“Any Dream Will Do” by Donny Osmond

Donny Osmond was basically the Justin Bieber of the Seventies, complete with all the annoying qualities and all the widespread hatred, plus his own boy-band of backup singers who only got their jobs through nepotism. His name was a byword for insipid pop music for decades (and for the most part, it still is), and his only career high point came when Andrew Lloyd Webber cast him in a high-profile Canadian revival of his early classic Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. This may seem a dangerous move on Webber’s part…after all, he himself was already enough of a critical target without associating with people like Osmond…but you have to consider what Osmond brought to the role. The show calls for the character of Joseph to be wholesome, oblivious and subtly smug, so basically, he was Donny Osmond. Osmond was a huge success in the part, even reprising the role for the video version of the show, and it remains the only semi-respectable moment in his entire career. In addition, the show’s most memorable and extractable song, the glowing uptempo ballad “Any Dream Will Do”, has wound up becoming one of Osmond’s signature songs, and the only one of those songs that doesn’t flat-out suck. The show wasn’t enough to do any real work toward salvaging Osmond’s reputation, but it’s pretty much the only thing anyone remembers him fondly for today, and that’s got to count for something.

Verdict: Good, and it’s about the only Osmond song I’d say that about.

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