If ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Glee certainly followed that advice during its first season, releasing a string of soundtracks that often enjoyed as much popularity as the show itself.
Journey to Regionals -- the show’s third release in twice as many weeks -- includes all six songs performed during the season finale, and it takes its album title quite seriously, with 50 percent of the EP being
Journey tunes. The song that helped launch Glee’s popularity in 2009, “Don’t Stop Believing,” is reprised here in a “Regionals Version,” with each cast member singing a snippet of the lead vocal. Also included are “Faithfully” and a mash-up of “Any Way You Want It” and “Lovin’ Touchin’ Squeezin’,” both of which are led by
Lea Michele and
Cory Monteith. The three remaining songs aren’t as thematically sound: there’s an oversung “Bohemian Rhapsody” (performed by
Jonathan Groff, who sounds hell-bent on disguising his Broadway training), a cast version of “To Sir, With Love,” and an acoustic “Over the Rainbow” by
Matthew Morrison (who, unlike
Groff, sounds a bit too schooled in musical theater to pull off such a casual, breezy track). For those who purchase every
Glee soundtrack,
Journey to Regionals isn’t going to disappoint. For those who’re a bit more selective, though, this EP doesn’t have the range as some of the full-length soundtracks, even though it does manage to give almost everyone a solo.