After seeing the ‘Judy’ movie, I was curious how I would react to the soundtrack. In the context of the movie, I was impressed by Renee Zellwegger singing the songs herself. But, on an aural enjoyment level, do the same tracks work?

My answer is no. Taken out of the movie, the songs feel flat. While you can tell that Zellweger wasn’t doing a total imitation of Garland, the songs just fall south of interesting. She sings in tune, and gets some of the Judy inflections, and at times puts her own spin, but all in all, they do nothing for me. Even the original orchestrations sound paltry in comparison. Nelson Riddle’s thrilling arrangement of ‘Come Rain or Come Shine’ sounds thin here, and to my ears felt it was missing whole sections of instruments. The two duets she has are more interesting (curiously with two openly gay men, Sam Smith and Rufus Wainwright) but in the end, those two tracks will not enhance my life in any way. I hope anyone who listens to this will be compelled to listen to the original Judy Garland versions of this song, and see the difference.