High School Musical (soundtrack)

Untitled

The soundtrack for the Disney Channel Original Movie, High School Musical, was released on January 10, 2006 and debuted at #143 on the Billboard 200, selling 6,469 copies in its first week. The soundtrack appeared to be more successful on iTunes and Amazon.com the day after the movie debuted on the Disney Channel, and has spawned nine tracks on the iTunes Top 100 best sellers songs so far. In terms of DCOMs, the movie was quite successful and was accompanied by an even more successful album.

The album has reached #1 on both the iTunes Best Selling Albums and on Amazon.com's Top Sellers for Music, as well as producing five songs on the the iTunes Top 10 Best Selling Songs.

Track listing

1. "Start of Something New" – Gabriella & Troy – 3:16
2. "Get'cha Head in the Game" – Troy – 2:27
3. "What I've Been Looking For" – Sharpay & Ryan – 2:03
4. "What I've Been Looking For (Reprise)" – Gabriella & Troy – 1:19
5. "Stick to the Status Quo" – High School Musical Cast – 4:28
6. "When There Was Me and You" – Gabriella – 3:00
7. "Bop to the Top" – Sharpay & Ryan – 1:47
8. "Breaking Free" – Gabriella & Troy – 3:27
9. "We're All in This Together" – High School Musical Cast – 3:51
10. "I Can't Take My Eyes Off You" – Gabriella, Troy, Sharpay, and Ryan – 2:51
11. "Get'cha Head in the Game (Pop Version)" – B5 – 2:43
12. "Start of Something New (Karaoke Instrumental)" – 3:31
13. "Breaking Free (Karaoke Instrumental)" – 3:42

Song descriptions

• Start of Something New: Troy (Zac Efron) and Gabriella (Vanessa Anne Hudgens) are randomly called up during a New Year's Eve karaoke party to sing this song, which portrays their meeting each other, and that it could be the "Start of Something New."

• Get'cha Head in the Game: Sung by Troy and the rest of the East High Wildcats basketball team during one of their practices, the focus of the piece is that they all need to get their "Head in the Game." Throughout the song, Troy contemplates the possibility of auditioning with Gabriella for the Winter Musical, as he sings:

Why am I feeling so wrong

My head's in the game
But my heart's in the song

She makes this feel so right

• What I've Been Looking For: This faster-tempo arrangement of the standard audition piece for the Winter Musical is performed by Sharpay (Ashley Tisdale) and Ryan (Lucas Grabeel) for the "pairs audition."

• What I've Been Looking For (Reprise): Though too late to sign-up for the Winter Musical auditions, Troy and Gabriella sing the audition piece "the way it's supposed to sound," for and as written by Kelsi (Olesya Rulin), the student composer of the Musical.

• Stick to the Status Quo: When the school finds that Troy and Gabriella have gone against the grain in auditioning for the Winter Musical, some of other the students follow their lead and "confess" their own secret and non-stereotypical interests (such as one of the "skater dudes" playing the cello), much to the chagrin of the rest of the student body, who argue that:

It is better by far

To keep things as they are
Don't mess with the flow, no no

Stick to the status quo

• When There Was Me and You: Distressed by what she overheard Troy saying about his lack of feelings for her and singing, Gabriella berates herself for her apparent naiveness, and expresses that she "thought you felt it too, when there was me and you."

• Bop to the Top: Sharpay and Ryan's selection for the pairs audition callbacks, the song characterizes the duo's ambition to always be the best and "Bop to the Top."

• Breaking Free: Assigned to Troy and Gabriella for the pairs callbacks, the two (accompanied by Kelsi) audition the song in front of their peers and, through it, are able to show the school their desire to "break free" from the molds that others have put them in:

You know the world can see us
In a way that’s different than who we are

• We're All in This Together: As the final song of the movie, with solos by Troy, Gabriella, Ryan, and Sharpay, the chorus performs the school chant, which highlights that everyone is at their strongest when they're "all in this together."

Mainstream success

In it's second week, it jumped 85 spots to #58 on the Billboard 200 chart and was labeled Pace Setter by Billboard. In it's third week, it jumped 48 spots to #10 with 53,000 copied sold. The album has sold over 140,000 copies as of February 14, 2006. It also debuted at #4 on Billboard's Top Digital Albums chart.

US Billboard 200 Chart Trajectory
Week	01	02	03	04	05
Position	143	58	10	13	13

Nine songs from the soundtrack made it to the Billboard Hot 100 (chart peak given):

Breaking Free - Zac Efron, Andrew Seeley & Vanessa Anne Hudgens #4
Get'cha Head In The Game - Zac Efron (This song has now been credited solely to Andrew Seeley) #23
Start Of Something New - Zac Efron, Andrew Seeley & Vanessa Anne Hudgens #28
We're All In This Together - High School Musical #34
What I've Been Looking For - Lucas Grabeel & Ashley Tisdale #35
Stick To The Status Quo - High School Musical #43
Bop To The Top - Lucas Grabeel & Ashley Tisdale #62
What I've Been Looking For (Reprise) - Zac Efron & Vanessa Anne Hudgens #67
When There Was Me and You - Vanessa Anne Hudgens #72

"Breaking Free" went from number #86 to #4 in it's second week, a 82 point jump on the Hot 100.
"Get'cha Head in the Game" went from number #100 to #23 in it's second week, a 74 point jump.
At #28, "Start of Something New" is 2006's top debut single to date.

iTunes rankings

The numbers below are the peaks of each song on the iTunes Top 100:

Start of Something New - #6 on the iTunes Top 100
Get'cha Head in the Game - #3 on the iTunes Top 100
What I've Been Looking For - #6 on the iTunes Top 100
What I've Been Looking For (Reprise) - #19 on the iTunes Top 100
Stick to the Status Quo - #11 on the iTunes Top 100
When There Was Me and You - #22 on the iTunes Top 100
Bop to the Top - #15 on the iTunes Top 100
Breaking Free - #1 on the iTunes Top 100
We're All in This Together - #7 on the iTunes Top 100

Composers

Six composing teams were hired to write the music. The score was written by David Lawrence, and the songs' respective composers are as follows:

• “Start of Something New” and “We’re All in This Together”
  Matthew Gerrard & Robbie Nevil
• “Stick to the Status Quo”
  David Lawrence & Fay Greenberg
• “Getcha Head in the Game”
  Ray Cham, Greg Cham, and Andrew Seeley
• “Bop to the Top”
  Randy Petersen & Kevin Quinn
• “What I’ve Been Looking For”
  Andy Dodd & Adam Watts
• “Breaking Free” and “When There Was Me & You”
  Jamie Houston

External links

• Official album site
• Tweens use iPods, iTunes to storm the charts
• "High School Musical" Soundrack Shatters Multiple Records On Billboard Charts