Camp Rock, the Walt Disney Company's deliberately crafted follow-up to its successful television movie High School Musical, the soundtrack for which sold four million albums after the film's premiere on the Disney Channel, is another musical tale about young teens made for pre-teens, this time with a theme that might best be described as Fame goes to summer camp. How one judges the resulting soundtrack album may depend on the context in which the disc is considered. As an album of music for the middle-school set, it is full of catchy pop/rock songs with occasional slight dance and hip-hop elements containing, as the Disney press release puts it, lyrical themes of "believe in yourself," "express yourself," and "be proud of who you are," which may be indicated by such song titles as "Who Will I Be?," "This Is Me," "Here I Am," and "My Time Is Now." The songs are sung by a few
Britney Spears wannabes, as well as the Disney-promoted teen group
the Jonas Brothers, and they are unfailingly earnest as they sing the empowering, high-self-esteem words. That's all well and good, of course. But even as tween entertainment, one might hope for more. All those "This Is Me" songs, intended to sound so positive, come off as a group like paeans to selfishness and self-aggrandizement. ~ William Ruhlmann