A film adaptation of a stage-musical adaptation of a film (Tina Fey's landmark 2004 teen comedy), 2024's Mean Girls distills the 2018 Broadway musical into a movie with a soundtrack that, at 34 minutes, has half the runtime of the cast album. (A few short musical numbers that do appear in the film, such as reprises, "Kevin G's Rap," and the Christmas routine, were omitted from the soundtrack.) On what remains, the main soloists include seductive powerhouse vocalist Reneé Rapp as leader of the Plastics (the mean girls), demure-voiced Angourie Rice as formerly home-schooled new girl Cady, and Auli'I Cravalho, aka Disney's original Moana, as combat boots-sporting Plastics nemesis Janis. All three leads are strong and distinct, and they're joined here by impressive one-off soloists Bebe Wood as Gretchen (self-conscious highlight "What's Wrong with Me?") and Avantika as Karen (the not-self-conscious "Sexy"), as well as by supporting cast members like Jaquel Spivey as Damian Hubbard and Tim Meadows, who reprises the role of Mr. Duvall from the original film. Notably, the movie's two new songs concentrate wholly on self-love, if from different angles (Rice's "What Ifs" and closing pop song "Not My Fault" featuring Rapp and Megan Thee Stallion). Both the 2018 cast album and the 2024 soundtrack landed in the Billboard 200. ~ Marcy Donelson