I’ve listened to and thought about the “West Side Story” (2021) soundtrack front-to-back a reckless amount of times in the last week, and if I don’t get to share some of these deeply stupid musings with somebody I’m going to die.
The videos below each entry should be linked to each moment so you can follow along at home.
10. Maria — Ansel Elgort’s Autotuned High “G”
Movie musicals are funny little things that try to balance a lot of conflicting priorities. For one, you have the usual push-and-pull between studio and director when it comes to casting the thing, but then you get to pile-on the added complexity of needing to find people who can actually sing. With “West Side Story,” everyone involved pretty much nailed it. Oops—wait a second, why did I say pretty much? Why not just, “they nailed it.” Hmmm… Oh, shoot! They forgot to cast the lead guy good! They cast the lead guy bad! Aw, beans.
Talking strictly about his performance in the context of the film, Ansel Elgort was not exactly an inspired choice to play Tony. He delivers a serviceable turn in a movie where everybody else is playing at the top of the game. However, sometimes silver linings do appear by way of happy accident, and one such appearance lies midway through “Maria,” when technology simply refuses to let Elgort fail. The result winds up evoking a surreality similar to the one that Rebekah Del Rio emphasizes in the “Twin Peaks” version of “No Stars,” a performance that absolutely did not need to deploy auto-tune as any sort of pitch-corrective measure but used it anyway, purely for effect.
I’m sure that’s what they were going for here. Totally. Either way, it works and I like it.
9. Transition to Scherzo / Scherzo — The Part That Thinks It’s a Western
Now, I know what you’re thinking. “Zach: why single-out this part? The literal first thing in the entire soundtrack is a whistled exchange which feels ripped straight from a Sergio Leone production.” You’re correct, but that’s not one of the Top Ten Moments in the “West Side Story” Soundtrack, is it? This part is.
It’s just such a wonderful little jaunt; it’s what would play as our cowboy hero rides his horse slowly down main street and waves at the shopkeepers before the plot has had any time to develop and all the vibes are great. More than that—this is going to sound a bit unhinged, and I’m absolutely not about to check if this is true or not—in my emotional memory this sounds just like the western-themed music in the “Lego Chess” video game. It’s great.
8. America — David Alvarez’s “Big Cheer!”
The thing about this moment… is that everyone there will give big cheer. Everyone. And nothing could possibly convince me otherwise. After all, it’s not like they’re all going to move here, or anything. Right?
…
Right?
7. Tonight (Quintet) — The Quintet Comes Together
Oh… I’m sorry—your musical doesn’t have a part at the end of the first act where everybody sings their respective thematic motifs in counterpoint, crescendoing to a show-stopping orchestral hit that promises no resolution even if it lands back at the piece’s root chord because—after all—how could any single chord supercede the circumstances of this performance and all its character-dependent interiorities and exteriorities, each like a thread dangling torturously from the fabric of the narrative, waiting to be weaved into something terrible, great, or both?
Then I don’t care about it! I like “West Side Story” because it does have that!
6. The Dance at the Gym: Cha-Cha, Meeting Scene, Jump — Snapping
You will listen to this the first time and be like, “Aww, that’s sweet!”
You will listen to it a second time and be like, “Oh yeah, they snap here! Haha, snap snap!”
You will listen to it a third time and be like, “I’m gonna snap along—ah, whoops! Haha, I missed a snap. Oops, I snapped an extra time! Haha, this is great.”
The fourth time you listen you will snap along and you will get it right. You will never again skip the first minute of this track.
5. I Feel Pretty — The Echoing Chorus
More on this song later, but for now just enjoy this lovely, lively musical exchange, mixed to perfection in post. You know I’m always a big fan of when the second leg of a two-part canon wraps-up its shit by skipping some words or otherwise altering its cadence in order to synchronize with the primary line.
Bonus points for all that leading directly into a wonderfully harmonized finale.
4. The Dance at the Gym: Blues, Promenade — Dah Dah Dah Dih Dah! And So On, Etc.
This is literally just an instrumental part of a song that really rips, and that’s okay—instrumental parts of songs just really rip sometimes. Especially if they’re written by Leonard Bernstein.
That dissonance is so crunchy!
I love it a lot and have nothing else to add.
3. I Feel Pretty — Rachel Zegler Crushes a Verse
At this point it’s safe to say that I’ve loved musical theater for most of my life, and within that delightful run it’s also safe to say that I’d never once enjoyed listening to the song, “I Feel Pretty.” I’m not talking about it within the context of a full production, and I’m not even talking about a specific version of it—although the popular version from the 1961 Best Picture winner may be the worst of the lot as far as I’m concerned. I say this both to be transparent regarding my biases, and also to add substance to the following thought about Rachel Zegler’s take on this particular classic:
“I Feel Pretty” rocks, now. It has never been this listenable. Not even close. More than listenable—it’s really damn good. The whole thing works, and the second verse is perhaps most emblematic of why it does; it’s a conversational, legato-heavy take on a traditionally quite-staccato song, and Zegler mixes a very genuine joy with a self-awareness that helps temper the lyrics. You can hear her land on the word “honor” with an edge that feels like she’s going to start laughing, which is some nice sing-acting for sure. But! She actually finishes the line without doing so, before then breaking after the very next “I feel—”
That’s good shit!
2. Gee, Officer Krupke — Kevin Csolak is Very Upset
I recently made a playlist of every version of “Gee Officer Krupke” I could find and looped it until I knew all the lyrics as well as the differences between the various takes on the track. I am—vaguely ironically, I suppose—an Officer Krupke authority. Sometimes, recording to recording, you’ll find that the lyrics proper are changed to make different rhymes that nevertheless convey the same general message. Sometimes the spoken comic interjections between verses have different wordings and deliveries. Sometimes—one time, to be exact—the whole energy of a part of the song is arrested and then slowly ramped up until it becomes the rambunctious showstopper everyone’s been waiting for.
That’s this version of the song.
1. A Boy Like That / I Have a Love — “Oh no, Anita no…”
Alright. I’m trying so hard not to write a half-assed review of this movie in these blurbs, but there’s something I want to talk about now, and I’ll try my best to do so without talking about third-act narrative turns to preserve the first-watch experience for people who might be new to “West Side Story.”
This duet should absolutely not happen the same night as the rumble. I’m sorry—it’s insane and it makes all the characters seem deranged. This is a new movie! You can do whatever you want! Put whatever songs wherever or whenever you want them to be! Do a time skip or something!
The only reason it works at all is because Ariana DeBose and Rachel Zegler are so good that it makes me forget the—again—insane (!) context of this scene and instead react emotionally to their performances.
Ultimately, this list isn’t supposed to be about the efficacy of these songs’ narrative beats, but the best moments within them, and that’s why Rachel Zegler’s desperate, imploring, “Oh no, Anita no,” is number one. It seriously just knocks me out every time.
On the Image 
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