Music Review: Songs from the Glee Episode "Bad Reputation"

In Glee's episode "Bad Reputation", the effects of backbiting and gossip were explored. As the episode shows, things are never quite as black and white as we wish them to be.

In short, "Bad Reputation" has Will investigating the origins of a list circulating around McKinley High casting an ugly shadow on the reputation of the glee club members.

Will: What’s a Glist?
Sue: It’s a Glee List, William. It’s a weekly ranking of your Glee Club based on a hotness quotient of sexual promiscuity. (...) Apparently you get a point for each act of perpetuated depravity.

It's not clear at the beginning as to who posted that list, and I'm sure more than one person was certain it was our resident meanie. However, she soon had to start her own little PR campaign as a very personal video of her performing Olivia Newton-John's “Physical” surfaces.

Finn: What’s so funny? (...)
Jesse: That’s Olivia Newton-John’s “Physical.” (...)
Finn: Wait, wait. That’s not Olivia Newton-John. That’s Sue Sylvester. (...)
Artie: Did she just do the Cabbage Patch?

The concept of a reputation is a funny thing. What is a good reputation? Is it one that is considered good by society, or one that suits the person's needs, whatever they might be?

"Physical"

Reputations also apply to fads, things and songs, as Will's assignment for the week showed the club members. If we go back to Olivia Newton-John's "Physical", as Jesse puts it, "it was pretty groundbreaking subject matter at the time considering its depiction of fluid sexuality". And yet all we can remember is the rather terrible video that came out.

As Will puts it in this episode, "becoming what you despise is not the answer". This is why I found the use of Olivia Newton John's song "Physical" interesting, as it objectified men just like the girls were complaining about men doing to them in "The Power of Madonna". By the same token lyrics such as "I'm saying all the things that I know you'll like/Making good conversation" don't seem to mesh well with ? Doesn't that go against everything "female empowerment" is about?

Thankfully, the song's performance was impeccable and the video, although nowhere near as good as the one made for "Vogue", was amusing.

"Ice Ice Baby"

As an example of songs that were popular and yet got bad reputations, Will topped off the introduction of this week's assignment with a great rendition of "Ice Ice Baby". This version of the song is - dare I say it? - better than the original one (sorry, Van Winkle). As always, Will makes the assignment fun for his students and they join in on the rendition, complete with 1990-style mini-choreography. Of course I just had to look up Jim Carey's In Living Colour parody of the same song as soon as "Bad Reputation" was over. It's interesting that, just like a person can lose his influence in a matter of moments, a song about an important topic can become nothing more than a novelty act.

Article Author: Sahar

The author of The Spirit Within Club, Sahar was born the first of three siblings and the first of eight cousins. Thrust in the role of head of the brood at a very early age, she honed her imagination by creating stories and plotlines the eight of them could play to all summer long. …

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