The Cheetah Girls (soundtrack)

The Cheetah Girls is the soundtrack album to the 2003 Walt Disney Pictures movie of the same name. It was released on August 12, 2003 on compact disc and audio cassette by Walt Disney Records. The album was produced by Antonina Armato, Ray Cham, Tim James and executive produced by Debra Martin Chase and Whitney Houston. The album features appearances from Sonic Chaos, Char, and Hope 7.
The album was certified Double Platinum in the United States on June 7, 2005 after selling more than 2 million copies in the US alone. It is one of the biggest selling albums from Walt Disney Records ever, along with the "High School Musical soundtrack" and the Hannah Montana soundtrack.
Background and release.
Although there had been music recorded for "The Cheetah Girls" film, there were originally no plans to release said music commercially since Disney Channel's previous original films never had soundtracks before. Debra Martin Chase was able to convince Disney to create new contracts for the film's actresses and release the film's music as a soundtrack.
A special edition titled "The Cheetah Girls - Special Edition Soundtrack" was released on June 22, 2004, featuring two brand new remixes of "Cinderella" and "Girl Power" with eight karaoke tracks. The special edition credits the song, "End of the Line," to Hope 7, while the original release credits the song to Christi Mac. The reason for this is that Christi Mac is really the alias of Kristi McClave, the lead singer of Hope 7. McClave sang both this song and "Breakthrough" on the original soundtrack. On December 25, 2006, the original soundtrack was released digitally to the iTunes store in the United Kingdom.
Critical reception.
Johnny Loftus from Allmusic reviewed the album stating "From the Disney Channel comes a TV movie adaptation of Deborah Gregory's Cheetah Girls book series. It's the continuing adventures of a smart, sassy singing group as they make their way in the pop music world with nothing but their wits and musical chops to guide them. Along the way, they live a little, rock a little, and learn a lot." Common Sense Media's review of the album complimented The Cheetah Girls' singing, but called the production "prefabricated" and generally disapproved of the musical presentation.
Chart performance.
The album charted at number one on the Billboard Kid Album charts on October 25, 2003. The album spent a total of sixty-five weeks on the chart. The special edition of the album charted at number three on the Billboard Kid Album charts on July 10, 2004.