Swing Joined: 4/9/15
That specific moment in one of the King George songs where Groff just goes "Awesome, WOW".
No but seriously, every single song is a knock out, this is the one of the only shows that rises above its hype.
Featured Actor Joined: 12/16/10
When watching the show Satisfied, Room Where It Happens, It's Quiet Uptown (which made me cry...awww), Right Hand Man, What I'd Miss, Alexander Hamilton, and You'll Be Back really jumped out at me. But wow, the entire set list...wow!
Chorus Member Joined: 11/3/13
Non-Stop, Helpless, Satisfied, Cabinet Battle #2, Who Lives Who Dies Who Tells Your Story, and The Reynolds Pamphlet are my favorites.
In the theater, certainly, "It's Quiet Uptown" is beyond powerful. As someone noted, it creates the ugly cry in men who don't do ugly cry. I sat next to a stranger whose face didn't move for two hours, and then dissolved. Which only made me feel the same. The song is beautiful, but its impact is wrenching, all the more so because the staging, so elegant and simple, is exquisite.
Broadway Legend Joined: 7/22/03
Oh god. "It's Quiet Uptown" in the theater. I needed blotter paper to pick myself up.
That writer understands grief.
If there was a Tony for best song of the season, I'd give it to "Satisfied," hands-down. BRILLIANCE.
I was about to start typing my continued list of favorites, but it's honestly too long.
Stand-by Joined: 12/1/14
For me "The Room Where it Happens" is easily the best song in the score-and Leslie Odom, Jr. is incredible singing it and in performance. (I do tend to listen to Odom's tracks more than any others on here-his voice is just amazing.)
I also do like "The Schuyler Sisters" and "Helpless". I must say that while I enjoy the King George numbers, I must be in the vast minority that prefers Brian D'Arcy James' portrayal. I loved his vocal intonations and his falsetto. Jonathan Groff is fine-there was just something about James' performance that was pitch perfect.
Live- Room Where It Happens by about 20 lengths then Right Hand Man and Ten Duel Commandments
Album- Wait for It (there's so much exposition that doesn't sink in for me live)
A strange thing happened to me after listening to the album, I previously disliked Soo's songs and performance but loved her on the album. Go figure?!
Broadway Legend Joined: 10/4/05
"In the theater, certainly, "It's Quiet Uptown" is beyond powerful. As someone noted, it creates the ugly cry in men who don't do ugly cry. I sat next to a stranger whose face didn't move for two hours, and then dissolved. Which only made me feel the same. The song is beautiful, but its impact is wrenching, all the more so because the staging, so elegant and simple, is exquisite."
Oh man, that song kills me just listening to it, so I'm definitely going to be a total mess when I see it :'(
In general, when I was first listening to the recording I was finding myself drawn to the more fun first act songs, but the more I listen to the show all the way through, I'm gaining a deeper and deeper appreciation for Quite Uptown and onward. All of the emotion of that last bit of the story is so pitch perfect. LMM really found a way to make it one of those situations where there truly is no real villain... just a whole lot of hurt and unfortunate circumstances on all ends.
It's also brilliant to me just how deeply all of them were able to convey all that emotion just through the audio alone! A lot of times with very emotional bits of shows, I find that the recording inevitably comes across a bit flatter than seeing it play out live, but damn, if that's true of this show I can't even imagine what it must be like live! Because they all just sound so freaking SAD and in the moment, and Leslie's voice on the "this man will not make an orphan of my daughter" part especially is just... gutting. But Lin and Phillipa too- they're incredible.
I weep pretty much from "Burn" through the end of the show. It's when Eliza brings up the orphanage in the finale that I completely and utterly lose it.
Chorus Member Joined: 10/3/15
All of them!!!! But if I had to put my very favorites, on no order it would be:
Alexander Hamilton
Aaron Burr, sir
The Schuyler sisters
Farmer refuted
You'll be back
Helpless
Satisfied
Ten duel commandments
Meet me inside
That would be enough
And every song in act 2
Today I actually listened to the entire recording straight through with no skips or stops and what not and I came to the consensus that satisfied is the greatest song in musical theatre history.
Call_me_jorge said: "Today I actually listened to the entire recording straight through with no skips or stops and what not and I came to the consensus that satisfied is the greatest song in musical theatre history."
THANK YOU.
Even hearing "It's Quiet Uptown" twice on the album before the show I was unprepared. Its artistry -- its ability to serve as a lightning rod to grief -- is both obvious and maybe a little mysterious.. I think it cuts so deep because of one phrase: "the unimaginable," which invokes not only pain but a kind of free-floating anxiety, even a terror, that every parent holds in his or her heart. And as to its mystery, the song has a kind of horrible unspoken prescience about it, too, since of course the duel that killed Phillip was only a couple of years before the duel that defines the story. A big case in made in the Chernow book about Hamilton's depression after his son's death; leave it to brilliant musical theater to burrow deep inside it. The show has a headlong power, never stops moving until maybe "Burn," and then as someone else noted above the story is awash in dread and grief. That it's all presented with such genuine emotional truth but without a whiff of sentimentality speaks to its genius.
Swing Joined: 10/8/15
Love it all, as so many have said.
I saw it at the Public, and "Room Where it Happens" was THE transformative moment where I knew this had changed from "cool nerdy thing I would love" to "holy crap this is a masterpiece." Burr's become my favorite character (LOJ my favorite performer), so "Wait for It" is my other current favorite.
Also love:
Satisfied, Right Hand Man, Washington on Your Side, My Shot, Nonstop, Who Lives Who Dies Who Tells Your Story, and History Has Its Eyes on You.
I first only cried at the end ("the orphanage..." but now about half the album makes me cry!
Washington on Your Side definitely gets my vote for best use of profanity!
Another remarkable 3 song stretch of the show:
1. Take a Break
into
2. Say No to This
into
3. The Room Where It Happens
Just extraordinary. The breadth of his songwriting ability just seems limitless
Also who caught the Last 5 Years reference in this one?
Kills me every time. And as much as I love Norbert, it's Jeremy I'm hearing when Hamilton sings it.
Updated On: 10/9/15 at 12:43 AM
What I love about "Say No to This" is its Sam Cook-ness. It has that old fashioned bad boy crooner component, too. It's almost too fast in the theater, the song is so damned good.
But "Non Stop" just pulls me up in my seat. It's a great act closer, and who knew that "...Hamilton wrote fifty-one!" could make the hair on the back of your neck stand up? It's thrilling, and pays off everything in the first act. Wasn't it another brilliant stroke to save a song about the hurricane, a defining event in Hamilton's young life, for act two, to use it with supreme irony, decades later?
Right now, I think Satisfied is not only one of best songs in the show, but one of best songs I've heard overall.
You guys are right there is something really special about "The Room Where It Happens". Phenominal song but I can't quite place why it's so special.
Nonstop is also an unbelievable song.
Seahag, I connected to that line the very first time I heard it, but it took me a long title when to realize what it came from. Then, I felt stupid when I finally figured it out.
Serious question: What is so affecting about It's Quiet Uptown? I find it to be insanely expositional and pandering. I now skip it constantly. Is it something about the staging that I need to experience live?
Today I've been LIVING for Jasmine Cephas-Jones on "Say No To This." Pure sex.
Swing Joined: 3/18/16
Ugh this is so hard.
Gotta go with:
Satisfied
Say No To This
The Room Where It Happens
Non-Stop
Take A Break
One Last Time
Burn
But my all time favorite would have to be Take A Break.
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