SUNSET BLVD RECORDING - WHICH TO GET

Which Sunset Blvd recording to buy? I have a vid. of elain page? pope? something like that, wish they made a recording with her on it. i'm always partial to American (Broadway) recordings just because the british accent tends to grade on my nerves after a while (i.e. Mamma Mia's Cast Recording). I was just wondering which cast recording I should get. I like the songs. I heard Glenn isn't the best singer, but is she good enoguh to listen to?

none. ALW = evil.

SUNSET BOULEVARD is one of the best musical scores from ALWebber!

I have the OLCR with Patti Lupone/Kevin Anderson, the LA Cast Recording with Glenn Close/Alan Campbell, which I suppose are the most popular. But I do have a copy of the BBC Radio broadcast of the recent concert version of Sunset Boulevard, with Michael Ball as Joe Gillis and Emma Williams as Betty, who are both fabulous singers. Sorry, not too sure about the singing of Petula Clark.

I hope the plans for filmization of the stage musical pushes through ( ALW has indicated not so long ago that a movie is being planned) - then we'll have a movie musical score available, hopefully with Glenn/Barbra and Hugh?

I saw the stage version with Betty Buckley as well as with Elaine Paige, both with John Barrowman in London. Wonderful stage musical!

I also have the SSB concert from Cork with MB, Petula, and Emma If anyone wants one. Just let me know. I love it

The London cast with Patti is the best in my opinion.

No one asked if the show or ALW was good, so the bitter responses are pointless.

---

Patti has a good voice no doubt about that, but the LA recording has more of the 'theatrical sound'. Patti's performance with dialog seems to fall flat (as if just reading from a script) while Glenn's performance sounds like it was recorded from the stage. It seems Glenn's performance jumps from the stereo system with power. Glenn may not be the better singer...but I believe she brought Norma to life better than Patti.

Your best bet is the Patti LaPone version.

I threw away the Glen Close recording. I saw her perform it in LA and she was awful. She practically spoke "With One Look".

---

I have the Glenn Close and Canadian one with Diahann Carroll.
I prefer the Diahann Carroll/Rex Smith one.

---

The Canadian recording is no longer in print.

Diahann Carroll gave a wonderful performance on opening night. After that, when the Toronto reviews were poor and Livent began giving away blocks of tickets to at least get people into the theatre, she lost all interest and began walking through the performances putting as little energy into it as she could get away with.

While I agree that it is an absolute disgrace that SUNSET BLVD was named "Best Musical" of 1995, the Tony voters only other choice would have been to eliminate the categories of Best Musical, Best Book and Best Score and obviously they did not want to do that. (There was no other new book musical that season. Not even a one-performance flop! The revival of SHOW BOAT was the season's big hit.) Still, the originator of this thread only asked which version to get and did not want a critique of the show...so with that in mind, my vote goes with Patti LuPone because she sings in the written keys.

Is the Patti LuPone Cd still available? For a while it was quite hard to buy new as I think ALW tried to supress it in favour of teh Glenn Close recording. Not that it matters: copies of both can be found in almost any used CD store at about half the price of buying it new.

---

Put all of your ALW cast recordings in the CD changer and hit shuffle. You'll basically end up with Sunset Boulevard.

---

To rentdanb: Petula Clark is not faded star. She's been very popular for her entire career, and still is. Fine, you may not like her interpretation in the BBC broadcast, but calling her a faded star shows how little you know about her.

---

Well, crap. This still doesn't help haha. Now, i have more to worry about. I think I'm going to get the Glenn Close one, although I wish they made Sunset Blvd. with a good american cast with good singers & good actors, but we can dream, can't we. It's only like $8 on Amazon.com.

They did make an American cast with good actors and singers. The London version is so boring, that the only highlight is LuPone's singing. While Glenn Close is far from Patti's calibur of singing, she is still very good, and her performance is exquisite. It is essentially the entire show, so you get the marvelous Judy Kuhn and George Hearn as well. They actually ACT andsing on it. The London Cast sound as if they were sleeping while recording it. Also, they made musical changes in the score for the American premiere, which sound much better than London.