What does “Hamilton” and December 2nd, 2016 have in common?
It’s the day that “The Hamilton Remix” album came out. Now to being with, I was already a Hamilton fan to being with, and I already owned the original cast recording album, and I’ve put my name into the Hamilton lottery every day since about March and have yet to win tickets, but then I purchased the album because, “Hamilton” of course.
Normally, when I buy an album and haven’t heard any songs from it, I always give it a courtesy listen the first time around and usually the second listen and beyond that, I start nitpicking. Well, I fell in love with all the songs and that’s normally not a huge problem for me, but then after listening to song number six on the album, “Satisfied”, I just absolutely lost it. On the remix album, “Satisfied” is sung by Sia (que the angels singing), Miguel and Queen Latifah. While Miguel is only briefly in the song as our dear Alexander Hamilton, Queen Latifah does the song justice during her rapping solo, but can we just please talk about Sia? Sia is coming off from pretty much an amazing year with a highly successful summer tour and an even more successful album, but being a part of this compilation album, has to be the pinnacle of her year. Singing as Angelica Schuyler, her voice just drips with so much emotion that the song gives off, that it literally gave me goosebumps when I first listened to it. But the one major thing that this song does, is that it gives me so much adrenaline that it’s the perfect song for me to listen to at the gym when I’m running on the treadmill or when I’m planking and I don’t want to think about how long I’ve been holding myself up for.
Don’t get me wrong, everyone that’s on the album was fabulous. You can’t get any better than The Roots, Shockwave, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Kelly Clarkson (who was drop dead amazing!), Jill Scott, Wiz Kalifa, Ja Rule and Ashanti, and the list literally goes on. Lin-Manuel really out did himself and as of recently, he’s been hinting at a Volume 2 of this album, but let’s hope “A Winters Tale” ends up on the next volume because that’s one of the best songs on the cast album, in my opinion of course.
So, Lin-Manuel, I know that you’re busy with “Mary Poppins” and the fact that “Moana” just came out, but you need to get on top of Volume 2. Don’t disappoint, you never do.
Remember, history is watching you.