Embarrassingly, my number one album this year was Subspace Rhapsody, the soundtrack to the Strange New Worlds’ musical episode. (Last year it was We Are.)
After seeing my top songs from the album, I was curious about what others thought. I crunched the numbers for listener stats from Spotify and viewer stats from YouTube. The top three for Spotify were “Status Report” (the first song sung by the crew), “I’m the X” (Spock’s solo), and “I’m Ready” (Christine Chapel’s song). The top three for YouTube were “We are One” (the finale), “How Would That Feel” (Lian’s solo), and “Status Report”. Totaling the plays across the two services produces a top three of “Status Report”, “We are One”, and “I’m the X”.
The episode was ambitious, but to quote the song “We Are One”: “Will this work? Who can say? We’re gonna sing it anyway.” Well, most IMDB reviewers felt that it didn’t work. This is the second lowest rated episode of the series’ 20 episodes (behind the fantasy “The Elysian Kingdom”). Critics liked it much more than individual reviewers, giving it 100% on Rotten Tomatoes. (In contrast, the other risk-taking episode this season, the crossover with Lower Decks, is the second highest rated episode of the series.)
I’d always joked that musicals were set in an alternate reality where people break out into improvised song and dance routines, so for me it was fun to see that as a premise. And the cast were phenomenal.
[By the way, given how little Spotify will pay artists in 2024, I’m looking at—of all things—Napster, which ironically (for a site that was once all about piracy) now pays the highest rate to artists per stream.]
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