Least Consistent Songwriter (or team)?

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 4/26/12 at 4:57pm

This is an odd question, but who do you consider the composer/lyricist, or songwriting team who are the LEAST dependable. In other words you might adore some of their scores, and find little worth in the others... I mean with many names like Sondheim, Rodgers and Hammerstein, Cy Coleman, Kander and Ebb, Ahrens and Flaherty, even Andrew Lloyd Webber, I usually can find something to enjoy in even their worst scores.

One contemporary composer who does spring to mind is Jeanine Tesori... I think Caroline, or Change is a masterpiece, and Violet is vastly underated. I even love her Millie songs. But, try as I might, I can't get *anything* from Shrek, or, for example, the direct to video Disney sequels she has written for (whereas with a team like Ahrens/Flaherty even when they did Bartok, the cheap direct to video sequel to Anastasia, I like the music).

[henrikegerman]

Posted: 4/26/12 at 5:05pm

Although almost always great (in a very prolific career), Coleman's music runs the gamut from the sublime to the execrable.

[tazber]

Posted: 4/26/12 at 5:08pm

I think clearly it's going to come down to personal taste, but I find Stephen Schwartz very uneven.

Claude-Michel Schönberg and Alain Boublil also. I love Les Miz and Miss Saigon but just can not for the life of me get into Martin Guerre or Pirate Queen (and I have tried and tried and tried....)

[After Eight]

Posted: 4/26/12 at 5:25pm

The score for Anyone Can Whistle is ok, there are a few good things in Company, Follies, and Night Music, then it's downhill from there.

I love all the early Cy Coleman shows. After Sweet Charity, my feelings are mixed, but I find nothing "execrable" in his work,

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 4/26/12 at 5:41pm

I thought Sondheim might make your personal list, though it doesn't sound like you love any of his works completely. I guess specifically that's more what I meant--composers who you go from one extreme to the other in their ouevre (to be fair to Tesori I don't hate Shrek so much as I'm utterly apathetic towards it).

You and Henrik have made me realize maybe I shouldn't put Coleman on my consistent list--I love all his work up to and including SeeSaw (so I guess one more after Sweet Charity), and while I've grown to love 20th Century, I'm much more indifferent to his work after that--Barnum, I love My Wife, Will Rodgers Follies, etc--though I do think City of Angels is a slight return to form. I really have zero interest in re-listening to many of those...

Taz, you're right, it is completely personal taste, so I hope this doesn't turn into one of thoise threads we've had here recently where someone's opinion is assuredly right or wrong (waits for NewInTown ). Schwartz might go for me too--I'm definitely indifferent to Children of Eden and mixed on Wicked, though I love Pippin and Baker's Wife (the original songs anyway, the London new ones less so).

Shonberg/Boubil may go there for me too--Pirate Queen is simply painful for me. From Martin Guerre I love the title song, and that's about all that sticks with me--but, while slightly guilty pleasures for me, I do love Miz and Saigon.

I used to think I liked anything by Alan Menken (even scores like Mr Rosewater, Duddy Kravitz, Kicks and Dream on Royale Street) but his scores lately are interesting me less and less.

[henrikegerman]

Posted: 4/26/12 at 7:16pm

Certainly, most composers have had their ups and downs, but Coleman for me represents someone who reached the top of Mount Everest and plummeted to the Valley of the Dolls. When I saId execrable I was thinking of "My Body" (no, not MY body!) but the song from THE LIFE. There is a great deal of music I really don't like from a great many composers including Webber, Schoenberg, and Schwartz (and much of their work that I do like). But I chose Coleman because generally I thinks he's a much better composer than they are, so his work that I don't like represents a bigger plummet from the peak.

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 4/26/12 at 7:25pm

That makes sense to me. Actually My Body at least has some (forced) energy to it, I find so much of The Life and Will Rodgers Follies utterly lifeless (Will Rodgers--judging from that Japanese broadcast, has such a great staging that when watching it you barely notice how mediocre so much of the material is). I was going to say maybe Coleman's age played a part with his later material, but he's around the same age as Sondheim (who wrote IMHO one of his most gorgeous scores in the mid 90s with Passion) and Kander.

[jv92]

Posted: 4/26/12 at 7:43pm

Coleman has written some great stuff, but save for CITY OF ANGELS, his post-20TH CENTURY stuff has really not impressed me. But hey! He wrote LITTLE ME and SWEET CHARITY!

[henrikegerman]

Posted: 4/26/12 at 7:59pm

JV, all of Coleman's shows were 20th Century, and City of Angels was in 1990.

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 4/26/12 at 8:03pm

I believe he means On The Twentieth Century Which would mean all pre I Love My Wife shows (i think I have the chronology right)

[After Eight]

Posted: 4/26/12 at 8:17pm

^

Which would mean all pre- On the Twentieth Century shows.

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 4/26/12 at 8:21pm

Would it? He said his post-20th Century work. Which I thought would mean I Love My Wife and subsequent...