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Ranking The 10 Best Songs of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend Season 2


Hayden

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Greetings WhoBob, Katniss, and any lurkers! This is the Season 2 ranking that I've promised. I thought it'd be an appropriately fabulous way to make this Fab Beats February special. I am going to resolve the ranking close to when the event is over! Schedule is sure to fluctuate :D

Season 2 blew past like a breeze, but it was definitely a frantic hurricane. Plot developments changed the status quo every episode, but did this hurt the music? Yes and no. The show still had some very strong and unforgettable output. But the budgetary restraints definitely were on display and the uneven pacing didn't give time to some threads that might've deserved to slow down and get a reflective song.  Also the season felt very keen on inserting S1 reprises and exploiting the nostalgia of them. Not to say I disliked the reprises. but sometimes they felt like shortcuts to fill the quota. Looking at you, Triceratops Ballet.

I'll come right out and say that 7 of the 10 songs on this list are from before the Christmas break. It isn't just about the tragic departure of Greg either, maybe it's that dull bottle episode office setting. With my criticisms taken care of, let's move onto a Season 3 of vengeance and celebrate the impact that even a shortened supplement of CEG music magic can provide for those of us broken inside.

I'd also love to hear what you guys want to see on this list. Post your own personal top 10's!

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10. Santa Ana Winds

A high-pitched prankster is wreaking havoc on innocent children and elevators. Disaster and allergies strike wherever he travels. However he's not the real villain in this story because Rebecca is just personifying the wind to take responsibility for her Nathaniel lust. Unlike other songs, this one cuts in and out at various moments throughout the hour and is a little long-winded. Pardon the pun. It manages to get in some disturbingly neat grim lines such as "When I blow there's magic in the air, and a higher risk of suicide", but my favorite part has to be when Rebecca is forced to encounter her imaginative figure on the streets and he stresses how super weird she is. A reprise of "Stupid Bitch" acts as the zinger, and it's highly effective for the circumstances since Rebecca's indirectly talking to herself. Overall, Santa Ana Winds proves to be an incredibly useful and experimental narrative device that spices up Rebecca's established behavior of ruining good things that fall into her lap (Quite literally with how they handled Josh's change of heart). But Rebecca's going to have to stop ranting and raving at an inanimate katabatic wind, even if it is scientifically a pain in the ass, and start facing the devils inside her.

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9. The Math of Love Triangles

When the promo with this first aired, I was not enthused. Who wants to watch a whole song of Rebecca at her most loathsome? Fortunately, the song manages to be a very fun and self-aware broadway parody that telegraphs the karma Rebecca will soon receive. A series of gay professors play the straight man (irony) to Rebecca's imaginary triangle, by trying to teach her literal geometry (Happy Pi Day!). Rebecca has no interest in that though because she's regressed to a stereotypical state of infantile intelligence to make herself seem sexy. But that's ok, because apparently neither man will notice her learning disability. Where I think everything excels the most is with the puns. They range from goofy sex puns like bi-sex and angles that are erect, to a tonally nightmarish pun. We'd all be hanging from a hypote-noose if math classes extended well into adulthood. All around, this was an astute and acute number to put the budget into and it certainly taught me to have more faith in Rachel Bloom's tangents. 

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One of my favorites of the season as well. Math was never a subject I loved yet the geometry puns were enjoyable to me and the way Rachel plays a ditzy Marilyn Monroe type is amusing.

I also love the Santa Ana Winds song for being funny, a great narrative device, and an homage to Frankie Valli/the Four Seasons <3

Edited by Katniss
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8. Greg's Drinking Song

Happy St. Patrick's Day! Not only is this a thematically appropriate song for Patty's Day, it's some levity giving us a moment with Greg and his alcohol recovery. It also gives the extended circle of Josh/Greg friends and White Josh what I think is their only musical spotlight in the 2nd season. The Irish chanting can get a smidge repetitive, but Santino Fontana says a lot of funny shit that is charming only in his voice. Poor little Bruno did not expect that. :((Did we even know Greg had a cat?). I like the fashion choices for the crew and all the weird looks Heather gives Greg. All in all, it was a sweet celebration of Greg's development and a great Public Service Announcement on how drinking can lead to sex with a bush. :P

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7. Makey Makeover/Trent Is Getting Ready Song

 

Process.....process.....reveal....reveal........my first update in two months! It's the annual tie. This time with two that symmetrically share the theme of changing appearance. The end result gags are a stroke and a nicked back cut. Neither song overstays its welcome and you're left wanting extended editions, especially from the latter. Prepare for the Hayden's Getting Ready To Finish This List Song. It's sure to be shaky, quaky, achy, and flaky.

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36 minutes ago, The Who said:

Trent is getting ready song was funny but not exactly a song i'd listen and Makey Makeover wasn't the most memorable for me idk.

Cynical WhoBob

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6. Who's The New Guy?

Deliciously meta and a good welcome wagon for Nathaniel(who for reasons that escape me, I keep calling Andrew). Who doesn't love it when random background characters get to show they have the chops to make it in the industry? Even Weird Karen is oddly in her only sufferable state of the season. The song lampshades how they are bringing in another handsome/straight/white Frozen actor to play the male lead boinging Rebecca, whom we're going to get invested in. Unless of course he had only amounted to a short antagonist arc due to contract negotiations. Just by looking at the Season 2 ratings, I can't tell if Nathaniel's caused any noticeable shift, so Season 3 will be this new guy's real endurance test. Hopefully he makes every installment a manic episode.

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