Cast Recordings You Wish You Hadn't Bought — Page 4

Sorry to all the fans, but [Title Of Show]. Not one track I want to hear again. Actually I wouldn't mind at all being 100 people's ninth favorite thing. My ambitions are very modest. Maybe that's why this CD did nothing for me. Thankfully the show closed before my ticket came up, so I was able to switch to another show. If I told people the name of the show I switched to, I would be severely scolded by most of you.

Huskcharmer, I agree with you. It's all for my collection so I don't "wish I hadn't bought" any of the cds I have. There are just some that I rarely listen to, but I am glad I have them in case one day I want to listen to give them another listen.

"1945's BILLION DOLLAR BABY with music by Morton Gould and lyrics by Comden and Green. I bought the CD because of one number("Charleston") that I had seen performed in the terrific JEROME ROBBINS BROADWAY. The rest of the show is BOOOOORING!!!
I listened to it once and once was enough. Morton Gould was a classical music composer who had no business being on Broadway. He had none of the crossover skills of his contemporary Leonard Bernstein."

The Musicals in Mufti production documented in that recording was wonderful, the best Musicals in Mufti I've ever seen.

Having said that, it's a dull recording. The score is uneven but it works well in context. I think the whole score is hurt by the fact that it had to be composed around the leading lady, since Joan McCracken wasn't much of a singer, however wonderful she clearly was in other areas.

In the post-show discussion of the Mufti production, Danny Daniels (from the original cast) said that whenever he wasn't onstage, he was in the pit listening. He said the orchestrations were extraordinary and he just loved listening to them up close. Of course, the recording uses just four or five players.

I agree about that "Charleston" number. It was my favorite thing in Jerome Robbins' Broadway, though there was some other wonderful stuff.

Actually, the other Billion Dollar Baby number, "Dreams Come True," was also fantastic but it was cut in previews. The song was followed by a very funny ballet. The number was a real crowd-pleaser for the audiences who saw it. But I guess they felt they had to cut something, the show was running long, and they figured that nobody would say, "Hey! Why is there only one number from Billion Dollar Baby?"

Updated On: 1/28/09 at 04:20 AM

Actually, I have a perverse fascination with bad writing...I mean, to the point where it's almost an obsession...so
"Skyscraper", "Bernarda Alba" and "Young Frankenstein" were actually very worthwhile purchases for me. "Young Frankenstein" is still on my ipod--I still have a thirty-gig model, and thus very limited space, so that's quite a compliment. Never mind that I think it's the stupidest show since "Ankles Aweigh" (which I also have, but then _everyone_ finds its awfulness enjoyable.)

For a long time, there was only one show I genuinely wished I didn't own: "Henry Sweet Henry". Mediocre enough to have no entertainment value, not bad enough to be interesting...I actually spent months trying to find something to like about it, but I finally gave up in defeat.

Just in the past couple of months, another show has taken its place on the list: "A Catered Affair". Here we have a very well-crafted musical ("I Stayed", for example, is a superb song as far as craftmanship goes), that just happens to have absolutely no enjoyment value. Judging from the liner notes, not only was this absolutely deliberate, but the authors think that's exactly what made the show so great. They drained every single enjoyable element out of the musical model, and they're actually _proud_ of that fact. Go figure.

Count me in with the people that didn't even finish Young Frankenstein. I just wasn't interested. i do like "Please Don't Touch Me" though... in spite of myself.

The only one I can think of that I truly regret is "The Pirate Queen". I truly thought that was a waste of money. And before I got the album I ALMOST bought a ticket to see it, and ended up seeing the "Company" revival. Talk about one of the best choices I ever made.

I'm not sure how to feel about so many not being fans of the recordings of some shows I'm basically obsessed with: Titanic, Side Show, The Woman in White, and Marie Christine. I'm obsessed. Oh well, I guess we all can't agree.

And Side Show was like my favorite experience being in a show pretty much ever, so I suppose I may be biased or soemthing. I just think the music is ridiculously exciting and beautiful. There are some awkward lyric choices definitely (lets not even get into "Songbirds...", but I'd say they're much fewer than others here might. Anyway this is a very interesting thread. :)

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Updated On: 1/30/09 at 04:23 AM

Sugar. With the exception of the opening number, it bores the drag heels off of me.

The SOUTH PACIFIC 2008 Revival Cast Recording; on the stage it was wonderful except for Matthew Morrison's horrible singing as Cable but the Cast recording of the score has little if any of the magic and excitement of the stage performance. It goes without saying that this new recording pales by comparison to the 1949 original but it does not even measure up to the 1958 sound track. Paulo Szot and Kelli O'Hara, in particular, give rather lackluster performances of their songs. That is not to say that the revival on stage cannot be enjoyed. It is different and almost always more rewarding to experience live theater and some performers come across better this way than on recordings. But I would not want to listen to these singers on a recording when much better recordings of SOUTH PACIFIC are available, especially the soundtrack which is so beautifully orchestrated and sung.

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