There are times when you watch a film and the experience is what you could only term as magical. So it is with The Muppet Movie from 1979 and it features a soundtrack sporting a number of original songs and additional score by Paul Williams and Kenneth Ascher. Would the movie have been as good without the music – maybe. The Muppets are a force unto their own and are completely captivating no matter what they appear in, but the musical numbers in the film really added another dimension to the proceedings. The music enhanced the story significantly and as proven by musicals in the past, they have an ability to make one innately happy as they hit all the right notes in one’s mind. Additionally, some musicals throw in songs just to pad the movie’s running time out, yet in this case they helped to move the story along and were essential to the plot. Listening to the soundtrack sans movie, it still holds up incredibly well. The one thing that you will notice is that not every song is an upbeat number, in fact aside from Movin’ Right Along and The Magic Story finale, they tend to make the album a bit of a downer and yet, still a fantastic listen overall. The one thing that this soundtrack does feature is The Muppet’s most memorable song, the one most associated with them – The Rainbow Connection. Many would tend to agree, you could listen to that song all day long and it is so iconic that years later, Me First and the Gimme Gimmes would cover it for their album and it would be just as fantastic as the original version. Whether this is the best Muppet film and the best soundtrack is arguable, but you cannot deny the spell both movie and music puts on you even to this very day.