SONY Music Entertainment will release the soundtrack from the first season of the acclaimed musical drama series Smash in Australia on May 4. The highly anticipated album will feature stars Katharine McPhee (Karen), Megan Hilty (Ivy Lynn) and other cast members performing the original music created for the show’s narrative and for the musical-within-a-musical.
Highlighted on the album are the Broadway-calibre songs written for the series by Tony and Grammy winners Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman. The Smash album will also include some of the pop tunes adapted for the show, such as Christina Aguilera’s “Beautiful,” which Karen sings so effectively in the first episode she is plucked, literally, from obscurity to audition for the musical’s starring role.
One of the season’s most attention-getting songs has been the stunning “Let Me Be Your Star” - seen in the pilot and sung simultaneously by Hilty and McPhee. Hilty’s show-stopping performance of “Crazy Dreams” will also be included on the soundtrack. McPhee got pulses pounding when she was featured in a Smash promo spot during the Super Bowl promo singing the sultry “Touch Me”. The song features in episode eight which aired in Australia on Monday, April 9. "Touch Me" was written and produced by Ryan Tedder, Grammy Award winning songwriter and producer who has worked with such artists as Adele, Beyoncé, Kelly Clarkson, Leona Lewis. Tedder also guest stars as himself in the episode.
Smash celebrates the beauty and heartbreak of the Broadway theatre as it follows a cross-section of dreamers and schemers who all have one common desire – to be a “Smash.” Evolving from an idea of executive producer and multiple Emmy and Oscar winner Steven Spielberg (ER, Schindler’s List), the series unites the hit-making Broadway writing team of Julia Houston (Debra Messing, Emmy winner, Will & Grace) and Tom Levitt (Christian Borle, Legally Blonde: The Musical) with producer Eileen Rand (Anjelica Huston, Oscar winner, Prizzi’s Honor) to create a new musical based on the life of Marilyn Monroe, and seasoned chorus girl Ivy Lynn (Hilty, Wicked, 9 to 5: The Musical) vies with newcomer Karen Cartwright (McPhee, American Idol) for the role of a lifetime.