Broadway Composers You Dislike

#1

Broadway Composers You Dislike

Posted: 2/18/08 at 4:49pm

Most of you will come down on me for this, but I do not like Sondheim when he writes both music and lyrics. His lyrics for other composers are brilliant and can not be surpassed, but rarely does he write melodies that come close to the magnificent lyrics.

#2

re: Broadway Composers You Dislike

Posted: 2/18/08 at 4:56pm

Andrew Lloyd Weber
Stephen Schwartz

Both write bland pop music and continuously & blatantly recycle their own melodies. Plus Schwartz is an atrocious lyricist.

Updated On: 2/18/08 at 04:56 PM

#3

re: Broadway Composers You Dislike

Posted: 2/18/08 at 4:57pm

Jason Robert Brown *shrugs*

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"Some people can thrive and bloom living life in a living room, that's perfect for some people of one hundred and five. But I at least gotta try, when I think of all the sights that I gotta see, all the places I gotta play, all the things that I gotta be at"

#4

re: Broadway Composers You Dislike

Posted: 2/18/08 at 4:57pm

William Finn. My ears hurt just thinking about him.

#5

re: Broadway Composers You Dislike

Posted: 2/18/08 at 5:00pm

Jerry Herman tried to sucker punch me once

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"TheatreDiva90016 - another good reason to frequent these boards less."<<>> “I hesitate to give this line of discussion the validation it so desperately craves by perpetuating it, but the light from logic is getting further and further away with your every successive post.” <<>> -whatever2

#6

re: Broadway Composers You Dislike

Posted: 2/18/08 at 5:02pm

Frank Wildhorn.

Not wild about ALW either.

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"This table, he is over one hundred years old. If I could, I would take an old gramophone needle and run it along the surface of the wood. To hear the music of the voices. All that was said." - Doug Wright, I Am My Own Wife

#7

re: Broadway Composers You Dislike

Posted: 2/18/08 at 5:03pm

William Finn. My ears hurt just thinking about him.

Save for a couple of songs from FALSETTOS here and there, I am SO with you on that one.

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"Some people can thrive and bloom living life in a living room, that's perfect for some people of one hundred and five. But I at least gotta try, when I think of all the sights that I gotta see, all the places I gotta play, all the things that I gotta be at"

#8

re: Broadway Composers You Dislike

Posted: 2/18/08 at 5:06pm

Andrew Lloyd Weber
Andrew Lloyd Weber

I think he is redundant...a lot.

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If we're not having fun, then why are we doing it? These are DISCUSSION boards, not mutual admiration boards. Discussion only occurs when we are willing to hear what others are thinking, regardless of whether it is alignment to our own thoughts.

#9

re: Broadway Composers You Dislike

Posted: 2/18/08 at 5:41pm

Schwartz
Sondheim
Webber

Now, I also don't like Jason Robert Brown in general (Last 5 Years, Songs for a New World, etc.), but the only score that makes him a "Broadway composer" is Parade, which I am in love with.

#10

re: Broadway Composers You Dislike

Posted: 2/18/08 at 6:07pm

while i think most composers are not being given the proper staging to make their work "good", i have to say i'm not super wild on Lerner & Loewe. this doesn't mean i haven't heard fabulous versions of various things, i just can't fully commit to their style. it reminds me a lot of someone ripping off of "Rogers & Hammerstein" unsuccessfully.

i'm also not a fan of Boublil & Schoenberg's work.

#11

re: Broadway Composers You Dislike

Posted: 2/18/08 at 6:12pm

Andrew Lippa (fine Melody, horrible lyrics)
Tom Kitt (He Hurts My Ears)
Schwartz (Though I do enjoy Baker's Wife, never seen on Broadway)

Updated On: 2/18/08 at 06:12 PM

#12

re: Broadway Composers You Dislike

Posted: 2/18/08 at 6:13pm

Lloyd Webber
Schwartz

#13

re: Broadway Composers You Dislike

Posted: 2/18/08 at 6:14pm

Ditto on Wildhorn. Craphorn is more like it.

Choose better lyricists!

#14

re: Broadway Composers You Dislike

Posted: 2/18/08 at 6:14pm

Sondhiem
Webber

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Hunter: Your teeth need whitening./ Heidi: You sound weird./ Jeff: You taste funny.
-Jeff Bowen's worst onstage line flub.

#15

re: Broadway Composers You Dislike

Posted: 2/18/08 at 6:15pm

1 more!, though he has yet to have a work produced on Broadway.

Scott Alan, bleck!

#16

re: Broadway Composers You Dislike

Posted: 2/18/08 at 6:15pm

Isn't hating Sondheim for no reason getting a little old?

#17

re: Broadway Composers You Dislike

Posted: 2/18/08 at 6:16pm

Webber and Wildhorn

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Namo i love u but we get it already....you don't like Madonna

#18

re: Broadway Composers You Dislike

Posted: 2/18/08 at 6:17pm

I know that, for the big majority of musical theater lovers, I should be ashamed of myself, but...I never understood the infatuation with Sondheim ! Almost all his shows, bore me to death ! There...I said it !

#19

re: Broadway Composers You Dislike

Posted: 2/18/08 at 6:21pm

^ This is not meant to be rude at all. But judging by your "favorite shows", that comes as no surprise.

#20

re: Broadway Composers You Dislike

Posted: 2/18/08 at 6:22pm

Schwartz - "Wicked" and "Working" are the only two I like...and in Working his songs are my least favorite.

Scott Alan - Boring

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#21

re: Broadway Composers You Dislike

Posted: 2/18/08 at 6:27pm

No offense taken ljay ! It's all a matter of taste !

#22

re: Broadway Composers You Dislike

Posted: 2/18/08 at 6:38pm

Andrew Lloyd Webber

And don't crucify me for this, but I can't stand Cole Porter.

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#23

re: Broadway Composers You Dislike

Posted: 2/18/08 at 6:40pm

Cole Porter! I need to stop reading this thread! You guys are killing me.

I'm sorry, but next to Sondheim, Porter is tops in the Lyric dept.

#24

re: Broadway Composers You Dislike

Posted: 2/18/08 at 6:44pm

William Finn. Don't get it.

And especially the composers to LEGALLY BLONDE and WEDDING SINGER. "Oh my God! Let's try to be uber energetic, tongue in cheek, but sensitive."

#25

re: Broadway Composers You Dislike

Posted: 2/18/08 at 6:46pm

Andrew Lippa
ALW (with the exception of "Evita". Although it does seem that the score is composed of the five highest notes on the piano and nothing else.)
I like some of William Finn, but never understood the infatuation.

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"Sing the words, Patti!!!!" Stephen Sondheim to Patti LuPone.