Best Andrew Lloyd Webber Cast Recording- Page 2

[Mr. Nowack]

Posted: 3/4/16 at 1:42pm

I too am sort of surprised how many people list the 1996 SUPERSTAR. I heard it once and for me it was no comparison to the concept album. But hey, by that point t i had heard the latter maybe 100 times and at that point its hard to embrace something different.

 

I can understand the love for the OBC/LA SUNSET but for me the changes to the score are just plain inferior to the original. Sublime as always Judy Kuhn aside.

[CATSNYrevival]

Posted: 3/4/16 at 2:34pm

I'm still bitter that we didn't get a revival cast recording of Superstar with Josh Young, Paul Nolan and Chilina Kennedy. Call me crazy but I adored that cast.

[g.d.e.l.g.i.]

Posted: 3/4/16 at 2:40pm

I wouldn't have minded a recording, but I will gladly live not having to hear Josh Young sing that score. Don't get me wrong, he acted it very well when I saw it, but vocally he was all wrong for the part -- continuing the trend of not sounding rock enough.

[jo]

Posted: 3/4/16 at 3:37pm

kdogg36 said: "I'm going to agree with jo on the OLCR of Aspects of Love. The music is beautiful and haunting; the orchestrations, played by a small ensemble, are gorgeous (though, admittedly, the lyrics and story leave much to be desired). I know the show isn't everyone's cup of tea, but the recording is a terrific representation of it.

 

Pushing thirty years on, I'm surprised the London recording is still the only available English-language cast recording. Obviously the show wasn't a great success, but it seems to have a cult following. I'd love to see it revised to make parts of it just a bit less... silly. :)"

 

 

If you have read the novella by David Garnett from which the stage musical was adapted, the book of the musical was based on it literally-speaking.  David Garnett was part of the Bloomsbury Group ( which included Virginia Woolf)  in England which was known for their bohemian lifestyles, so I was not surprised that the theme and characters in the musical were not always sympathetic.

 

But the music is gorgeous and very well-sung!  There was a remastered version that was eventually released which makes for even more pleasurable listening.

 

[CATSNYrevival]

Posted: 3/4/16 at 3:41pm

The remastered Aspects of Love has more music but I'm not familiar enough with the score to know which tracks are expanded.

[darquegk]

Posted: 3/4/16 at 4:35pm

I wouldn't call it a favorite but I enjoy the BBC concert cast recording of Superstar for its idiosyncrasies. Roger Daltrey makes Judas his own; and Tony Hadley isn't a metal screamer but his Bowie-esque New Romantic reading of Jesus is hypnotic.

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 3/4/16 at 4:49pm

I can understand the love for the OBC/LA SUNSET but for me the changes to the score are just plain inferior to the original. 

 

I agree with the exception of Every Movie's a Circus.  I do wish that song were on the OLC.

[CATSNYrevival]

Posted: 3/4/16 at 5:23pm

I like the Sunset changes. A lot of them sound less awkward than the material on the London cast album that it replaced. Especially Norma's "Once upon a time" phrase over the original "There was a time in this business" music and lyric.

[broadwayaddicts]

Posted: 3/4/16 at 10:54pm

That was the 2012 Broadway rivival cast correct? 

[Mr. Nowack]

Posted: 3/4/16 at 11:09pm

The LP of EVITA sounds much better. A remaster is sorely in need.

[QueenAlice]

Posted: 3/5/16 at 10:45am

I'm feeing a little sad for poor STARLIGHT EXPRESS who gets no ones vote! It's rubbish - but fun in that disco-trash kind of way. Every school girl in The UK in the 80s who loved theatre wanted to sound JUST like Frances Raffelle on this record (and Les Miz of course). Although I realize now she really just sounds a lot like early 80s Madonna, which is probably the real reason whyshe was so popular...

Updated On: 3/5/16 at 10:45 AM

[CATSNYrevival]

Posted: 3/5/16 at 11:26am

I like Starlight Express I just prefer the later 90s single disc recording with "Next Time You Fall in Love" because that was the album I heard first. I also like the new song they added recently "I Do" as well as the recent live German cast album. We really do need an updated English language recording of this score. It's a shame they didn't record any of the recent UK tours.

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 3/5/16 at 12:07pm

I'm not a fan of Next Time You Fall in Love, but I do love Crazy.  That is a really fun song.  I'll always have a soft spot for the OLC of Starlight.  It's the only recording I've heard that really captures the heart of the show.  My parents saw the original production represented on that recording.  When I finally got to see the London production over a decade later with them, the changes had considerably weakened the show and the entire cast phoned in their performances.  Plus, the entire audience would chat loudly between all the big numbers (the audience for Grease in London did the same).  It was great to see the original design, but the production and performances were an embarrassment that made the Vegas mini-production look like a Tony-winning masterpiece.

[AEA AGMA SM]

Posted: 3/5/16 at 12:17pm

My problem with the OLC of Sunset is that Patti sounds like she's whispering all of her dialogue, and then as soon as a song starts the master level nearly doubles. It makes it a very hard recording to listen to, in my opinion, as I feel like I'm constantly adjusting the volume to keep it all in check.

 

The three that get the most play in my life are the original concept recording of Superstar (with "Then We Are Decided" and "Could We Start Again" dropped into the playlist from the movie soundtrack), Evita (American premiere with Patti and Mandy), and the OLC of Phantom.

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 3/5/16 at 12:51pm

I have to give an honorable mention to the OBC of Joseph.  I do think the Canadian recording is the best recording of the show, but the OBC has loads of personality and Beechman simply can't be beat as the narrator.  My one big issue with the revival is Any Dream Will Do being performed twice in the show.  It just makes no sense to me and is a waste of time.

 

As for Sunset, I find Close and Campbell just painful and unlistenable.  I really wish the show had opened in LA and on Broadway with Buckley so she could have been on the full recording.  Her performance was one of the greatest lead female performances I've ever seen (even when she was forced to regurgitate the awful "platinum blonde bitch" line that should never had been added to The Lady's Paying).

[ajh]

Posted: 3/5/16 at 12:52pm

I love the Original Canadian Cast Recording of THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA. Much as I enjoyed seeing Crawford "live", Colm Wilkinson's Phantom is far easier to listen to......and Rebecca Caine is absolutely ravishing, and vocally streets ahead of Sarah Brightman and indeed the majority of Christine's I have seen on stage -gorgeous to listen to and with a strong sense of drama. I just wish it was a complete record of the score.

[CATSNYrevival]

Posted: 3/5/16 at 1:55pm

I think "Any Dream Will Do" was inserted after the prologue to just pad the show out. It's very short and the addition of that, the entr'acte medley, the megamix and the encore of "Close  Every Door" that was performed prior to the megamix was just an effort to extend the run time of the show which even with all of that was still barely 90 minutes.

 

For Joseph I like the soundtrack album with Donny Osmond and Maria Friedman. I don't particularly like either of them in those roles but it's the only recording that includes the dance music for "One More Angel" and "Canaan Days."

Updated On: 3/5/16 at 01:55 PM

[Auggie27]

Posted: 3/5/16 at 10:05pm

I'm partial to the underdogs: "Beautiful Game," which I saw in London 6 weeks before it closed and was entirely mesmerized and moved by; and, this will cause screaming in all quarters, "Aspects of Love," which still has some of the composer's most interesting work, despite a gnarly narrative and an impossible to care-about leading lady.  But "Sunset" remains his underappreciated score.  The non-Norma material is vivid and atmospheric and jazzy, and the show has more ambition than almost anything else he's written. I like all of the recordings of it.  Choose your Norma, it's the rest that's worth re-hearing.

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 3/6/16 at 12:30am

Is Aspects now considered a flop?  I know it was a big failure in New York, but it ran nearly 2000 performances in London.  It's a fave score of mine (despite some of the story twists, which, as mentioned, are true to the novel).

 

I agree with Auggie on Beautiful Game and Sunset--the Canadian cast album of which is my choice, partly because I saw the cast, but also because I think it has all the music you would want from the show. 

[chewy5000]

Posted: 3/6/16 at 12:35am

I too love the Starlight OLC, trumpet bung notes and all.

[CATSNYrevival]

Posted: 3/6/16 at 12:41am

I also enjoy The Beautiful Game but I do wish they had recorded the revised version. Granted, it was without "Our Kind of Love" but there were a lot of other changes and new songs that I liked.

[rangersrule132]

Posted: 3/6/16 at 4:09am

Cats

Cats the Musical 

Cats the Musical 3-D

[jo]

Posted: 3/6/16 at 8:45am

I also saw The Beautiful Game which I thought was the saddest musical he has ever written ( maybe because of the theme of sectarian violence). I thought the song about the plight of immigrants ( God's Own Country) was particularly poignant.

 

Two songs from a relatively unknown show ( SONG AND DANCE) were beautiful --  Unexpected Song and Tell Me on a Sunday.