Hairspray (Original Broadway Cast Recording)

1	Good Morning Baltimore
2	The Nicest Kids In Town
3	Mama, I'm A Big Girl Now
4	I Can Hear The Bells
5	(When I Was) Miss Baltimore Crabs
6	It Takes Two
7	Welcome To The '60's
8	Run And Tell That!
9	Big, Blonde And Beautiful
10	The Big Dollhouse
11	Good Morning Baltimore Reprise
12	(You're) Timeless To Me
13	Without Love
14	I Know Where I've Been
15	(It's) Hairspray
16	Cooties
17	You Can't Stop The Beat

Barnes & Noble

Even before the musical Hairspray opened on Broadway, its score was drawing critical raves. Jesse Green of The New York Times called Marc Shaiman’s music “the best pop Broadway score… since pop and Broadway parted company some 30 years ago.” Drawing on early-1960s teen fare, from the sounds of rock 'n' roll and Phil Spector’s mega-productions to Motown grooves and girl group hits, the music behind Hairspray brilliantly evokes the era's styles without slavishly copying them. You can tell from many of the song titles alone -- “You Can't Stop the Beat,” “Without Love,” “Mama, I'm a Big Girl Now “ -- that the composers are fully clued in to the '60s zeitgeist while also having the requisite distance to cast a knowing wink at the music and the times that spawned it. For all those who remember that exciting moment in pop culture, and for all those who will be getting their first taste of it, Hairspray is this year’s cast album to hear. William Pearl

All Music Guide

John Waters' engaging 1988 film Hairspray received a musical comedy makeover in 2002 that became a bona fide Broadway hit. The original cast album immediately reveals the foundation of the show's success through its winning combination of clever lyrics by Scott Wittman and Marc Shaiman, a bouncy rock & roll sound courtesy of composer Marc Shaiman, and dynamic performances by the entire cast. Composer Shaiman, who also composed the music for another genuinely funny (movie) musical, South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut, gives his music a boundless energy that works both as knowing '60s pastiche and solidly effective musical comedy scoring. As heroine Tracy Turnblad, Marissa Jaret Winokur's bubbly vocals light up numbers like the opening "Good Morning, Baltimore" and "I Can Hear the Bells," while Linda Hart gives a sneeringly funny performance of "Miss Baltimore Crabs." Other standout numbers include the Dick Latessa and Harvey Fierstein duet "(You're) Timeless to Me" and the penultimate number, "Cooties" (which boasts lyrics like: "Grew up in a cootie zoo/I bet her two-ton mama's/Got 'em too!"). It's fun, it's catchy, it's funny -- it's one of the best comic musical albums since Little Shop of Horrors, All Music Guide

Entertainment Weekly

Cross Grease with Little Shop of Horrors and you have an inkling of the giddy joy this disc imparts.