“This Is Me” Has Become a New Anthem for the LGBTQ Community

As of midyear, the soundtrack to The Greatest Showman is the best-selling album of 2018, having sold nearly 1 million physical and digital records worldwide. This is quite a feat, considering that songs from an original movie musical have surpassed famous artists like Ed Sheeran, Sam Smith, Eminem, Pink, and Taylor Swift. Songs from the album have also received love on the awards circuit. “This Is Me” garnered a Golden Globe for Best Original Song and received a nomination at the 2018 Academy Awards.

Did Greg Wells, a producer of the album alongside songwriters Justin Paul and Benj Pasek (La La Land, Dear Evan Hansen), expect such a commercial and critical success? “No, not at all. Nobody did,” Wells, 49, told The Advocate in a recent phone interview. Even today, its universal appeal eludes him. “Entire families are obsessed with the soundtrack and they can't seem to quantify exactly why. But it does seem to sort of tick a lot of boxes for grandparents down to 5-year-olds.”

Wells — a Grammy-nominated Canadian musician, producer, and sound mixer — has worked with artists as varied as Mika, Pharrell Williams, Katy Perry, and the all-female heavy metal band Otep. In total, his songs have appeared on over 120 million sold albums. Yet throughout his professional career, Wells has never worked on a cast album.

That changed when Michael Gracey, director of The Greatest Showman, reached out to Wells during the last year of the film’s production. In part, Wells was persuaded to wade into new territory by the inclusive message of the film, which centered on the life of P.T. Barnum (Hugh Jackman) and the “freaks” in his circus troupe.

Wells felt a need to help broadcast acceptance in the current political era. At the time he joined Showman, a then-presidential candidate was “making fun of anyone who's different, and going much further than making fun of them. It's really rewarding to play a small role in something that is a championing a very different message,” he said.

Wells has a variety of skills that he uses in his work to make music shine. A classically trained musician, he has perfect pitch, plays a variety of instruments, and composes and arranges music as well. He applied these abilities to the soundtrack of The Greatest Showman. As part of his process, he would analyze a scene’s dancing and acting, and then strive to create “a symbiotic relationship” between the sound and the visual.

“I kept imagining that I … bought a ticket, and I was sitting in the theater watching the movie already released and thinking, How do I want this to hit me? Working with the visuals was hugely informative for me,” he said.

For example, in “This Is Me” — the breakout hit of the album — actress and singer Keala Settle, who portrays a bearded lady in The Greatest Showman, is performing complex choreography and delivering an anthem to individuality. All the while, she is wearing a beard and an elaborate dress.

Wells immediately recognized the need for an audience member to be “riveted” during this song as it builds to an emotional climax. So, while layering the track, he added the sound of drums, which become more prominent as the song progressed. “I just wanted the cathartic release to be as big as I could get it without overturning the apple cart,” he said. It is a “funny balance” to accomplish with recorded music, he said. If done incorrectly, it can turn a fantastic live performance into something “underwhelming.”

“Music to me, absolutely, is audio, but it's so much more than that,” Wells said. “It's visual. It's an energy exchange between
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