High School Musical (2006), the popular Disney Channel production, isn’t perfect, but its songs range from good to outstanding and mostly the latter, and they are performed with admirable prowess.  Yes, Ashley Tisdale (Sharpay) overacts, but is a captivating singer and dancer.  It will probably be a long time before another movie musical offers a fine-voiced actress singing a ballad as nice as the one Vanessa Hudgens delivers—viz., “When There Was Me and You.”  Indeed, except for the fun dance song, “We’re All In This Together,” the ballads are the hook-iest tunes.  (Granted, the lyrics are pedestrian, but they’re better than HSM‘s book, which is really obtuse.)

“We’re All In This Together” was reprised in High School Musical 3—-a hokey, unimaginative decision.  The original show is the one that song belongs to, and that, incidentally, is the only HSM I want to see.

High School Musical (Photo credit: Wikipedia)