I feel like part of the reason why Villain Songs are generally considered better than Hero Songs is not just because of the difference between an I Want and an I Am song, though the best Villain Songs are often considered the I Want songs like Hellfire, but because Hero Songs generally lack the drama and theatrics of Villain Songs.
Almost every Hero Song is downbeat and mellow before it picks up, which makes them more low energy than the driving rhythms of Villain Songs. And why the best Hero Songs in movies aren't Hero Songs but often Romantic Duets.
Though I would argue that Frozen, Mulan, Hamilton, and The Greatest Showman have some of the best examples of Hero Songs, the soundtracks lack any Villain Songs to compare, so instead I'll pivot to KPop Demon Hunters as an example.
In KPop Demon Hunters you'll find people actually debating on whether Your Idol is the best song of the film or if it's another song. Golden doesn't really qualify in this category from my observations because it's more of the typical Hero Song you'd expect to find since it's the flagship song of the film. Some people say How It's Done is the best song of the film, better than Your Idol, because it's active and high energy, others say it's What It Sounds Like because of the feeling of the song and lyrical depth.
Your Idol is often touted as the best song of the film based on the energy and vocal performance of the Saja Boys, but the songs that compete with it are the songs that can compete in the meaning of the lyrics and the energy.
I could totally bring up Hold Them Down from EPIC: The Musical compared to the following song, Odysseus, on what's the best song in the Ithaca Saga but Odysseus is just as, if not darker, than Hold Them Down in its tempo so it lacks the feeling of a traditional Hero Song, and Legendary is in an almost entirely different world from these two songs. Prince of Egypt is a similar example because a lot of the songs in that movie are pretty dark, like Playing With The Big Boys isn't nearly as good as The Plagues but The Plagues isn't exactly Go The Distance (Hercules) in terms of heroism.
So, to fix Hero Songs, must we make them more active and energetic to match the tempo of Villain Songs? Perhaps, but I think we shouldn't sacrifice the I Want songs just to compete with the Villain Songs. Instead, I think we can take the concept of Hero Songs even further by introducing a new category: Heroic Songs.
Heroic Songs I think solve the energy and tempo issue and I even think they can far outperform Villain Songs by MILES. What examples do I have?
The best example currently is I Need A Hero from Shrek 2. Even though it's sung by a villain and is a licensed song, Jennifer Saunders's vocals and the way the scene plays out makes the song feel exceptionally heroic and high action. When you listen to a Villain Song, you often feel compelled by the lyrics and can get swept up in the villain's ego. I Need A Hero accomplishes that similar feeling because of the epicness of a castle siege paired with the soaring vocals sucks you into the scene and gives you the feeling that Something's Happening, which lies in direct opposition to the Something's About To Happen feeling of Villain Songs.
The same with Sasageyo! from Attack on Titan. The soar of the vocals, the grandiosity of the instruments, and the overall rhythm of the song makes you a patriot for a country that doesn't exist, my twin nearly lost a Try Not To Sing game when that song played and hadn't even heard it at the time.
I would mention Heroic Songs from video games like Devil May Cry and League of Legends but the major caveat here is that you'll notice all these Heroic Songs I've mentioned aren't in the Musical Theatre genre, they're all pop or rock. That's not to disqualify them but the problem is that they can't compete with Villain Songs if they're a completely different genre.
Pulling another rug out from under you, we already have half of the solution. The instrumentation of OSTs like Test Drive from How To Train Your Dragon provide the feeling of heroism somewhere within the boundaries of musical theatre, but we need to have the vocals to match and we can somehow crack this code.
This was a trainwreck, I don't even know what I was talking about.
