Josh Groban’s latest album Stages is out now and it is a must own. The record is full of him singing some of the biggest musical theater numbers and two of movies’ most iconic songs.
You know that feeling you get when you go to see a musical, and after you walk out you smile either humming or singing at least one song from it over and over? That is the feeling you get when you listen to Stages. You feel like you are listening to a timeless soundtrack, even though the songs are from a wide variety of them.
I will start off talking about the songs that came from movies. Pure Imagination from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory is a haunting song but yet calming. Groban reworked the song to make it his own and there is a beauty to it which comes close to the Gene Wilder version. The other famous movie tune is Over the Rainbow from The Wizard of Oz. The way he sings it, it can easily be a lullaby that you can use to put your child to sleep with and yet adults can feel hope as they listen to it.
Over the Rainbow isn’t the only song he sings that was originally sung by a woman. He also tackled What I Did for Love from A Chorus Line and You’ll Never Walk Alone from Carousel. Even though both songs are traditionally performed females, you wouldn’t know it by listening to his versions of it.
There are two women who duet with him on this record. Audra McDonald and him take a ride on the Carousel and ask If I Loved You, and it is pure love. He becomes the Phantom of the Opera for Kelly Clarkson and they tell each other All I Ask From You. I’ve never heard the first American Idol sing like this before and it is a genre she needs to explore. I’ve never heard her voice sound as beautiful as it does on this song and she’s one of the best female singers out there. While those duets are with wome, he does another one with a man. That man’s voice is not heard, but you hear Chris Botti playing his trumpet as Groban sings Old Devil Moon from Finian’s Rainbow. Then there are two songs that he flawlessly combines into one, Into the Woods’ Children Will Listen and Sweeny Todd’s Not While I Am Around.
The final five tracks are just him. Try to Remember from The Fantasticks and it is memorable and fantastic. Anthem from Chess is a checkmate. Bring Him Home from Les Miserables is sung with such emotion that it will bring a tear to your eye. When it comes to Finishing the Hat from Sunday in the Park with George, his voice sounds unlike anyway we’ve heard it before. There is a sweetness to his tone in this one that makes you fall in love with him. If you don’t love him by that song, hearing him sing Notre-Dame de Paris’ Le Temps Des Cathédrals in French will make you swoon.
Actually, the whole album will make you swoon. I don’t remember the last time, I listened to a whole record from beginning to end and loved every song it. It’s hard to press the pause or skip button when you listen to Stages because every song on it is incredible. His voice is powerful yet enticing and these songs were made for him even though they were not.
Because he has such a boisterous voice, you find yourself belting out the songs with him in the car, in the shower and anywhere else you can. Thankfully his is loud enough that it disguises your crappy one. I dare you to buy this album and not act out some of the tunes as you hear him sing it in his own special way.
It is rare these days to have an entire album be special, but that is exactly what Stages is. So buy it now because this an album you will be listening to from the moment you get it until the end of time because it truly is ageless. It is almost impossible to get sick of it because these songs have been around for decades and we are still singing them to this day. We just aren’t singing them as good as he is.
So I give Josh Groban and Stages a standing ovation! Bravo, bravo!
Finally, if this doesn’t land him a Broadway musical soon, there is something wrong on the Great White Way.
