Glee, this year’s Golden Globe winner for Best Television series- Musical or Comedy, has converted a recent episode dedicated to covers of hits by Madonna into a winning album.

The first Glee soundtrack to top the Billboard 200 albums chart as well as the UK Albums Chart, The Power of Madonna is number 9 on the global charts, according to Media Traffic. According to Nielsen SoundScan, the album has sold 98,000 copies in the US and 75% of the album’s first-week sales were from online downloads.

American fans who caught the episode from which the album was drawn, which was also called “The Power of Madonna”, were treated to the best of Madonna’s funky tunes, taking a musical history lesson that traced her evolution in fashion and music from the 1980s.

The album features only 7 tracks, a little skinny next to the usual 10-track offerings, but it’s packed with so much funky beats that it makes it totally groove-worthy!

“Express Yourself” sets the tone for the rest of the album, as this empowering opening number boasts the vocals from the female cast who play members of the Glee club ( a sort of choir) in a fictitious William McKinley High School. The song, led by the show’s star, Rachel Berry (Lea Michele), also features Santana Lopez’s (Naya Rivera) first solo. Finally, it’s time for Santana to express herself! You might recognise her as one of the cheerleaders from the Cheerios who plays as Quinn Fabray’s (Dianna Agron) sidekick. Yes, this is the cover of the same song that saw the birth of the iconic conical bra in the original “Express Yourself” music video in 1989.

Another nostalgic cover is their rendition of “Like A Virgin”. Their fun personification of the song is fitting for a high school, in the way it exudes a subtle yet cheeky sexual innocence This is a stark contrast against the Hello Dolly-esque version in Moulin Rouge, which is more sexy and provocative. The female vocals, led by Rachel, Emma Pillsbury (Jayma Mays) and Santana are backed up by the boys in a duet between 3 couples that has been interwoven into the song. Finn Hudson (Cory Monteith), Will Schuester (Matthew Morrison), and a new face in the show, Jesse St. James (Jonathan Groff), inject an interesting male presence into the song.

Now if the guys seem to you a strange addition in a tribute to Madonna, Glee hasn’t included them simply as a politically correct move. In fact, the boys stole the show with their soulful singing in a curious cover of “What It Feels Like for a Girl”, and not just because you wouldn’t imagine macho guys putting themselves in the shoes of their girlfriends. All irony aside, this track definitely deserves a repeat playback on your iTunes playlist for its male “boy band” bravado. They can easily pass off as the next Backstreet Boys!

The most gleeful part of the album is packed into “4 minutes”, with Kurt Hummel (Chris Colfer) and Mercedes Jones (Amber Riley) belting out a duo over a mash up with a marching band.

Too bad the album didn’t include Madonna’s Holiday.. It would have been refreshing to hear the Glee kids singing about… a holiday, considering that they series revolves around school all the time.

“The Power of Madonna” is the first of the 3 Glee albums to top the charts. The first 2 albums, “Glee Season One: The Music, Volume 1” and “Glee Season One: The Music, Volume 2” sold 1.4 million. Instead of showcasing popular songs from the first half of Glee series, this album only focuses on this particular episode.

Possibly the highest praise for the cast and Glee’s Executive producer and co-creator Ryan Murphy who picks all the music performed, who had intended this as a “love letter” to the Queen of Pop, is that she was impressed by the performance of the cast when she watched this episode of Glee before it was aired, Madonna was quoted by IMDb as saying wistfully, “I wish I went to a high school like that… if only.”

If only… For now, we at UrbanWire choose to indulge in Glee!

The UrbanWire gives Glee: The Music, The Power of Madonna a rating of 4/5.

Title: Glee: The Music, The Power of Madonna
Artist: Glee Cast
Choice Picks: Like a Prayer, What it Feels like for a Girl
Language: English
Record Label: Columbia Records
Release Date: 20 April 2010

Track list:

1. Express Yourself

2. Borderline / Open Your Heart

3. Vogue

4. Like a Virgin

5. 4 Minutes

6. What it Feels like for a Girl

7. Like a Prayer