Most inconsistant musical songwriters?

I was recently listening to the Violet cast album and thinking how much I loved Jeanne Tesori's work on it, and Caroline or Change. So I looked her up on wiki--and found out she had done songs for the pretty awful direct to DVD Disney films Mulan II, Little Mermaid III And Emperor's New Groove II. Now I haven't actually seen more than clips of these, and maybe her songs for them are brilliant--but it saddened me a bit to see her doing third rate Disney DVD sequels... I like her songs for Millie well enough, but nothing in Shrek makes me wanna hear more either.

Which got me thinking--how there are some composers (Sondheim is my obvious, probably too obvious, example) who do score after score that at the least has interest. Even Andrew Lloyd Webber, love or hate him, is pretty consistant when you really look at his work. But there are a lot of composers out there who have had a handful of absolute classic shows--and then a lot that no one except big fans would go out of their way for.

Some of my choices might be controversial--I think Jule Styne and Cy Coleman are both *fantastic* top tier composers. Yet I think each have a good handful of scores I wouldn't even bother having on CD, except to add to my collection. Kander and Ebb are responsible for four of my fave shows ever (Zorba, Chicago, Cabaret and Kiss of the Spider Woman). They also have a few other flop shows like the Rink that have worthy scores. And then IMHO they have a handful of shows I find only of slight interest.

There are other composers where maybe I need to give more of their work more of a chance but for instance Nine is the only score of Yeston that has really gone out and grabbed me, ditto Dreamgirls for Henry Krieger, and even really Chorus Line for Marvin Hamlisch (though I haven't heard Sweet Smell of Success yet).

Do others have examples of this--composers you absolutely ,love at least one of their scores, but you know better than to blindly buy new cast albums from them?

The first one that immediately came to my mind was Stephen Schwartz. I love his scores to Children of Eden and Pippin but his score for Wicked (and to a lesser extent, Godspell) left me mostly cold.

---

Updated On: 11/13/09 at 09:51 AM

I was thinking Ahrens and Flaherty here, but then realized even though their scores can be quite different, I always find something to love in them (well except My Favourite Year which I haven't really connected with yet)

Schwartz I could see too--I love Pippin, I like Wicked, I LOVE most of Baker's Wife, some of his movie music, but have little time for Godspell, Magic Show, Children of Eden...

Phantom 8019 that's prob fair enough - and reminds me I wanna hear his Wuthering Heights ballet--is it recorded?

And here Passion is my favorite Sondheim score.

---

Hey Eric,

The Wuthering Heights ballet was recorded, but I am not sure of its present availability. It might be on E-bay. It is by no means a "must have" item, but it is pleasant enough if you are a fan of Schonberg's music.

"WHOA, Gothampc, you think Company is "middle of the road?"

One of my criteria is that a musical should be seamless. In other words, if you can pull songs out or rearrange songs in the show, then it's probably not as solid of a show as it could be.

With Company, many people pull out "Tick Tock." Yes the show can move forward, but so much is taken away. Also, lately productions have been shoe-horning in "Marry Me A Little" which doesn't really work.

IMO, Act 1 works, but Act 2 falls apart. The only decent songs in Act 2 are "Ladies Who Lunch" and "Being Alive". The rest of the act is musically mediocre with "Barcelona" being cringeworthy. I wish Sondheim had written a better song for that moment.

---

I also have to disagree with your assessment of ALW being consistent. I love the scores for Evita and Sunset Boulevard and individual songs from the rest of his work that I am familiar with but I do think he's a rather inconsistent composer, even from show to show. Definitely his strongest score overall is Evita, though.

As for Charles Strouse, I really love his score for Rags. Stephen Schwartz's lyrics are borderline but the music itself is really lovely.

Most consistent in my mind are probably Sondheim and Andrew Lippa.

In terms of inconsistent I'm surprised no one has mentioned Michael John LaChiusa yet. He's done some brilliant work but also some stuff that is just plain bizarre.

"Re ALW I'm not a fan of all his scores yet somehow to me he seems more consistant than, say, Styne or even Kander and Ebb (I know i'll get in trouble for saying that)--hrmm hard to explain "

I don't think it's that hard :P, I mean, If I understand what you mean, you're saying that you can expect the same calibre of score each 'time' from ALW (even if not top tier), but Styne you can expect top tier sometimes but not so great scores others.

---

Most people will probably say that Frank Wildhorn is consistently terrible. But for some reason, The Scarlet Pimpernel is one of my favorite scores of all time, and I've never been even remotely impressed with any of his other work.

I think that Alan Menken is quite consistent. The lyricists he works with aren't always brilliant, but his tunes always have that certain magic to them.

---

I think people misunderstand Jeanne Tesori's role in Shrek. She only di the music and David Lindsay Abaire did the lyrics. The lyrics are crap for the most part but the music part is actually pretty good. I personally liked Shrek.

SONDHEIM!!!

I agree about CHarles Strouse: terribly inconsistent.

His score to MAYOR, with the exception of a couple songs ("You Can Be A New Yorker" and the title song) is absolutely terrible. Just pretentious, angry, bitter (a little bit racist) and not at all fun to listen to.