Paula Pell as Gloria, Sara Bareilles as Dawn, Renée Elise Goldsberry as Wickie and Busy Philipps as Summer on Peacock's "Girls5eva"
Heidi Gutman/Peacock
Peacock’s upcoming series Girls5eva, starring Sara Bareilles, Renée Elise Goldsberry, Busy Philipps and Paula Pell as a reuniting ’90s girl group, will release an accompanying soundtrack album via Epic Records, Billboard can exclusively reveal.
The soundtrack is out Thursday, May 6, the same day the comedy series — created by Meredith Scardino and executive produced by Tina Fey, Robert Carlock and Jeff Richmond — starts streaming on Peacock. The eight-episode series follows a one-hit-wonder girl group from the 1990s trying to give their stardom one more shot after their song gets sampled by a young rapper.
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The nine-song soundtrack from composer and EP Richmond (Broadway’s Means Girls, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt) and the writers of Girls5eva, including Scardino, will be released by Bareilles’ label, Epic Records. The soundtrack features a new song written by Bareilles titled “4 Stars” and her solo song “I’m Afraid (Dawn’s Songs of Fears).”
In an exclusive behind-the-scenes clip about how the soundtrack came together (which you can watch below), Richmond said the fictional group’s musical style was heavily influenced by the late ’90s, “when girl groups were all the fun of synths, dance beats.” Fey calls Girl5eva’s most famous fictional hit, “Famous 5eva,” an “earworm,” while Hamilton alum Goldsberry couldn’t stop “peeing my pants” from laughing at the too-good refrain “Gonna be famous 5eva/ ‘Cause forever’s too short.”
Also in the video, Bareilles explains the creation of her original song. “I wrote the song ‘4 Stars’ as I got to know the characters of the other women, writing that song towards them and giving their inner-worlds a place to sing and something to say was really, really exciting.” Goldsberry commented that she cried while listening to the pop star’s “4 Stars” demo that she sent to the other actresses, calling it “a perfect pop song about the beauty of being yourself and not being perfect.”
Before the album’s release and the show’s Peacock debut on Thursday, you can check out the full Girls5eva tracklist below.
Girls5eva: Music From the Peacock Original Series soundtrack track list:
1. “Famous 5eva” by Sara Bareilles, Renée Elise Goldsberry, Erika Henningsen, Ashley Park and Busy Philipps
2. “Dream Girlfriends” by Sara Bareilles, Renée Elise Goldsberry, Paula Pell and Busy Philipps
3. “New York Lonely Boy” by The Milk Carton Kids
4. “Space Boys” by Sara Bareilles, Renée Elise Goldsberry, Erika Henningsen, Ashley Park and Busy Philipps
5. “I’m Afraid (Dawn’s Song of Fears)” by Sara Bareilles
6. “The Splingee” by Sara Bareilles, Renée Elise Goldsberry, Paula Pell and Busy Philipps
7. “Boyz Next Door (Puber-Dude)” by Andrew Rannells
8. “Line Up” by Jeremiah Craft with Sara Bareilles, Renée Elise Goldsberry, Paula Pell and Busy Philipps
9. “4 Stars” by Sara Bareilles, Renée Elise Goldsberry, Paula Pell and Busy Philipps