Oh yeah, we’re about to bop to the top.
But first, let’s actually bop back down to 2006 when High School Musical made it’s debut on Disney Channel. If you were a Disney Channel kid like this author was, you can probably remember the countdown and all the promo that was done for this DCOM (Disney Channel original movie). Every commercial break was leading up to a DCOM that was hoping to follow the success of The Cheetah Girls, which was released in 2003.
High School Musical is a mash up of a coming-of-age, self-identity, and modern Romeo and Juliet story. Just like Troy Bolton, HSM wants to have it all. Troy is it IT-man at East High School. Captain of the basketball team, popular and nice, he is following right in his father’s footsteps. His plans change when Gabriella Montez, the girl Troy met (and sang with!) at a random New Years Eve party, transfers to East High.
Like so many, there are a lot of actors who got their start on Disney Channel. Zac Efron, Corbin Bleu, Ashley Tisdale, and Vanessa Hudgens are just a few of the names ingrained into our brains as Disney Channel kids. Their performances and their voices are the ones we grew up watching. It’s wild to realize that already 20 years have passed since that first airing of HSM! I still have my CD of the original soundtrack, if you can believe it. I can remember watching High School Musical with my older siblings in our living room, at sleepovers with friends, and even once in college because my roommate had somehow never seen it—the nostalgia of this movie never leaves!
THE SOUNDTRACK TO OUR LIVES
Even if you have personally never seen High School Musical (which I would rectify ASAP), you have definitely heard at least a few of the songs in that soundtrack. And if not the songs, you’ve seen this movie referenced in all kinds of pop culture. High School Musical raised a whole generation of kids like me—of course there are memes, gifs, parodies and all kind of iconic references that people quote daily. But the songs? You know the songs.
The High School Musical soundtrack has 9 tracks that are all un-skippable. Here they are, listed below!
- “Start of Something New”
- “Get’cha Head In The Game”
- “What I’ve Been Looking For”
- “Stick to the Status Quo”
- “When There Was Me and You”
- “Bop To The Top”
- “Breaking Free”
- “We’re All In This Together”
- “I Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You”
When I was young and first watched the movie, my personal favorite on this list was “Bop To The Top”. It’s the same now, to be honest. “Gimme gimme, shimmy shimmy”, c’mon, t’s unbeatable.
Fun fact! In the first HSM, it’s actually not Zac Efron singing. In the first movie of the trilogy, all of Troy’s songs are sung by Drew Seeley. You might recognize Drew from his role in Another Cinderella Story, acting beside Selena Gomez as her love interest. Seeley auditioned for the role of Troy, but was ultimately chosen to be his singing voice instead. For the following movies in the trilogy, High School Musical 2 and High School Musical 3: Senior Year, Zac Efron fought for his voice and sung as Troy!
WE’RE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER
Does anyone else still remember the dance to this? I swear, it was so popular that Disney Channel would make the actors from the movie film a tutorial for us kiddies. I can only do the claps these days, but back then I was right there, on beat, with the sing-a-long versions that played on Disney Channel.
While in real life, High School was not the musical I wished it was, High School Musical still really holds up in it’s messages. Be yourself, take new risks, stay kind, and remember, “we’re all in this together!”. Everyone involved in the High School Musical series really prioritized creating movies that kids could watch and get inspired by. Those movies were so popular that the third and final installment of the series was released in the movie theatres (a rarity for a DCOM!). I remember going to see it front row and center with my older sister!
These movies truly shaped a generation of young people who got to see the power of being yourself and doing what you love. What more could you ask for in a movie for kids?
Take some time this year and head back to 2006 where HSM first premiered, and celebrate 20 years with the rest of us crazy Wildcats.
“We’re soarin’, flyin’! There’s not a star in heaven that we can’t reach!”
High School Musical is currently streaming on Disney+
