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Josh Groban Channels Hollywood Bigness on Cinematic, a Movie-Music Tribute out May 8
Josh Groban’s Cinematic, out May 8, gathers orchestral movie-song covers and personal collaborations—including Jennifer Hudson and his dad—into an old-Hollywood sweep.
Josh Groban’s new album, Cinematic, arrives May 8 and wears its movie-music inspiration on its sleeve: Groban tackles silver-screen standards like “As Time Goes By,” “Moon River” and “Can You Feel the Love Tonight,” building an orchestral record that aims for old Hollywood sweep and modern emotional specificity.
Groban says the project sprang directly from his recent stage life. Cinematic is his first album of new material since his Tony Award–nominated turn in the 2023 revival of Sweeney Todd, and he admits that stepping out of what he called “the grandest score of all time” shaped the record’s intentions. “Having just come off of the grandest score of all time with Sweeney Todd, and really putting on my big boy voice for that… I wanted to keep riding that wave… I wanted to stay in that grand zone,” he told the Billboard Pop Shop Podcast.
That impulse became what Groban describes as “MGM-escapism”: a set of familiar film songs meant to transport listeners into the darkened theater, pause the world and lean into a kind of glamorous, cinematic escapism. Though the album is all covers, Groban stresses it landed in a surprisingly intimate place. “This album feels personal for an album that… was such a broad idea. It whittled down to a very specific and very emotionally personal album,” he said.
To get there Groban assembled collaborators who mean something to him. Jennifer Hudson duets on “Unchained Melody,” his father Jack Groban plays trumpet on “Moon River,” and the Gay Men’s Chorus of Los Angeles joins him on Elton John’s “Can You Feel the Love Tonight.” Two-time Grammy winner Greg Wells produced the album, which was tracked largely with orchestra in studios across Los Angeles, New York and London.
Guests, family and theater-sized ambitions
Groban’s connection with Hudson was seeded publicly in 2024, when the pair sang “O Holy Night” on the CBS special Josh Groban & Friends Go Home for the Holidays. He remembers the performance as a moment when chemistry was obvious: “We looked at each other, we went, ‘wow.’” That spark turned into an actual summer plan. Hudson is Groban’s “bucket list of one person” for the upcoming tour, which launches June 2 in Montreal, and she ended up recording the “Unchained Melody” duet for Cinematic.
Family played a quietly dramatic role, too. Jack Groban, who “made [an] album playing trumpet back when he was in his 20s,” had not recorded with his son before. Groban digitized a one-of-one copy of that old record as a preservation step, then surprised his father with a studio session at Sunset Sound, in the very room Louis Armstrong favored. Groban recalls setting Louis’s stool in place and watching his dad find the trumpet again. “Watching my dad fly in that studio… was just, you know, something I will remember for the rest of my life. To have… a proper recording of his playing with me, I’ll never forget it.” He notes that his dad will be 80 this summer.
The song nearly became a marquee callout. Groban says Terence Blanchard and Wynton Marsalis both offered to “send me in coach” for the track, but it was his father’s moment in the room that mattered most.
Making the songs mean something
Groban was conscious of the intimidation factor that comes with reworking songs everyone already knows. He wanted the album to feel like more than tasteful renditions. “I didn’t want to just do, you know, the Josh Sings… here’s just a nice bunch of nice sounding songs. I want to be able to talk about these songs in a way that has meaning, even if it’s a song that’s been around forever,” he explained. For him that meant curating collaborators and reading lyrics anew until a personal why emerged.
That intent guided his decision to bring the Gay Men’s Chorus of Los Angeles into the studio for “Can You Feel the Love Tonight.” Groban said it was his idea to pair the chorus with the song, and not only out of admiration for Elton John and the film. He spoke about wanting the collaboration to be an act of allyship and optimism: “Sometimes in music, you have to sing it before you believe it, you know. And that’s the power of music.”
“When you honor a song that you love, you want to both honor what made it special to begin with, and you also want to bring something to it in the today that you feel resonates… I feel like there’s a call to action, to allyship, to support… I felt more than ever that a song like that, a question like that, and an open hand like that, was important.”
The Pop Shop even interjects during the session, prompting, “it’s like, can you feel the love?” Groban’s response was immediate: “Exactly. I feel like there’s a call to action, to allyship, to support… sometimes in music, you have to sing it before you believe it.” He also recalled singing with the Gay Men’s Chorus at President Barack Obama’s inauguration in Washington, D.C., and said bringing them into the LA studio was both a meaningful message and a stunning vocal moment.
Groban’s theatrical background shows up in other anecdotes. He tells the story of asking his dad to fill in on trumpet for a 2015 Dolby Theatre concert when Chris Botti wasn’t available for a performance of “Old Devil Moon.” His father, who had stopped playing decades earlier, stepped in and “crushed it.” That memory shaped Groban’s decision to invite him into the studio for Cinematic.
On Hudson, Groban keeps it simple and sincere: “I think she’s so multi-talented, and such an epic vocalist.” Their duet process—finding the right key and balancing two powerful voices on a song not written as a duet—was careful work. “We really wanted to nail it,” he said, explaining why “Unchained Melody” took time to arrange and record.
Produced with orchestra and recorded across major studios in Los Angeles, New York and London, Cinematic is both a love letter to movie songs and a record Groban wanted to make feel like a specific, emotional portrait rather than a mere nostalgia exercise.
The Billboard Pop Shop Podcast hosted Groban to talk through these sessions and the choices behind them. In the episode, hosts Katie and Keith also discuss Noah Kahan’s The Great Divide debuting at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and Ella Langley’s “Choosin’ Texas” returning to the top of the Billboard Hot 100.
