Most Memorable Music Moments on ‘Nashville,’ More

The 2005 Disney delight Ice Princess has an unsurprisingly killer soundtrack, from Natasha Bedingfield’s “Unwritten” to Aly & AJ’s “No One.” But in true Disney fashion, one of the film’s stars took a turn on the mic: Panettiere, who played fellow ice skater Gennifer “Gen” Harwood opposite the late Michelle Trachtenberg. “I Fly” is a sublime pop alt-rocker that could have only come out of the early-aughts, as Panettiere climbs octaves across electric guitar. In the song’s video, Panettiere spoke about the magic of the Disney pop track. “A lot of people, I think, can relate to the song,” she said. “It’s just [about] reaching your goals and following your dreams.” —Angie Martoccio

From the start, Nashville was determined to use music as a character, not just background noise. No performance in the show’s first season proved that more than Panettiere’s devastating rendering of “Nothing in This World Will Ever Break My Heart Again.” Written by a pair of Nashville’s elite storytellers, Sarah Buxton and Kate York, the ballad summed up so much of the first season’s messy drama in the closing scene: romantic missteps, recurring demons, financial crimes, and Juliette Barnes (Panettiere) coming to terms with her mother’s death. Panettiere leaves it all on the floor of the show’s Bluebird Cafe set. Sure, it’s a TV performance, but it carried just as much emotional weight as anything sung on the real Bluebird stage. —Joseph Hudak

Around the time of Nashville’s Season Four premiere in 2015, Steven Tyler was in the city working on a country music album and his appearance in this episode is a natural bit of showbiz stunt casting. But even the outsized Aerosmith frontman couldn’t upstage Panettiere, whose character is experiencing a career resurgence for her starring role in a Patsy Cline biopic. Onstage in the season premiere, she offers an elegant version of Cline’s “Crazy” before Tyler joins her onstage. The song, written by Willie Nelson, has been covered innumerable times. Somehow, Panettiere still made it her own. —J.H.

Panettiere refused to go down without a fight in her tenacious performance of “Don’t Put Dirt on My Grave” as Juliette Barnes on Nashville. The snarky kiss-off hits back at an audience hellbent on playing judge and jury for a life they know nothing about. “You push on me, I’m going to push back harder,” she sang. “I got a whole lot more than a little bit left.” —Larisha Paul

Panettiere was just 11 years old when she stunned Rosie O’Donnell with an impromptu a cappella cover of Britney Spears’ 1999 hit “(You Drive Me) Crazy.” During her appearance on The Rosie O’Donnell Show, Panettiere stood up, wearing leather pants and dove into an impassioned performance of the song before the show’s backing band even started playing. As she sang, O’Donnell looked on, amazed. “Hayden, that’s very good!” O’Donnell told Panettiere with a high-five. —M.G.

It had been a couple of years since Panettiere starred in Ice Princess, or really any Disney Channel Original, but in 2007 she proved she was still a Disney darling with this soaring track. The singer/actress performed the song in a music video for animated movie Cinderella III: A Twist in Time, and brought all of the heart as she sang about a destined love. After her death, lyrics like “I still wish on the stars as they fall from above” feel even more meaningful. —M.G.

Kacey Musgraves and Trent Dabbs wrote “Undermine” just to write a song, but it was Panettiere’s performance on Nashville’s third episode that gave the world its first taste of the talent both she possessed as her character Juliette Barnes. On the episode, she sang the song with Charles Esten (Nashville’s Deacon Claybourne), but, as she sings, “sometimes good intentions don’t come across so well,” and the studio version she cut for the Music of Nashville soundtrack showed how Panettiere truly possessed her own unique talent. —Kory Grow

In Nashville, Panettiere’s Juliette Barnes is stuck between a demanding label and a string of viral controversies. Still, she agrees to duet with her most contentious rival in the industry: Rayna James (Connie Britton). “Wrong Song,” with its tongue-in-cheek references to their places in country music,  has all the typical swagger of an electric Americana song about cheating men. Nashville’s storylines always straddled the line between fact and fiction, but the musical performances were always where bits of Panettiere’s will peaked through the strongest. In “Wrong Song” she is captured the way people will remember her best: a  star— desperate to create on her own terms — bringing the audience to their feet once again. —C.T. Jones