MGM Musicals

They're more than just movies; they're the highlights of an American art form, the cultural phenomenon that gave birth to some of our most beloved touchstones — the vision of a lonely young girl dreaming about a wondrous world far away, of a careworn old soul unburdening his heart to flowing Southern waters, or of a love-struck lug dancing his way through a downpour for the sheer joy of it all. They're the MGM Musicals, and spearheaded by indelible tunes like "Over the Rainbow," "Ol' Man River," and "Singin' In the Rain," they remain the pinnacle of what a movie musical could and should be. There are far too many Essential songs for one playlist alone — more MGM musical wonders await in Next Steps.

If the MGM musicals offered moviegoers a luxe and lovely escape from the everyday, they also bestowed their stars with the signature songs that shaped their own legends. From the moment Judy Garland — as a young woman in love for the first time in Meet Me In St. Louis — crooned "The Boy Next Door," the tune became her own personal property. Singing "Honeysuckle Rose" in Thousands Cheer, Lena Horne perfumed the number with a sophisticated sex appeal that made song and star inseparable. And as the feisty sharpshooter Annie Oakley, spunky Betty Hutton found a kind of personal anthem in Annie Get Your Gun's  "Doin' What Comes Natur'lly." The show goes on in Deep Cuts.

Consider the great American composers behind our MGM Musicals playlist and it's no wonder that these tracks stand the test of time, and then some. The toe-tapping rhythms and scintillating suavity of Irving Berlin's "Steppin Out With My Baby" seemed ready-made for supreme song-and-dance master Fred Astaire; while Lerner & Loewe's "Heather On the Hill" gave Gene Kelly, dancing through the Scottish wonderland of Brigadoon, a heart-stopping moment of movie-musical romance. The genius of George and Ira Gershwin shines from An American In Paris' "'S Wonderful," while Cole Porter's "Wunderbar" gives Kiss Me Kate stars/MGM mainstays Kathryn Grayson and Howard Keel something to sing about.

"That's Entertainment," sing the gang from director Vincente Minnelli's milestone musical The Band Wagon, and talk about understatement. If the film remains one of the cinema's great achievements, as perfectly entertaining today as it was in 1953, it's still only one of a league of MGM musicals that shaped the American experience as definitively as baseball and apple pie. Our Essential playlist of songs from these Technicolor® treasures plays like a roster of the finest talent the country had to offer, from Frank Sinatra's High Society standout "You're Sensational," to Gene Kelly's iconic "I Got Rhythm" from An American In Paris, to an entire catalog of Judy Garland greats, including "The Trolley Song," "Get Happy," and "I'm Always Chasing Rainbows." When you download our MGM Musicals playlist, you're not just getting great music, you're also taking part in a piece of who we are.