In honor of #ThrowbackThursday, do you want to know something I'm still mad about? The lies surrounding Troy Bolton's voice in the first High School Musical. Not to like ruin your childhood or anything, but it is probably best you know Zac Efron's singing voice was blended with someone else's for all of Troy's songs in the first film of the franchise. And by blended, we mean Zac lip-synced to another guy's voice. Plain and simple.
Now there are a lot of layers to this one, which my equally as offended coworker and I thoroughly covered in our ranting session. But to further explain, let us provide a breakdown of the big old lie that'll never, ever sit well with us. Ahem, roll the tape!
So who did the ~real~ voice belong to, you ask? It was Drew Seeley – who you might remember if you were lucky enough to attend High School Musical: The Concert, which took place in late 2006 through 2007 in giant arenas around North America and Latin America. Not only did he fill in for Zac on tour, but you also probz remember him by playing Joey Parker in Another Cinderella Story with Selena Gomez. Fast forward to now, and he's still in the acting game. Not to mention, he had a long run as Bob Gaudio in the Broadway musical Jersey Boys. Very impressive, if you ask us.
Don't get it twisted – we appreciate Drew and his unquestionable talent. We're not here to bash him. All all. He's great. After all, Drew was actually one of the co-writers on "Get'cha Head in the Game" – which was nominated for the Creative Arts Primetime Emmys in the "Best Original Music and Lyrics" category. So clearly, HSM couldn't be what it is today without him. It was the franchise's lie, rather, that made us feel duped. They even had Zac lip-sync to the movie's bonus track "I Can't Take My Eyes Off of You" – in which the music video featured Zac in the recording studio. But. Where. Is. Drew. Tho.
We went on thinking that Zac's vocal chords were responsible for all of this. And while Drew sounds great and all – we can't help but wonder… why didn't they think Zac was good enough? He can clearly sing. High School Musical, Hairspray and The Greatest Showman are some of the greatest movie-musicals ever, in my humble opinion. And what do all those musical masterpieces have, might you ask? Zac freaking Efron.
Naturally, Zac low-key demanded to sing in the second and third movies. And hey, he seemed to be pretty cool about it at least.
"That was a very huge point for me. I had to put my foot down and fight to get my voice on these tracks," Zac said in an old interview. "In the first movie, after everything was recorded, my voice was not on them. I was not really given an explanation. It just kind of happened that way. Unfortunately, it put me in an awkward position. It's not something I expected to be addressed. Then High School Musical blew up. I'm very fortunate that Drew has gotten proper credit and also that I've gotten the opportunity to come back and try it again with my own voice. He's very talented. I consider myself a regular kid that can carry a tune."
So here's my question. Zac has starred in 5 movie-musicals in his lifetime – what was different the first time around? In case you haven't noticed, it's something that still gets us fired up to this day.
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