Great news for everyone spending anywhere between 12-24 hours of the day listening to the Wicked soundtrack (truly scared for Spotify Wrapped 2025). A brand-new version just dropped!
Before you gasp at the thought of remixes: not that. The new version simply features songs like "Popular" and "Defying Gravity" without the movie's dialogue interspersed. Republic Records dropped edits of both songs, with "Defying Gravity" clocking in at 3:33 instead of 7:39, and "Popular" running 2:53 instead of 4:01.
"It was an immediate no-brainer. We both were like, 'Well, of course, we're singing live,'" Ariana said in a BTS video, while Cynthia added "We chose to sing live because it meant that we would be further connected to the words we were saying, and to each other. There's something special about what happens when music is live in a room. ... It feels really powerful."
Singing live while flying through the air for "Defying Gravity" was no easy feat for Cynthia, who explained on The View that "In order to sing you need your breath, you need your lungs. And if you're gonna do something big, especially like 'Defying Gravity,' you usually would have the ground underneath you to make the sound because that's where the force comes from." She added, "My wonderful vocal coach and my stunt director sort of worked together to help me find out where to place the support. I had to find a support within my body as opposed to using any outside influence."