All 31 songs from Season 1 of ‘Girls5eva,’ ranked
The songs come nearly as fast as the jokes in “Girls5eva,” Peacock’s just-launched streaming sitcom about a B-list late-’90s girl group that gets back together when a present-day rap star named Lil Stinker samples its biggest hit.
Brought to you by the folks behind “30 Rock” and “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt,” Season 1‘s eight episodes are jammed with original music: snippets of old pop tunes by Girls5eva and its turn-of-the-millennium ilk, new songs the women write in hopes of a comeback, a tender and hilarious folk ditty that dramatizes one character’s worries about her young son. (The surviving members of Girls5eva, whose late frontwoman is shown only in flashback, are played by Sara Bareilles, Busy Phillips, Paula Pell and Renée Elise Goldsberry; most of the music was written by the series’ creator, Meredith Scardino, and Jeff Richmond, an executive producer alongside his wife, Tina Fey.)
But if the songs were designed to advance “Girls5eva’s” fictional story — and to satirize the dubious mores of the “TRL” era — more than a few of them approach bop status in the real world. Last week, a nine-track “Girls5eva” album came out on streaming platforms; here’s a complete list of all 31 of the show’s songs, including those heard for only a line or two, ranked from just a little funny to funnier than the bed-shaped car — “It’s Sealy Posturepedic for Alfa Romeo” — seen in a fake episode of “MTV Cribs.” (You really need to watch this show.)
31. “Side Pieces for Life” (Episode 3)
Stephen Colbert is very funny as a Max Martin-like songwriting whiz named Alf Musik. But the drab, hook-less tune he comes up with for the reunited Girls5eva registers as one of the series’ few false notes.
Key lyric: “Booty pop flamp now / Side pieces for life / Don’t tell your wife.”
30. “Paris” (Episode 1)
As the group’s “hot one,” Phillips’ character, Summer, says her specialty in Girls5eva is ending songs “with a sultry femi-nasty phrase.”
Key lyric: “But that’s just Paris, baby.”
29. “See You Never” (Episode 1)
More of Summer’s femi-nastiness.
Key lyric: “See you never, boy.”
28. “Invisible Woman” (Episode 3)
Alf Musik’s second try is similarly dreary in an un-Martin-like way, though that’s precisely the point of what he calls an “authentic anthem” for past-their-prime pop singers who freshen their armpits with Listerine breath strips.
Key lyric: “What is it about me? / Why do I do this thing?”
27. “Incredi-boy” (Episode 3)
Key lyric: “Incredi-boy.”
Lost to history, the Jacksons came between the Jackson 5 and Michael’s solo triumphs. A set of reissues arrives compromised by his transgressions.
26. “Sweetheart Sweats” (Episode 4)
The pumped-up theme song from a workout video starring Summer and her still-floppy-haired boy-band star of a husband, Kev, played by Andrew Rannells.
Key lyric: “Sweatin’ with your sweetheart’s better than sex.”
25. “Space Boys” (Episode 5)
Key lyric: “Space boys, more exotic than a waiter from France.”
24. “Solano’s Crematorium” (Episode 2)
A very catchy jingle that Bareilles’ character, Dawn, recalls writing for her brother’s first business.
Key lyric: “Sprinkle your ash but never your cash at Solano’s Crematorium.”
23. “Kosovo” (Episode 1)
Summer again.
Key lyric: “What are we gonna do about Kosovo, y’all?”
22. “Blue Eyes” (Episode 3)
A dreamy ballad heard in flashback as the women recall how problematic their old songs were.
Key lyric: “’Cause our eyes are so much bluer when we cry.”
21. “Incredible” (Episode 3)
Key lyric: “We may be incredible, but that don’t mean we’re credible / Sometimes girls lie.”
20. “God’s Flashlight” (Episode 4)
Key lyric: “It illuminates secrets / Powered by truth and batteries.”
On his new album, ‘Latest Record Project, Vol. 1,’ Van Morrison shocked fans by espousing an array of conspiracy theories. The seeds were always there.
19. “Stronger Than the Best” (Episode 5)
A sweeping if not quite logical power ballad meant to “motivate bitches on SoulCycle bikes or play on the news after a devastating hurricane,” as Goldsberry’s character, Wickie, puts it.
Key lyric: “They don’t know that they are not the best no more / Because we filed the paperwork, but it’s Yom Kippur.”
18. “Jailbait” (Episode 3)
Key lyric: “Jailbait, great at sex / But it’s our first time.”
17. “The Other Girl” (Episode 3)
Key lyric: “If my man does cheat / We’ll only get real mad at the other girl / It was her fault only.”
16. “Line Up” (Episode 1)
Lil Stinker’s hit flips that Girls5eva sample for a bleary trap beat you wouldn’t be surprised to encounter on the Spotify Top 50.
Key lyric: “I’m underrated, always highly compensated / Whether I’m loved or hated, boy, they all talking ’bout Stink.”
15. “Planes” (Episode 1)
One reason Girls5eva’s follow-up album tanked: Its lead single — spot the cleverly phrased Backstreet Boys nod — came out on Sept. 10, 2001.
Key lyric: “Quit flying planes at my heart.”
14. “Lego Man” (Episode 8)
Sung by Dawn after she accidentally swallows one of her kid’s toys.
Key lyric: “Nobody’s touched me like you / Every day I hope and pray to see you again.”
13. “No Hat Required” (Episode 3)
Says the group’s manager: “It’s either about condoms or a late-1920s shift in men’s fashion. Either way, try to sound horny!”
Key lyric: “You don’t need a hat, hat, hat, hat / Hat-hat-hat-hat-hat.”
12. “Zoom Zoom Boom Boom (Carma)” (Episode 4)
“Before He Cheats,” again.
Key lyric: “It’s either this or throwing suits out of an upstairs window.”
11. “Judas and Jesus” (Episode 4)
Says Kev: “We’re the cool kind of Christians who wear sneakers and compare the Bible to characters from ‘The Office.’”
Key lyric: “Judas is Dwight Schrute / And Jesus is Daryl from the warehouse.”
10. The Splingee (Episode 7)
Key lyric: “Pop your hip, front dip, jacket zip, hat tip / Chef’s kiss, doggie wrist, you can’t handle this.”
9. “Smokin’” (Episode 6)
Wickie’s star turn in “The Maskical: The Musical,” a regional-theater “pastiche of the Jim Carrey oeuvre.”
Key lyric: “All righty, then!”
8. “T.B.F.” (Episode 7)
This Girls5eva deep cut, we’re told in a bit of perfect detailing, came from the soundtrack of 2002’s “Blue Crush.”
Key lyric: “Tiny butts forever / Two silver dollar pancakes in jeans.”
7. “Rekindling” (Episode 5)
A woodsy pastorale as Pell’s character, Gloria, reconnects with her ex-wife during a songwriting excursion to the Catskills.
Key lyric: “Forest hearth and muskrat wine / And felted touch near river’s crest.”
6. “4 Stars” (Episode 5)
A chipper empowerment jam that wonders what’s so great about five stars anyway.
Key lyric: “Who cares what they say? / We’re gonna do it our way / Like Sinatra or Burger King.”
5. “Boyz Next Door (Puber-Dude)” (Episode 7)
Vintage boy-band spoof in which Kev says the quiet part out loud.
Key lyric: “Girl, you put me in the mood / Let’s do kissing but never nude.”
4. “Dream Girlfriend” (Episode 2)
Key lyric: “We’re dream girlfriends, ‘cause our dads are dead / So you never have to meet them, and gеt asked why you left school.”
3. “I’m Afraid (Dawn’s Song of Fears)” (Episode 4)
Inspired to dig deep by a make-believe Dolly Parton, Dawn looks within to catalog her unspoken anxieties.
Key lyric: “I’m afraid that after I die / Someone will sex have with my dead body / And be like, ‘Not worth it.’”
2. “Famous 5eva” (Episode 1)
Big Spice Girls energy in Girls5eva’s signature hit, which Lil Stinker says he likes because it’s old-school: “Makes me think of my mom’s boobies.”
Key lyric: “Gonna be famous 5eva ’cause forever’s too short / Gonna be famous three-gether ’cause that’s one more than together.”
1. “New York Lonely Boy” (Episode 3)
Performed with close-harmony precision by L.A.’s Milk Carton Kids, this dead-on Simon & Garfunkel rip lays out the plight of kids who grow up sibling-less in New York with older parents. (“No brother or sister / Just one little mister,” they sing.) In the show, we hear a bit of the song as Dawn frets over her son’s predilection for earl grey soft-serve and his longing to shop at a store selling fedoras and fountain pens. But do seek out the extended version, with a blend of empathy and wit that puts it up there with the work of Randy Newman and the late Adam Schlesinger.
Key lyric: “He has a favorite font / Trick-or-treats at a restaurant / Can’t wait till tomorrow to wake up to Michael Barbaro.”
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