High Fidelity CD Recorded Expected Release March/April- Page 3

[magicfingers]

Posted: 1/16/07 at 7:48am

Obviously it wasn't your cup of tea but MANY people thought it was brilliant.

[Yankeefan007]

Posted: 1/16/07 at 8:28am

I challenge you to find 3.
Updated On: 1/16/07 at 08:28 AM

[magicfingers]

Posted: 1/16/07 at 9:32am

Well the proof is in the numerous posts on this board where people expressed love for the show. To say there are not 3 people who thought the show was brilliant is immature on your part and nasty. why do I even bother?

[Yankeefan007]

Posted: 1/16/07 at 9:49am

3 was just an example. I'm not gonna say "find 100 people who liked it" - that's nasty.

Contrary to popular belief - I liked the show and am looking forward to the CD coming out.

Simple fact is that few others did. The critics mangled it, but how many people besides theatergoers actually read reviews? The problem was that the target market (mostly rocker-young-men) had no interest in seeing the show. The other market, fans of the book and movie, had no interest in seeing it as a musical.

I feel very bad for the cast - to work their hearts out and butts off for years, ultimately to have 18 shows, sucks. When the show got bad notices out of town, they should have taken it as a hint.

Sad but true.
Updated On: 1/16/07 at 09:49 AM

[magicfingers]

Posted: 1/16/07 at 11:51pm

I hear you Yankee...but just because the target demographic that would have enjoyed the show didn't show up ( or wasn't given a chance to) doesn't mean the show wasn't great. If anything Hi Fi was playing to an audience that hadn't yet gotten into musical theatre. My guess is in ten or twenty years as more rock shows make their way to broadway ( think Pink Floyd's the WALL on broadway or a Radiohead Musical) more of these people will venture into theatre. High Fidelity was far to hip for the current Broadway climate. Case in point a show like Spring Awakening with a great rock soundtrack is struggling to survive.

[Josh Freilich]

Posted: 1/17/07 at 9:25am

Besides, Tom Kitt desperately wanted it recorded, and the musical director Adam Ben-David (one of my friends) concurred, saying that it's too good a score not to record. I agree. I sat in the pit for the show (without headphones), and I couldn't understand most of the words except for a few ("I'm sleeping with a rock star/Well, a rock star once removed"). Luckily when the CD comes out, I'll learn all the words.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 1/17/07 at 10:26am

Oh magicfingers, please quit while you're behind. Yes, you're enthusiastic about this show, but the hyperbole you use is so over the top it doesn't even make sense.

"As for High Fidelity- it was a brilliant show ..." No. It was NOT a brilliant show. "that was far too ahead of it's time" No. It was NOT ahead of its time in any way.

"and demanded far too much of critics." No. It demanded NOTHING, nothing at all of the audience, critics among them.

"The audiences LOVED it" perhaps SOME of the members of the audience loved it. But the night I saw it, the house was so papered it looked like Times Square after a ticker tape parade. The most common comment I heard from audiences exiting the theater was along the lines of "It was okay, but I can see why the tickets were free" and "You get what you pay for."

"but because of the critics and the challenge of selling a work that people had predetermined was not suitable for a musical adaptation ( which it absolutely was) the show closed."

Did you even READ David Lindsay-Abaire's interview that was in the Playbill given out at the show? He lays it all out right there and says he has no idea who the supposed target audiences were and that it was going to be an impossible sell. Which it was. He was right.

"Regardless, the cast album will be loved and enjoyed by many many people for many many years..." Yes, you're probably right there. But had you written the sort of hyperbole you usually write ("Millions of people will love it and gazillions of producers will regret not investing money in the show to keep it open so it could catch on with fablillions of full-price paying audience members who would have seen it squadrillions of times and made it a bigger audience pleaser than Wicked...!") it would have been more of your wishful thinking. But as it is, you're right. Many people will love the cast album. Probably about 3/4's of a theater's worth. One night only.

"and Tom Kitt and Amanda Green will be acknowled as the amazing writers they are." Not from THIS cast recording they won't.

And PLEASE don't toss around insanity like "a Radiohead musical" ever again. Thanking you in advance.

Updated On: 1/17/07 at 10:26 AM

[magicfingers]

Posted: 1/17/07 at 1:48pm

Namo- your last comment

"and PLEASE don't toss around insanity like "a Radiohead musical" ever again."

gives away your complete lack of musical taste and inability to see beyond the tired omm-pa-pa and schlock that broadway has become ridiculed for. Pop and Rock music is going to be the future and savior of Broadway. Most new composers for theatre will be influenced by bands like Radiohead, so while Thom Yorke will probably never write a theatre work ( although how cool would that be!?) we will see more and more works influenced by the popular music of our time.

As for your other arguments they are all flat out wrong.

The show was brilliant and far too advanced for mind's stuck in the old way of thinking of broadway musicals. The biggest problem was High Fidelity was clearly written by, for and about people who love rock AND broadway and for this reason alone it was not given a chance. I highly doubt you are a rock fan Namo- so it would be hard pressed for you to understand anything I'm talking about but more and more people are growing up with both rock and broadway influences.

At NYU, where I am a student, we will sit around and listen to coldplay, sondheim, jeff buckley and JRB all with our ipod on shuffle. part of the reason I want to go into musical theatre ( the writing side) is to help transform the very type of thinking I see in your and other posts. Broadway should not always be safe and easy. High Fidelity was a show that really spoke to me and all of my friends. Unfortunately, to paraphrse David Pogue, 'if interneters don't have anything negative to say they are silent'. Which is the case with most of the comments on this board.
Updated On: 1/17/07 at 01:48 PM

[Yankeefan007]

Posted: 1/17/07 at 2:08pm

...just how was the show advanced? (And if your arguement was the use of rock music, I direct you to Rent, Spring Awakening, Movin' Out, Wedding Singer, et al.)

[magicfingers]

Posted: 1/17/07 at 2:17pm

it was advaned because it created an authentic rock pastiche score of all the great classic bands and singers to tell the story of a a very untypical type of broadway character- a slacker. It did away with typical broadway dancing and the show BEGINS with the breakup- which is also something quite different.

Posted: 1/17/07 at 2:48pm

Look, magicfingers, I loved the show as well (and am coincidentally also a student at NYU, although not in theatre), but a "authentic rock pastiche score"? High Fidelity's score is comprised of mainly pop kitsch with a few other genres thrown in as well; true rock isn't prominent. In fact, one of the criticisms of the show that I find valid is that the characters would NOT be singing the music that they do as rock elitists. It didn't really bother me or stop me from enjoying the show, but the criticism makes sense.

And from what I've observed, Namo has displayed a like of other genres of music as well on these boards, and if not, I'll say as a Radiohead FAN, I wouldn't want to see Radiohead or Radioheadesque music on Broadway. Imagine a bunch of chorus boys droning "the yuppies networking, the panic, the vomit" - yeah, not happening.

[JohnPopa]

Posted: 1/17/07 at 2:59pm

"Authentic rock pastiche?"

Do you even know what pastiche means?

And any time Coldplay is mentioned in a sentence about great rock music a puppy dies.



Updated On: 1/17/07 at 02:59 PM

[BobbyBubby]

Posted: 1/17/07 at 3:16pm

I'm amazed the lengths people are going to defend a universally panned show. Watch the Broadway Beat footage. It proves why this show flopped like a fish out of water.

Do you ever think that you are willing yourself to like something because a certain performer is involved. I know my argument will alway meet screams and protest from fangirls everywhere, but this isn't a lasting piece of musical theatre (or even rock theatre). This just isn't source material that works as a musical, and though there are talented people involved( Green is a great lyricist though I've never enjoyed Tom Kitt's hollow attempts to make musical theatre as pop as possible) this is a strained attempt to musicalize that just don't sing.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 1/17/07 at 3:46pm

"gives away your complete lack of musical taste and inability to see beyond the tired omm-pa-pa and schlock that broadway has become ridiculed for."

Oh please. My rock cred could chew you up and grind you into chunks in my stool. In fact, if you have ANY belief that the score for High Fidelity even comes CLOSE to being interesting to people who like Radiohead or contemporary, challenging rock music, it reveals the depth of YOUR ignorance.

"Pop and Rock music is going to be the future and savior of Broadway."

It's really not. If that were to have been the case, it would have happened already since the rock revolution began over 40 years ago. All that really happened is that Broadway and pop became more separate and distinct in the '60s and Broadway musicals are mostly the schlock oom pah pah you mock that appeals to an audience that gets smaller by the year. High Fidelity is much closer to THAT than to the sort of thing Stephen Trask and John Cameron Mitchell came up with.

[alliez92092]

Posted: 1/17/07 at 4:09pm

I loved the show, and I don't think it deserved to close, but all of this fighting is stupid. If you didn't like the show, that's fine. Just don't buy the cast recording and let those of us who want to do so. Why challenge it? But then again, why should the supporters of the show (including myself) get mad at those who don't like it? I guess I can see it from both sides and now I'm probably going to be attacked, but whatever. The fighting is just stupid.

[purpleprince101]

Posted: 1/17/07 at 4:25pm

i only liked it because of the music. should be nominated for score

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 1/17/07 at 5:17pm

I think it's great that people liked the show. I certainly liked it well enough, it was an inoffensive little piffle with terrific sets.

People should like what they like, but when they go over the top with calling it great and all, well, somebody has to dash in with a dose of reality.

[B3TA07]

Posted: 1/17/07 at 5:19pm

In the words of Lynn Ahrens, "You just have to love who you love."

[BobbyBubby]

Posted: 1/17/07 at 5:28pm

Pop and Rock music the savior of Broadway? How about the destroyer of Broadway? Notice that the true Golden Age ended with Hair.
Updated On: 1/17/07 at 05:28 PM

[lakezurich]

Posted: 2/17/07 at 10:47pm

Hi, I'm just going to jump into the middle of this arguement here. I have not seen a performance of Hair or listened to the score, but from what i've heard Hair did not mark the end of the golden age. At that point in time Broadway was full of shows that had songs that did not cross over into mainstream radio play. But before that time a lot of the songs that could be heard on the radio were from Broadway musicals. Hair marked the first time in a long time you could turn on the radio and occasionally hear a Broadway song. But since then I really do not feel like any other musical has come as close to restoring the "Golden Age" of Broadway as Hair. Now don't get me wrong I do love a lot of the shows that have bowed on Broadway the last ten years or so but no one has come as close as that show.

A lot of people point out that when Rent came around it seemed as if Broadway would once again share the air waves with contemporary music and its fans. But that just really did not happen. Do not get me wrong I do like the show, but the music just has some quality to it that makes me think it would never get mainstream air play. I do not know what it is but there is something about those songs. The only reason that the show has recently experienced a renewed fanbase is because of Idina Menzel. So many people were introduced to Idina through Wicked that when the movie came out almost every teenage girl that saw Wicked made their mothers take them to see the movie.

And yes I have heard the recording of Spring Awakening. Again I think this is a great Musical, but the show is far too Ballad Heavy to be recognized by mainstream media.

As for the future of Broadway musicals I believe the only way for Broadway to experience a renewed "Golden Age" or for shows to draw in a bigger fan base is that a happy medium needs to be found between the "oom pah-pah" show tune music and contemporary music.

[xerotheory7803]

Posted: 2/18/07 at 5:07am

high fidelity was a fun show, it was flawed, but i would still put it in my favorites.. before people jump down my throat about that, mind you, im just a dude who goes to see shows. if i like it, awesome. if i dont like it, fine. im not here to throw around "good" and "bad" because thats all in personal preference. i was told i would hate High Fidelity going in. wrong. i was told i would love Spamalot. wrong. its what an individual likes and doesnt like, not what we're told by critics and people on message boards to like or not like.

[pharmer2000]

Posted: 3/30/07 at 1:42am

There is an option at www.sh-k-boom.com to register for an e-mail alert for the HiFi CD release.


Updated On: 3/30/07 at 01:42 AM