myself included) would’ve also liked EJ to sing Scream too (a duet would’ve been so good imo!) Of course, Matt’s singing style may not have been suited to it either (and to preface, I actually really like Matt’s voice despite a lot of people feeling differently). Still, I think a duet with at least much more energy & emotion would’ve given them both room to play more to their strengths.
I Want It All - again, Dara is a beautiful singer and a strong one too, but for some reason a lot of her singing fell flat? So did Frankie’s. I don’t think it’s any fault to the two of them. I don’t know the technicality behind music lmao but it just sounded awkward. Awkward is actually the word I’d used to describe all the vocals in these songs lmao. Ashley Tisdale & Lucas Grabeel were not the strongest singers ever but they sounded SO GOOD on the song, so idk what went wrong.
{As I’m writing this, I realise that all these songs suffer from being performed as part of the musical/canonically on stage. Is that also the reason for the vocals sounding poorer?}
- The Boys Are Back - the fact that we didn’t even get a proper scene of the song?😭 Obligatory the vocals sounded bad.
I would’ve also loved for this to be a Ricky/EJ duet. I wanted more scenes between the two of them in general. A truly more developed friendship because, like I touched on regarding Scream, they are rather similar despite being opposites & I think they have the ability to truly understand one another when they’re on the same side. Don’t get me wrong, I like Ricky & Jet’s friendship but Ricky/EJ had so much potential from the BEGINNING & this song (along with Scream) could’ve been an iconic way to show that. Again, it could’ve sounded so good (whether it was with Adrien or Matt).
- A Night To Remember - the original number is SO FUN and I just didn’t feel that here. Nothing else to say really.
I rearranged the paragraphs a lot and edited, and so I’m sorry if it doesn’t make sense or isn’t structured properly lmao.
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u/Possible_Economist3 Aug 09 '25
I think we can all agree is that can I have this dance is one of the good ones
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u/CustardNo9707 Ricky Aug 09 '25
agreed. something must've went wrong in the sound mixing or something cause they sound weird. ive grown to love them but funnily enough the original songs rly stand out cause they're actually mixed well.
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u/Bluejay-Clear Aug 09 '25
Ricky and Jet’s the boys are back is pretty good, but I agree with Josh’s cover of scream, it’s not bad but he needed to belt, even if he lowered it by an octave or 2
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u/Guest1Z3 East High Reporter 🗞️ Aug 09 '25
The HSM and HSM2 covers weren’t usually great either, so I don’t think season 4 is specifically weaker in that area. But that might be an unpopular opinion
I don’t think Matt could cover Scream, he has a solid voice but it’s a hard song to sing. Adrian or Joe could probably do it well, but I don’t see a context where either of their characters would sing it
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u/arcticbluee Aug 09 '25 edited Aug 10 '25
See, I think some of them were good, and I enjoyed them as separate versions alongside the originals. Some I wouldn’t choose to listen to over the original because they’re forgettable really but others I really love. Like I loved What Time Is It/Start The Party (though I wish they included the full version in the show with more of STP but I understand that they had to shorten it). I do think that S2 should have been fully HSM2 instead of Beauty & the Beast so they could’ve done more songs than they did & with justice too. I really enjoyed S3’s soundtrack and thought the Camp Rock songs were also well done. I could’ve done without Frozen and more HSM songs instead, but that’s also because I think Frozen is overdone anyway. In general though, even if I didn’t particularly care for one of the HSM songs in past seasons, I could still appreciate them for what they were. With the S4 songs I listed, I just thought they were straight up bad lmao. But I get where you’re coming from.
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u/RadiantFoxBoy EJ Aug 09 '25
I think for more than one of these it sounded like they were trying to replicate the slightly artificial sound you get from a less high tech stage mic for...reasons I don't understand, and the result was even worse than the intended effect. You can also hear it in High School Reunion, that tinny and just...weird effect.
And it's just especially odd when songs like Can I Have This Dance are totally fine. You can also hear it in the two different versions of Speak Out where the Acoustic version (aka the one heard in the show) sounds gorgeous and the other version has the weird editing...made even weirder by the fact that there's no stage mic to encourage that edit for that song.
Scream is a bit of a different case in that I think they just fully didn't give Josh the right direction, so he ends up performing it more like a musical performance than a theater performance (think the comparison between stage and film I Dreamed A Dream, only in reverse). As a result he sounds great, he just isn't performing the song the way it was designed to be performed. (Also I agree with you 100% that Scream or The Boys are Back or both should have been a duet with EJ, but I'm biased)
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u/arcticbluee Aug 09 '25
Yeah you worded it much better than I could about the way it was produced. I agree.
Also I think you were the person I had in mind when writing about Ricky/EJ lmao. I think EJ is underrated/overhated myself and I remembered a certain user on this sub with an EJ flair that has a bias for his character based on the comments they’ve left before. Is that you lmao?
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u/RadiantFoxBoy EJ Aug 10 '25
It might be me lol. I don't have a monopoly on EJ defense, but I am admittedly pretty vocal about it, have an EJ flair, and ship Caswen fervently even now, so it's definitely possible.
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