What Makes Music versus Happiest Street in the World

[minor muppetz]

The album Sesame Disco has two great songs - What Makes Music and The Happiest Street in the World (actually, all of the albums songs/tracks are great, but these are the two I am focusing on now). Which of the two is better?

What Makes Music is the opening track, and it is a great opening track. But I feel The Happiest Street in the World would have been a better opening track, especially since the album closes with a reprise of the song.

However, What Makes Music is a great opening track. Listening to it, I feel that if the album spawned a special (and the two Sesame Street disco albums, especially this one, make me wish there had been a Sesame Street disco special back in the 1970s), the middle instrumental section feels like the spot that would have the title and credits placed (along with maybe an announcer reading the title - "Welcome to Sesame Disco! Starring Jim Henson's Sesame Street Muppets!").

What Makes Music:

The Happiest Street in the World:

 

[Oscarfan]

I like 'em both, but I'd chose "What Makes Music?" over "Happiest Street."

Also, that's the version of "What Makes Music?" I like the most.

 

[minor muppetz]

In the last year I decided to download the entire disco albums, at first just downloading some tracks, including Happiest Street, and for a while I'd frequently listen to that one over and over again. But lately, I find myself listening to What Makes Music over and over again.

The disco version of What Makes Music sounds more like a disco tune than The Happiest Street in the World, while Happiest Street sounds like it could easily play as recorded in a post-disco era. When imagining footage to go with the tracks, I imagine a disco setting for What Makes Music (actually, I imagine it starting on the street, then the cast enters a nearby disco building), while with The Happiest Street in the World, I imagine it starting on the street (well, a more realistic recreation of the street, like in Follow That Bird)... Only for Big Bird and the kids to eventually leave the street, past the sign/Big Bird's area and walking past, in a real-looking city street, with the regular Sesame Street locations seen way in the background (I hope my description is making sense).

When it comes to picturing a television special adaptation of the album, I can see What Makes Music opening (see first post above), but the ending reprise of The Happiest Street in the World sounds like a good track to play over end credits.

At first, I thought What Makes Music was written especially for the album, only to be surprised when I saw at Muppet Wiki that the copyright date is 1971, with no known pre-1979 appearances on the show. I looked at the song page just now, and overlooked that the 1975 album 60 Favorite Songs from Sesame Street includes it (one of the few songs on that album that hadn't previously been released on an audio format), I was expecting it to be sung by Joe Raposo and play over film footage as opposed to being sung by Bob and the cast. That's probably the original broadcast recording (but maybe there were multiple recordings in the 1970s). And the original performance of the song is now on my big wishlist of Sesame Street segments I most want to see (though it probably doesn't sound as awesome as the disco version). I could probably find that album version online if not on iTunes and hear for myself how good it is.