PITCH PEFECT 2 - Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (2015)

Why change a winning formula when it’s working perfectly to bring in the moolah? The producers for this soundtrack album to the sequel of the wildly popular 2012 movie should know this best. The official album from the first movie was the sixth best selling soundtrack of 2012, with 212,000 sold for the year. It went on to become the best selling soundtrack in the United States.

For the sequel, the Barden Bellas return to croon on this 43 minute album. Will they be able to repeat the success of the first soundtrack? Lead actress Anna Kendrick hit gold when “Cups”, a song that wasn’t meant to be a hit single, took the number one spot on the Adult Contemporary charts more that a year after the movie’s release. And get this – the single sold more than 3 million downloads.

Kendrick, whom we know has a decent set of vocals (check her performances in The Last Five Years and Into the Woods), stands out in a duet “Winter Wonderland/ Here Comes Santa Claus” with Snopp Dogg here – it’s a track you’ll want to bring out when Christmas arrives later this year. Elsewhere, she joins her friends to croon more mash ups. There’s the film opener “Kennedy Center Performance” (We Got the World, Timber, America The Beautiful, Wrecking Ball), the “Riff Off” (so many songs here, including Thong Song, Low, Bootylicious, This is How We Do It and other radio friendly hits) and “Back to Basics” (more pop hits like You Can’t Hurry Love, Lady Marmalade and MmmBop).

The sequel’s antagonist group Das Sound Machine (featuring Danish actress Birgitte Hjort Sorensen and German YouTube star Flula Borg) perform the techno heavy “Car Show” (Uprising, Tsunami) and parts of “Jump”. Fat Amy Rebel Wilson and Adam Devine bring on the laughs with “We Belong” and the end credit track “All of Me”.

The mash up gets all, well, mashed up, in the soundtrack’s last few cues “Any Way You Want It”, World Championship Finale 1” and “World Championship Finale 2”. Listen out for cameo performances from acclaimed a cappella groups Pentatonix and Penn Masala. Then there’s the inspirationally feel good ballad “Flashlight” performed by Jessie J, a song co written by Sam Smith, Sia, Christian Guzman and Jason Moore (primarily sung by the new Bella Hailee Steinfeld in the movie).

While offering nothing new (except that many, many more songs are featured in the mash ups), this is one album that will go down well with fans. Judging from how it is topping the Billboard charts, the producers are probably glad they stuck to the sure win formula.  

ALBUM RATING:

Recommended Track: (14) World Championship Finale 2

Review by John Li