 The two original songs sung by New Directions were rated from excellent to abysmal. Benigno gave each song a "B +"; he called the duet, "Pretending", "lovely". The nicest thing Kubicek wrote of it was that it sounded as if the lyrics had been "written by a lovesick teenage boy", and he called "Light Up the World" a "trainwreck". Berk was even harsher: "When the show has carte blanche access to every amazing song in the history of popular music, there's something terribly humiliating about watching the kids sing this shit tune as their finale, and do so with such desperate conviction." Gonzalez gave "Light Up the World" a "B +", but said it sounded a "bit too much" like "Loser Like Me", and while Benigno thought it had a better melody than "Loser" and also made "much better use of the Gleeks as a whole", he criticized the chorus for its similarity to "Let It Rock" by Kevin Rudolf. Semigran said it was an "uplifting, if not rather lackluster pop song", yet Hankinson called it his favorite number in the episode.
