Sex and the City 2 [Original Motion Picture Soundtrack]

The soundtrack for Sex and the City 2 plays out pretty much how one would expect. Alicia Keys beefs up the disco quotient of Blondie's "Rapture" by adding a "girls out on the town" rap breakdown and introducing a slippery, Middle Eastern cadence to the chorus that dutifully ties in the film's Abu Dhabi location, Jennifer Hudson and Leona Lewis slow things down with the future American Idol standard "Love Is Your Color," and Liza Minnelli treats Beyoncé's "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)" like a cruise-ship stage version of Victor/Victoria. It's a big, bawdy girl power collection (interludes are provided by the Sex & the City Men's Choir) that's undeniably fun and rarely takes itself too seriously, but whoever came up with the idea of asking the four lead actresses to sing "I Am Woman" needs to write Helen Reddy a letter of apology every day for the next hundred years. ~ James Christopher Monger