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SpongeBob SquarePants, Original Cast Recording on NPR: First Listen

Not starting the SpongeBob SquarePants musical cast album with "Whoooooooo lives in a pineapple under the sea?" is like not starting an Abe Lincoln musical with "Four score and seven years ago." Okay, maybe not that. Maybe it's more like not starting an Oscar Meyer musical with "my bologna has a first name."

Instead, after a quick prologue, the SpongeBob album gets underway with "Bikini Bottom Day," written by Jonathan Coulton. (Disclaimer: Coulton works for NPR on Ask Me Another, and I know him well enough that we say "Oh, hey!") Like nearly all the songs in the show, which opens on Broadway in November after a successful run in Chicago, "Bikini Bottom Day" is a new song brought to the stage by an established artist. In addition to Coulton, composers include Sara Bareilles, Joe Perry and Steven Tyler of Aerosmith, T.I., Alex Ebert of Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes, members of Plain White T's and Panic! At The Disco and The Flaming Lips and They Might Be Giants and a bunch more. And on top of all that original music, the show includes David Bowie and Brian Eno's "No Control."

CHECK OUT NPR: First Listen PAGE