Best Song From 2014-2015 Season

[broadwaysfguy]

Posted: 7/18/15 at 3:09pm

Why doesnt broadway have the award for best song of the season?

(can be ANY song from the current recent season, from an original composition, a jukebox or revival)

 

This is a super savvy board, so what are your five nominees and winner for the 2014-2015 broadway season (same eligible shows as for Tonys)

 

Mine from this season are:

Ring of Keys-Fun Home

A Musical-Something Rotten

Shall We Dance-The King & I

Love and Love Alone-The Visit

Hard to be the Bard-Something Rotten

 

my winner-Ring of Keys

[The Josh]

Posted: 7/18/15 at 3:38pm

Changing My Major- Fun Home

[mattporter17]

Posted: 7/18/15 at 3:56pm

It's Ring of Keys. Just Ring of Keys. Simple.

[Jeffrey Karasarides]

Posted: 7/18/15 at 4:19pm

My Favorite Original Songs:
Days and Days-Fun Home
Love and Love Alone-The Visit
A Musical-Something Rotten!
Now-Doctor Zhivago
Ring of Keys-Fun Home
When You Say Vegas-Honeymoon in Vegas

Favorite Oldies:
Getting to Know You-The King & I
I Got Rhythm-An American in Paris
I'll Build a Stairway to Paradise-An American in Paris
I Will Never Leave You-Side Show
Lucky to Be Me-On the Town
They Can't Take That Away From Me-An American in Paris

Updated On: 7/18/15 at 04:19 PM

[bryan]

Posted: 7/18/15 at 4:35pm

playbill use to do the playbill yearbook and had all that

 

[h6p8gv]

Posted: 7/18/15 at 4:43pm

Are they not going to do the playbill yearbook anymore

[MayAudraBlessYou2]

Posted: 7/18/15 at 5:24pm

NOMINEES

'Changing My Major', Fun Home

'I Love Betsy', Honeymoon in Vegas

'Love and Love Alone', The Visit

'Ring of Keys', Fun Home

'Welcome to the Renaissance', Something Rotten!

WINNER

'Ring of Keys' is an easy winner by a landslide. 

 

I dont really think putting old songs in with the new is really fair. But my favorite performances from revivals are:

'I Can Cook Too', On the Town

'I Will Never Leave You', Side Show

'Shall We Dance', The King and I

[ethan231h]

Posted: 7/18/15 at 7:23pm

FUN HOME

Ring of Keys

Changing My Major

Raincoat of Love

Telephone Wire

Days and Days

Welcome to our house on Maple Ave

 

Finding Neverland

All of London is here Tonight

Believe

All That Matters

Circus of your mind

Stronger

When Your Feet don't Touch the Ground

Neverland

Play

 

Honeymoon in Vegas

I love Betsy

Anywhere But Here

Friki Friki

Do Something

Honeymoon in Vegas

 

Side Show

basically every song...

 

I have to say I really love the background music to Curious Incident

 

 

[Fantod]

Posted: 7/18/15 at 7:33pm

Winter - The Visit

[broadwayboy223]

Posted: 7/18/15 at 7:57pm

If you Ever See Me Talking to a Sailor 

[Markie27]

Posted: 7/19/15 at 3:44am

1. Telephone Wire

2. Days and Days

3. Flying Away

4. Ring of Keys

wait..... I've watched all shows on Broadway last season except "Holler If You Hear Me" and yet all I can remember by heart are the songs from "Fun Home" (well those and "Musical" from SR but that was more of a visual treat than a fantastic song)....  I guess Fun Home was, by far, the best musical of the past two seasons.  

[RaiseYouUp]

Posted: 7/19/15 at 2:32pm

Days and Days-Fun Home

Welcome to the Renaissance-SR!

there are other great songs from this season, but those ones are my two favorites 

[neonlightsxo]

Posted: 7/19/15 at 3:13pm

The score of The Last Ship.

 

"Why doesnt broadway have the award for best song of the season?"

Because the whole idea of musical theater is to have a good overall score, not just one good song. Oof. 

[Braniff Forever]

Posted: 7/19/15 at 3:36pm

"You, You You". From The Visit

"Come to the Fun Home" Fun Home

"Getting to know you" The King and I

[broadwaysfguy]

Posted: 7/19/15 at 3:42pm

"The score of The Last Ship.
 
"Why doesnt broadway have the award for best song of the season?"
Because the whole idea of musical theater is to have a good overall score, not just one good song. Oof. "

 hi neonlights

I love that the best broadway scores tell an entire story in a very seamless and integrated way(Sondheim of course being the master if this)

a great song also can tell an entire story within the story

and

one truly great song can make an entire musical or even a tony winning best musical (like for "Once")

If broadway composers placed a little more focus on writing truly great and memorable  individual songs within a score that could stand alone as hit songs or at least garnish high volumes of  youtube and social media plays, more shows would probably play much longer with bigger audiences....

 

i still believe having best song in a musical is a great idea and would help further musical theater.

[HogansHero]

Posted: 7/19/15 at 3:54pm

"If broadway composers placed a little more focus on writing truly great and memorable  individual songs..."

They have enough trouble delivering serviceable scores; I don't think asking them to focus elsewhere is a good plan if musical theatre is to maintain any integrity as an art form at all. 

I think the scary thing is that, except perhaps for several songs from The Last Ship, last season was painfully bereft of any songs that will resonate for very long. But for heavens sake before we start worrying about transcendent songs, let's see if we can just improve on the mediocre quality of most Broadway songwriting to start with. The aborning season seems to offer more hope.

[broadwaysfguy]

Posted: 7/19/15 at 8:13pm

hi hoganshero

I can dare to dream cant I? 

one of the underlying reasons for this post is I COMPLETELY agree with you ( and read your posts whenever you do post because i respect your opinions), that this was not a great season for scores in general or memorable songs....

I loved a few of the new shows with original songs, including FH and SR, but I do not have songs from either cast album on my favorite musical songs playlist

I think you are right, we may be in for a rich 2015-16 season of new shows and Im excited about Hamilton, Waitress, Up here ( if it makes it this season) and others....

shouldn't great musicals have great music and songs?

[bwayphreak234]

Posted: 7/19/15 at 8:18pm

Days and Days was definitely a highlight of the season for me. I also LOVE All That Matters. 

[Sauja]

Posted: 7/19/15 at 9:05pm

Besides the score to Fun Home which has several greats, I'd have to add "Show Some Respect" from The Last Ship. Love the song, loved the choreography, thought it should have been a showstopper.

 

 

[neonlightsxo]

Posted: 7/20/15 at 9:05am

"If broadway composers placed a little more focus on writing truly great and memorable individual songs within a score that could stand alone as hit songs or at least garnish high volumes of youtube and social media plays, more shows would probably play much longer with bigger audiences...."

Are you effing kidding? Go away.

[HogansHero]

Posted: 7/20/15 at 9:56am

 @ broadwaysfguy: "shouldn't great musicals have great music and songs?"

you bet. But if the focus shifts to songs instead of storytelling, musicals fail. The trick is to write great scores that have broader appeal. Then the youtube hits etc will follow on their own. Right now, even the most successful songs from cast recordings are just a footnote on billboard, spotify, youtube, grammys etc. When there have been exceptions in this century (21 guns), the way they have been shoehorned into shows demonstrates the point.

 

[homeimp]

Posted: 7/20/15 at 11:00am

I believe critics have place so much emphasis on "songs that advance the plot" that the the songs are so rooted in the show they cannot be pulled out of the show to become standards.

 

 

[HogansHero]

Posted: 7/20/15 at 11:18am

First of all, that "advance the plot" nonsense isn't from the critics; it is a silly BMI canard. Secondly, while it is obviously true that there are some songs that do not really works as standalone pieces, there are many that would, if they were (a) good enough, (b) accessible and (c) resonant. The problem is that there is never going to be mainstream appeal for songs that are rooted in a style that appeals to grandparents. Grandparents don't buy music much, and there are not enough hardcore oldschool musical theatre fans to make most of the mediocrity that traffics as musical theatre songs into hits. Unless and until musical theatre songs regularly sound popular again, it will be the rare, rare exception for a song that crosses over. 

[broadwaysfguy]

Posted: 7/20/15 at 2:25pm

hi hoganshero

I get what you are saying about classic "showtunes" type songs

 

So what about Hamilton and the hip-hop appeal?

the president of the united states just gave it a standing ovation (on camera) 

Cant they release a single from hamilton and use the president as a defacto endorsement....

 

also rock songs like

Im Alive from next to normal

Totally F*CKed from spring awakenings

soul of a man, step one from kinky boots

Here right now-ghost

and others

All seem to have very current pop/rock sensibilities and i could see and hear them being on top 100 singles charts and radio.

I dont however get the sense that producers have a strategy to access or promote singles to the billboard charts or see that as a viable strategy to draw attendance 

or that any pop artists are accessing top musical songs and releasing singles, like they used to in the old days(last was was "if I were a rich girl" from gwen stefani in 2004)

 

why do you think most scores and songs are so mediocre now? is it the pressure to get something out, or the fact that the best songwriters today are writing for name artists or disney movies where they can make song royalties, or something else?

 

 

 

[HogansHero]

Posted: 7/20/15 at 2:52pm

I agree about some of those songs, but it is a chicken and egg thing-someone has to pull out the stops to try. Could and might Hamilton? Perhaps; it is groundbreaking in so many ways, it could add this one. But it is one thing to make a push and another to have it succeed. Many try, few do.

I think it because the best songwriters have, for the most part, been unwelcome on Broadway for decades until fairly recently. That's changing and hopefully this situation will fix itself. It is not a quick process, but we are evolving from where things were (Jason Robert Brown, Andrew Lippa, etc) to a point where aging rockers (Lauper, Sting, etc) started writing shows and now we are finally seeing some legit contemporary songwriters (Duncan Sheik, Sara Bareilles) come into these treacherous waters. The next step is to gain respect-how about a song that's actually on the grammys instead of in the "and also receiving a grammy" category? Recuperating from 50+ years of exile doesn't happen overnight.