ANDREW LLOYD WEBBER: Unmasked Platinum Collection

After an inexplicably bizarre turn of events with Amazon which had promised to deliver this new 4 disc set on release day - I finally got it on Tuesday - and spent most of Wednesday (the snow day) listening to the over 4 hours of music on this collection. Just some thoughts:


- I have pretty much every ALW recording, so at first I thought this was unnecessary (in fact that's why I skipped his 60th anniversary release -having purchased the other 4 disc set whose name escapes me right now) - but some of the new releases kind of intrigued me, and I thought in this era where the way music is released and shared, this might be the last collection of this type, so I splurged. ($30 being quite reasonable when 10 years ago a set like this probably would have been at least double that)



- I'm really happy I did get this. Nicole Scherzinger's Memory resurrected an overplayed song that I had grown to loathe for me. She really was spectacular and I can udnerstand why ALW was so disappointed when she punted on reprising here in NY. Lana Del Rey's You Must Love Me took a song that I thought was basically going to be always associated with Madonna and removed that notion from my mind by giving a hearfelt, unique, exquisite rendition of a lesser appreciated ALW song; Beyonce's Learn to Be Lonely was a tremendous find (completely had forgotten she had sung that at the Oscars and even more, had kind of forgotten the song)- Also loved hearing Florence Andersons Where did the rock go - - So those new releases were really special for me and a great way to celebrate Andrews birthday and career


- The collection itself is a nice retrospective covering all the hits an some other lesser known, but understandably added songs. I'm thinking of "Sing" for example (the composition he co wrote with Gary Barlow for the Queen's anniversary) which is a nice treat. I'm sure we can all argue about things that should have been added or different covers, etc. But for the most part, this was a great variation of things an uniquely different from previous released collections.

- One quibble that I will make was that they billed the orchestral suites as "new recordings or "2018 orchestral suites" - but that's Fake News. The Love Never Dies Orchestral suite combines the Coney Island Waltz and the Entracte from the Original recording as a single track. Ditto for the Sunset Suite (which was orchestral suites that I had from Glenn Close's single of "The Perfect Year" in 1993 along with the car chase scene instrumental) I realize I'm an uber-fan - but I had high hopes that perhaps they recorded a New Sunset Blvd Suite with that gorgeous NY orchestra last year during its revival or something... Definitely deserves it. And - Aspects of Love remains one of my all time favorites - wished he hadn't included the pop version of Michael Ball singing Love changes everything which ruins that song for me. Same for Sarah Brightman's Anything But Lonely (Ann Crumb definitely sang that better... she ripped the roof off the broadhurst theatre when I saw her in the original production).

- All that being said - this collection is really perfect for the casual ALW fan who might not be fully familiar with all his works. There's rarely a track that you will want to skip forward on. And more than likely it will make you hopeful for some more revivals (Would love to finally see Whistle Down the Wind... so much great music in that show!)

CATSNY - I'll have to dig out the cd single - I actually thought the Sunset Suite was the one from the Perfect Year Single with the car chase scene added to it.

For me that was the most misleading and disappointing part was these suites. I opted for the 4 disc set when I read "New 2018 recording" for them, and when I realized they were splices together of previous material, was a bit miffed. Granted I'm a super fan and have all of those singles and stuff. But if your putting together something like this, you would think that recording some new suites would be in order. Particularly Sunset. you had a symphonic orchestra twice in two years playing music from that

There is no Patti LuPone!

jacobsnchz14 said: ... It's actually nice to hear different versions not as well-known or commercial, but I also understand the idea of being a "completest" or needing the "definitive" versions of more popular songs on an ALW collection. I also enjoyed hearing some tracks from Cats and JCS Live Arena Tour, straight from the filmed productions' soundtracks. Now THOSE arealbums I would not hesitate buying. I know there are umpteenth versions of thealbums, (but as far as Cats goes)none sounding the same as the production I discovered the show with in that film. But if we can get soundtracks to Joseph with Donny Osmond, or the JCS film, etc. I would love one for those. Audio rips from the DVDs are not the same; straight from the source on this Unmasked compilation, it sounds great and the studio-quality I had always hoped for."

Yeah I completely agree with you on this... There's been so many different productions that have gotten critical acclaim, you would think "Heaven on their minds" from the Oliver winning revival of Jesus Christ Superstar might generate more interest than Tim Minchin from the Arena tour? Or how about Evermore without you from Woman in White, but the recent revival rather than the Original cast recording? Those kinds of things I think would've generated even more interest. But I suppose the idea of this is hitting the non-ALW super fans who might be curious with the book release (I debuted at #9 on the NY Times Best Seller list which surprised me) and just seeing "BEYONCE; MADONNA; BARBARA STREISAND" on the label helps entice them rather than some of the things us more passionate fans might be searching for

chernjam said: "the pop-covers of Nicole (however you spell her last name) doing Memory or Beyoncé "Learn to be lonely" are incredibly stellar...and the cover of You Must Love Me was as well."

Those are the names that immediately put me off of this package. The idea of a "Pussycat Doll" singing "Memory" is abhorrent to me, and I've just never been a fan of Beyonce.

kdogg36 said: "Going off on the pop cover tangent, Meat Loaf's version of "A Kiss Is aTerrible Thing to Waste" is pretty great."

Oh - that's a really good call that I forgot about. Although whoever he had do the original demo of that was pretty phenomenal ( I still remember recording that when ALW premiered it on WPLJ here in NY about three months before Whistle was supposed to open on Broadway after a Washington DC tryout... still upset in never made it to NY)

I wish he would've included Patti LuPone's unreleased disco recordings from Evita. According to the book, ALW made additional recordings of Ms. LuPone for the express purpose of releasing disco Evita tracks, but Robert Stigwood beat him to it with the cover versions by Festival.

Hey Lot - I must've missed something, I didn't realize they updated the lyrics to LND. (I knew they did for Till I Hear you sing)



Will give it another listen, but I'm almost positive they were simply lifts from the original recording. Perhaps remastered - but even when they do that, I rarely can tell the difference