Best Andrew Lloyd Webber Cast Recording — Page 2

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.

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.

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

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.

That was the 2012 Broadway rivival cast correct?

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

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.

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).

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

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.

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.

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.