Company's "Getting Married Today"

Sorry, I don't believe in the exchange of MP3s, it's terrible for the future of cast albums. If you have any remote desire to see future Broadway musicals recorded, DON'T EXCHANGE MP3s OF RECORDED SHOW TUNES. (Unpublished live recordings or bootlegs? Fine. Go for it. But spend the cash on the original recordings as well, otherwise there won't be any show tunes to exchange in the future.) Go pick up the OBC of COMPANY, you can find it nearly anywhere for under ten bucks.

Lame?

Hardly.

RCA/BMG, once the premiere recording company for Original Broadway Cast albums, closed their show tune division four years ago because the powers that be decided that there was no financial market for them. Just a couple of years ago, terrific musical theatre artists like Sondheim, LaChiusa, and Ahrens and Flaherty were guaranteed a recording of their new shows by RCA. Now? Ahrens and Flaherty have to put up their own money to pay for a vanity recording of A MAN OF NO IMPORTANCE over at JAY. And if no one buys it, you can bet they won't be doing that in the future.

SONY/Columbia/EMI? Only records MONSTER hits that are guaranteed to show a profit. If people stop buying things like HAIRSPRAY because they're downloading them for free, then the record companies will stop recording them, and there will be nothing to download.

The future of musical theatre is dependent on the continued recording of Original Broadway Cast albums. If a show isn't recorded, it dies. Anyone ever seen a production of MAIL? Or CARNIVAL IN FLANDERS? Or ZENDA? Or GEORGY? Or CARRIE? Or GOD BLESS YOU MR. ROSEWATER? If cast recordings die, then the musical theatre dies. Believe me, if no recording is made of SUMMER OF '42, it will NEVER have a life in regional and community theatre.

THINK before you download, people.

Updated On: 1/20/05 at 02:27 AM

CATSNYrevival, your personal views about HAIRSPRAY are irrelevant here.

What musicals DO you like? According to your other posts, you appear to like Norbert Leo Butz. Well, start imagining a future without his performances being recorded.

THE LAST 5 YEARS, a terrific recording, was produced by Kurt Deutsch over at Sh-K-Boom, a record company which is so far in the red that it is highly unlikely they will survive the coming year. Not a single recording that Sh-K-Boom has released so far has returned a profit, in no doubt due to the fact that people like you are not supporting the things that you purport to love so much, and instead are exchanging MP3 files over the Internet.