Glee: The Music, Volume 6

Background

Announced on May 3, 2011, Glee: The Music, Volume 6 is the final release from the second season of Glee, featuring music from the episode "A Night of Neglect" through the end of the season. The album's final three tracks—"As Long As You're There", "Pretending", and "Light Up the World"—are original songs. "As Long As You're There" is performed by guest star Charice and "Light Up the World" was co-written with Swedish songwriter Max Martin, who had previously helped to write "Loser Like Me", another song for the series. Recurring guest stars Gwyneth Paltrow, Kristin Chenoweth, and Jonathan Groff appear as featured artists on the album. Glee: The Music, Volume 6 was released on May 23, 2011. "Light Up the World" premiered through Ryan Seacrest's website on May 10, 2011.

Reception

Andrew Leahey of Allmusic gave the album a rating of three-and-a-half stars out of a possible five, and wrote that it "plays up the show's creative side". He cited "I Feel Pretty / Unpretty" as being "one of the show’s prettiest tributes to self-acceptance", and also commends the Chenoweth and Matthew Morrison cover of Fleetwood Mac's "Dreams". Leahey noted that "the second half of the album doesn’t fare as well as the first", but added that the album was better "than some of its predecessors". He criticized the inclusion of a "lackluster version of 'Dancing Queen'" when there were "better songs that didn’t make the cut".

Many of the songs on the album were reviewed positively when they appeared on the show. Meghan Brown of The Atlantic wrote that "As If We Never Said Goodbye" sung by Chris Colfer was "absolutely stunning in every conceivable way". John Kubicek of BuddyTV called "Rolling in the Deep" as sung by Groff and Lea Michele "one of the best vocal performances this show has ever seen". Erica Futterman of Rolling Stone called the performance a "passion-filled winner", though she detected "some oversinging". Other songs were not as well received, including Paltrow's rendition of Adele's "Turning Tables". Futterman said the vocals "lacked the texture that made Adele's version so heartbreaking", and MTV's Aly Semigran wrote that while Paltrow is "a nice enough singer," she "in no way has the chops" the song requires.

Glee: The Music, Volume 6 debuted at number four on the US Billboard 200 and number one on Billboard's Soundtracks chart, selling 80,000 copies in its first week, giving it the second-lowest opening sales figure for a Glee release after the 48,000 copies sold by extended play Glee: The Music, The Rocky Horror Glee Show. It sold 25,000 copies in its second week, and stayed at the top of the soundtracks chart for three consecutive weeks.

Singles

All tracks on the album have been released as singles, available for digital download. Glee's cover of Adele's "Turning Tables", performed by Paltrow, has charted at number sixty-six on both the Canadian Hot 100 and the US Billboard Hot 100. The single sold 47,000 copies in its first week in the US. A mash-up of "I Feel Pretty" from the musical West Side Story and "Unpretty" by TLC reached number twenty-two on the Billboard Hot 100 and also became a top forty hit in Canada, Ireland, and the UK. Selling 112,000 copies in the US, its appearance marked the first time "I Feel Pretty" charted on the Hot 100.

Track listing

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Personnel

Source: Allmusic