AMG Review of Defying Gravity

William Ruhlmann
All Music Guide

Heretofore, Broadway star Idina Menzel has not shown much interest in merging her stage career with her solo recording career, following her featured role in Rent, for instance, with Still I Can't Be Still, an album of original compositions in an Alanis Morissette mold. But after winning the Tony Award for her starring role in Wicked, she re-creates her signature song from that show, "Defying Gravity," on this 41-minute, six-track CD maxi-single. Her "Single Version" is preceded by five remixes, all of which lift her vocal off the track and combine it with the usual relentless beats and synthesizer patterns. "Hani's Flying So High Club Mix" really only sprinkles a few of Menzel's lines in, while the "Funky Junction & Anthony Reale Club Mix" uses quite a lot of it, high in the mix. By the time Menzel's own Glen Ballard-produced version appears at the end, it seems rather tame, but at least gives a sense of what the song is about rather than serving as an excuse to create anonymous dance tracks. (This disc contains a note reading, "Single version from the forthcoming Idina Menzel album," but when Menzel's next album, I Stand, was released in early 2008, "Defying Gravity" was not on it.)