Mash-ups vs. Rearrangements vs. Original Songs

The mash-ups in Glee were almost always phenomenal and/or iconic - mash-ups like RHI/SLY, Survivor/I Will Survive and Halo/Walking on Sunshine are some of the show’s most popular songs, others like Nasty/Rhythm Nation, Any Way You Want It/Lovin' Touchin' Squeezin' and Borderline/Open Your Heart are fabulous (and imo underrated) blends of a single artist’s songs.

There are also mash-ups of songs you wouldn’t think to put together like It’s My Life/Confessions Part II, Thriller/Heads Will Roll and Bamboleo/Hero that somehow sound really good. Genre/theme mash-ups like Old Time Rock & Roll/Danger Zone and Start Me Up/Livin’ On a Prayer are also some of my personal faves. Overall the quality of mashups was imo pretty consistently great and the way they were able to blend together two songs through a shared (or opposing/juxtaposing) theme/genre/artist was clever.

On the other hand, the rearrangements/acoustic versions of songs that Glee did were usually garbage, mediocre and/or random. I’m thinking of Poker Face, Girls Just Wanna Have Fun, Rolling in the Deep (I really hate it I’m so sorry ik it has its fans) and Baby Got Back. The only exception I can think of to this rule is the acoustic version of Teenage Dream.

With the original songs, I think they were pretty hit or miss - they ranged from good (This Time) to funny/iconic (My Headband, Only Child, My Cup, Trouty Mouth) to mediocre/bad (all of Marley’s songs, Light Up the World). Loser Like Me gets an honourable mention for being painfully 2010s and a bit cringe but god it’s so Glee & it’s fun so I can’t hate it!!

Do y’all agree?

TL;DR - in my opinion, mashups on Glee were great, rearrangements were dogshit/bad/odd and original songs were eh

EDIT: I just remembered Wide Awake exists and I don’t mind that cover ~