Zac Efron’s early singing skills are being met with mixed reactions.
A social media clip posted on Tuesday purports to showcase a demo of Efron performing “Get’cha Head in the Game” from “High School Musical.”
While Efron portrayed Troy Bolton, the main character in the 2006 Disney Channel film, it was actually Drew Seeley, an actor and singer, who provided the final vocal tracks used in the movie.
The post on X, highlighting the clip, states, “After nearly 20 years, we finally get to hear his voice. Dated June 2005, this version has some different adlibs, and the instrumental was still in production.”
The two-minute video revisits the iconic scene where Efron is seen playing basketball with his teammates while singing.
However, some fans expressed disappointment with Efron’s singing abilities.
“Okay this isn’t the worst but it shows how much he really improved in the later films… he lowkey owes drew seeley for this starting point in his career tho because i would not have been singing along to this version as a kid,” one comment on X reads.
“This sounds a mess,” one fan wrote bluntly.
Another fan chimed in, “Thank god for drew seeley cause omfg my ears!!!!!! They bleeding!!!!”
“No way, that’s why they gave the job to Drew Seeley,” yet another fan commented.
Efron did later sing his own vocals in 2007’s “High School Musical 2” and 2008’s “High School Musical 3: Senior Year.” He also sang his own vocals in 2007’s “Hairspray.”
Although Seeley did audition for the role of Troy, he said he had no bad blood with Efron in an interview with E! News in 2024. The Canadian actor noted that Efron was better suited for the role given that Seeley had a significant age gap with Vanessa Hudgens (who played love interest Gabriella Montez in the “High School Musical” franchise) at the time.
“I was a good five, six years older than Vanessa,” Seeley said. “So in my mind, that had something to do with it. I probably didn’t look right with the lineup of everybody else. And also, Zac is a very talented actor and was great in the role. So, I think they did it right.”
“I was never told by Disney why they ended up using my voice and not Zac’s,” he also shared. “That’s always been a mystery to me.”
Director Kenny Ortega explained that the “High School Musical” songs were “written before Zac got the role,” in an interview with Entertainment Tonight.
“So although he could sing, and he had a lovely voice, it wasn’t the voice that the songs were written for,” Ortega said of Efron.
“So he sang everything, and then we dubbed parts of it so that it had greater vocal strength,” he continued, “But the second movie and the third movie, everything was written for him. And that’s important for people to know, that Zac Efron did sing.”
