page_title: The Substitute
section_title: Music
hierarchical_section_title: The Substitute / Reception / Music
caption_attribution_description: Gnarls Barkley at the Mini V festival in Melbourne.
context_page_description: "The Substitute" is the seventh episode of the second season of the American television series Glee. It was the 29th episode of the entire series. The episode was directed by Ryan Murphy and written by Ian Brennan. It was first broadcast on FOX on November 16, 2010. The episode was watched by 11.70 million people in the United States. It was the top scripted show among adults aged 18–49 for the week it was broadcast. The episode guest stars Gwyneth Paltrow as Holly Holliday. She is a substitute teacher who does Will Schuester job as glee club director while he is sick. Cheerleading coach Sue Sylvester becomes principal of William McKingley High School, and glee club members Mercedes Jones and Kurt Hummel start to feel stress in their growing friendship.
  The episode includes cover versions of six songs. These songs got mixed reviews from music and television journalists. The cover version of Cee Lo Green's "Forget You" and mash-up of "Singin' in the Rain" with Rihanna's "Umbrella" was given good reviews. Both covers' charted on the Billboard Hot 100. Paltrow's guest appearance was given positive reviews. The sub-plots of the episode did not get good reviews.
context_section_description: The music performances got mixed feedback from music and television journalist. Anthony Benigno of the Daily News gave "Conjunction Junction" an "A".  He had noticed the "ordinarily" (in a normal way) of the song. Benigno did not give a review for the song because of its short length. He only said "what a glorious ten seconds it is". Benigno and Poniewozik criticized "Forget You" for not having any profanity that was in the original recording. Poniewozik liked Paltrow's "deeper voice". He gave her cover a "A". Benigno liked the original version better. Rolling Stone's Erica Futterman believed the "clean version" of the song did not affect its success. She said that it was "charming and sassy". Megan Vick of Billboard called it "the most exciting number (song)" of the episode. Stack gave the song an "A+". He also said it was "one of the most memorable and energetic Glee performance(s) ever, thank in no small part to Paltrow". Green told MTV that we was "flattered" by the cover, mostly because he did not know Paltrow would perform it after he was allowed to be in the audience watching the episode filming. He called her performance "great". He also said that he did not know that she could sing.
  Benigno and Stack gave a good review for the choreography of "Make 'Em Laugh". They gave it a "B" and "B+". These were lower grades than they gave "Forget You". Vick said that Glee covers songs from musicals to often introduce classic songs to viewers in a more modern way. He felt that "Make 'Em Laugh" did not do this. The Chicago cover did not get a positive review from many critics. Futterman, The Wall Street Journal's Raymund Flandez and The Atlantic's Patrick Burns all believed the choreography was "lacking". Kevin Fallon said that Glee should not be "overusing recreations". He said that they had done this in other episodes. These included The Power of Madonna, Britney/Brittany and The Rocky Horror Glee Show. Todd VanDerWerff of the A.V. Club said he did not like the performances. He said they were "outright plagiarism", not an homage (in respect)" to the original artist.
  For the song "Singin' in the Rain/ Umbrella", Benigno and Futterman compared the songs as a better mash-up than the previous episode's mash-up. Benigno gave the cover a "B". He said that by using "Singin' in the Rain" as the chorus, the song lacked "catharsis". This was also seen by Flandez. He gave positive reviews on the costumes, props and staging, but had hoped that the cover had more "bite" and "attitude". Futterman said it was a "buoyant (cheerful) and catchy homage to the old and the new [that] perfectly captures Glee's musical spirit". Vick felt the song could not compare to the previous episode's mash-ups. She believed the staging was "implausible" (not believable). Stack wrote that he loved the mash-up. He gave it an "A-". Amy Reiter of the Los Angeles Times liked the choreography.
caption: Cee Lo Green (pictured) let Paltrow cover his song "Forget You".
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