Premiering on January 20, 2006, the Disney Channel original movie High School Musical was a bigger phenomenon than anyone could have ever imagined. Two sequels were made, with High School Musical 2 still holding the record for most-viewed Disney Channel premiere ever at 17 million viewers and High School Musical 3 getting a theatrical release that raked in $252 million. The franchise has also spawned off a stage musical, books, toys, video games, and even a television series (the horribly named High School Musical: The Musical: The Series.) The series also pushed names like Zac Efron and Vanessa Hudgens into the public consciousness.
For many people in the late millenial/early Gen Z age range, High School Musical was a huge part of our childhoods. It certainly was for me. I was four years old when the first movie came out, and my grandma, who has always been a huge fan of musicals, decided to show it to me. I wasn't watching any of the popular Disney Channel series at the time, like Hannah Montana, The Suite Life of Zack and Cody, or That's So Raven, since I was too young. But I did watch High School Musical, and I loved it. I still love it now, although it's probably because I have rose-colored glasses on. These movies are incredibly cheesy and ridiculous, but I will always have a place in my heart for them. The other day, I was flipping through the channels on my TV when I saw that High School Musical 2 was on, so I watched it and decided that it would be fun to count down my favorite songs from the High School Musical series. Only songs from the original trilogy, because they're what I know best. Also "We're All In This Together" will not be on this list. It's iconic, but really overplayed.
10. "Bop to the Top" (High School Musical)
Many people will tell you that Sharpay Evans, played by Ashley Tisdale, was the true victim of High School Musical. And you know what, I agree. She and her brother, Ryan, dedicated their whole lives to musical theatre, only to get upstaged by Troy and Gabriella's tedious duets. Was she bitchy from time to time? Yeah, but she had a great drive and would do anything to succeed. There were many cases where Troy and Gabriella would sing the same song as Sharpay, and every single time, I'd prefer Sharpay's more upbeat versions. Fortunately, Troy and Gabriella don't turn "Bop to the Top" into another piano snoozer. All of Sharpay and Ryan's songs are about how great they are and how they deserve the best, but they're always lively and fun. "Bop to the Top" has a Spanish salsa flair to it that makes it unlike any of the series' other songs, and both Sharpay and Ryan give it their all.
9. "What Time Is It" (High School Musical 2)
Half of my list consists of songs from the second movie, which has always been my favorite of the three. In this movie, our Wildcats spend their summer vacation working at Sharpay's family's country club, called Lava Springs. Because it takes place in the summer, I always make sure to watch this movie on the first night of my summer vacation. Of course, the movie's opening number "What Time Is It" is always the first song I listen to during my summer vacation. That's literally what this song is about: they're celebrating the fact that school's out. My school has actually played this song over the PA system right when school let out for the summer. I feel like this is one of the more iconic songs from the series, as you can say "what time is it" to any late millenial/early Gen Z kid and they'll answer "summer time, it's our vacation!" This song does a good job at capturing the excitement of summertime. There are some lyrics about having a summer romance, which I can't relate to, but I do strongly relate to Troy and Gabriella passionately singing "No more waking up at 6 AM" on the stairs.
8. "Now or Never" (High School Musical 3: Senior Year)
Next on my list is the opening number for the third movie. I actually only have two songs from High School Musical 3 on my list, probably because there were one or two too many boring Troy/Gabriella duets in that one. However, the two HSM3 songs I do have, I really love. If I were to describe “Now or Never” in one word, it would be “hype.” The Wildcats are in the championship game and they’re losing, so Troy sings this to get them motivated. It has a great pulse and just gets you in the mood to do whatever you need to. I love how they have the crowd chanting throughout, and I especially love when Gabriella screams “TROYYYYY” randomly in the middle of the song. Like so many of my favorite High School Musical numbers, it’s wonderfully cheesy and ridiculous. In terms of “hyping up the basketball team” numbers, there is another that I prefer, but “Now or Never” is still awesome.
7. "Fabulous" (High School Musical 2)
One of the most common types of songs in musicals is the "I Want" song. This is where a character, you guessed it, sings about how they are unsatisfied with their current situation and what they want instead. Examples include "Part of Your World" from The Little Mermaid, "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" from The Wizard of Oz, and "Tomorrow" from Annie. Sharpay and Ryan sing a few "I Want" songs throughout the series, including one in the third movie that is literally called "I Want It All," but "Fabulous" is my favorite. It's basically the theme song for rich, spoiled girls who live lives of luxury, as Sharpay sings about how she wants "ice tea imported from England, a lifeguard imported from Spain, towels imported from Turkey, and turkey imported from Maine(?)" Ashley Tisdale is in her element as the over-the-top diva Sharpay, and the song is hilariously cheesy and over-the-top. I would sing this at karaoke.
6. "Breaking Free" (High School Musical)
This song is at the climax of the first movie, and it’s probably the most iconic song in the entire series. For most of the movie, Troy and Gabriella struggle to balance their cliques (basketball and academic decathlon, respectively) with their love of singing together in the musical. It’s a Romeo and Juliet story. Their friends don’t want them to be together, but our protagonists’ feelings are too strong. In “Breaking Free,” Troy and Gabriella race the clock and just barely make it to callbacks, where they sing this song. Although the song was written for the in-universe musical Twinkle Towne, it directly relates to Troy and Gabriella’s story in the movie, as they are “breaking free” from the social status quo and doing what they love, singing together. It’s one of the most fun songs to belt out when I’m home alone, and I sing it as dramatically as physically possible. As soon as the chorus rolls around, you can bet I’m screaming “WE’RE SOARIN, FLYIN” at the top of my lungs, and that key change is beautifully over-the-top. I also love how in the movie, both the basketball and academic decathlon teams get over their initial skepticisms and go to support Troy and Gabriella’s passions. But as iconic as this song is, and as much as I love it, it’s not quite my favorite Troy/Gabriella duet. For that, we go to...
5. "Gotta Go My Own Way" (High School Musical 2)
Dude. Zefron MAKES this song. Throughout the three movies, Troy and Gabriella break up a bunch of times and Gabriella gets countless weepy, tedious ballads. They're all really boring and unpopular opinion- I don't actually think Vanessa Hudgens is that good of a singer? Her voice is quite nasally and annoying on most of the songs. "Gotta Go My Own Way" would simply be another one of Gabriella's many unimpressive ballads if not for the moment exactly two minutes into the song when Zefron runs to meet Gabriella on the bridge and belts out "WHAT ABOUT US? WHAT ABOUT EVERYTHING WE'VE BEEN THROUGH?" As a whole, "Gotta Go My Own Way" is quite possibly the cheesiest musical number ever put to film, and my boy Troy really takes it over the top. One of my favorite moments is when he awkwardly hugs her and sings "Why do you have to go?" He looks and sounds like a little boy who is sad because his mom dropped him off at school. It is artful in its artlessness. Everything he does in this scene is the pinnacle of fromage, and it's absolutely glorious.
4. "I Don't Dance" (High School Musical 2)
I don't like baseball. My family loves it, some of my friends love it, and I've even been to the Louisville Slugger Museum in Kentucky, but it's just not for me. However, I do think I'd be a lot more into it if the games had musical numbers like this. In this song, the Wildcats play against the Lava Springs staff in a match of baseball. Ryan, the musical theatre guy, tells Chad, the super-jock, that if he can play baseball, then Chad can dance. (Let’s just ignore the fact that Chad danced a lot before this scene.) The resulting musical number sees them doing both. This song is a ton of fun on its own, as it blends a jazzy Broadway style with hip hop. But in the movie, it's my pick for the single best dance number in the series. The choreography is on point and both Corbin Bleu and Lucas Grabeel give great performances as Chad and Ryan, respectively. I'm not the only one who picked up on more than a little sexual tension between the two of them. In the very next scene, they're literally wearing each other's outfits!
There is no heterosexual explanation for this. Chad and Ryan were an item at one point or another and you can't tell me otherwise. I support it.
3. "Get'cha Head in the Game" (High School Musical)
But as much as I love "I Don't Dance," there will never be a better sports-related musical number than "Get'cha Head in the Game." During winter break, Troy sang karaoke with Gabriella and he surprisingly loved it, so at his first basketball practice after winter break, he's distracted. He's the star of the basketball team, but he also wants to audition for the school musical and keep singing with Gabriella. Of course, the only way for him to deal with his struggles is to sing about it during basketball practice. This song is really catchy and gets you pumped up, and I love how they incorporated the bouncing basketballs in the beat. My favorite part, though, is the bridge, when Troy gets all melodramatic: "Why am I feeling so wrong? My head's in the game, but my heart's in the song." Beautiful. I graduated this past May and for our graduation, one of my friends and I were in charge of making a slideshow chronicling some memories from our class's high school career. One of the sections was about sports, and we used this song to soundtrack it. No regrets.
2. "Scream" (High School Musical 3: Senior Year)
Zac Efron has been my celebrity crush for an embarrassingly long time, so of course, my two favorite High School Musical songs are his two solos. In "Scream," Troy is torn between going to the University of Albuquerque to play basketball or going to Julliard to pursue musical theatre. His family and friends want him to take the basketball scholarship, but he doesn't know if that's what he truly wants. So he goes to the high school in the middle of the night and has a gloriously angsty musical number. This song is capital-D Dramatic, with some of my favorite moments including the basketballs raining down as the song kickstarts, the rotating hallway that represents Troy’s deep emotional anguish of feeling like he’s spinning, Zefron destroying the giant banner with his face on it during the guitar solo, and naturally, the monster of a scream he lets out at the very end of the song. I originally had the positions of "Get'cha Head in the Game" and “Scream” switched, with the former being the runner-up and the latter at third place. But last minute, I decided that I just had to put "Scream" higher. It's so aggressive, angry, and powerful. But as much as "Scream" kicks ass...it couldn't beat Troy's first mental breakdown musical number.
1. "Bet On It" (High School Musical 2)
I love all of these songs, but "Bet On It" had the number one spot locked from the very beginning. Few things in this world bring me as much joy as Zac Efron interpretive dancing out his existential crisis on a golf course. I truly believe my boy Zefron deserved an Oscar for this number. His forceful hand movements.
His dramatic singing while running and jumping.
That out-of-nowhere moment where he takes a break to practice his golf skills for literally no reason.
Every move he makes is angsty comedic gold, and it’s probably the most GIF-worthy musical number in history. But while the choreography in the movie is hilariously extravagant, the song itself, for lack of a better term, slaps. I can't listen to this song without singing along (and of course, interpretive dancing just like Zefron). He's actually a much better singer than you'd think. His voice is strong and he does a good job capturing the utter angst of the song. “Bet on It” has a powerful melody that makes you feel motivated while listening to it. It's the only High School Musical song that I've actually put on my playlists and listened to outside of the movie. In fact, I honestly think that if I made a list of my all-time favorite songs, "Bet On It" would be on there. I wholeheartedly believe it's the best song from any of these movies and I love it way too much. (P.S.- According to IMDb, High School Musical 2 took five weeks to film and they spent six days, about a fifth of their time, filming this one song. Not a minute of that was wasted.)
At the end of my posts, I always say what I’m planning to post next week, but I don’t know. After all, my analysis of why “Bet On It” from High School Musical 2 is the greatest song-and-dance number in history is obviously the most important thing I will ever write. I’m just kidding, I’m pretty sure I know what I want to post next Saturday. But until then, I’m gonna leave you with a very important GIF of Troy Bolton discovering that he has hands for the first time. Have a nice day.
Stellar
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