Sara Bareilles' album released today: What's Inside - Songs from Waitress
Posted: 11/6/15 at 2:25pm
The album release concert last night at City Center was incredible. I saw the show at ART and the music is by far superior to the book. I happen to be a Sara Bareilles fan to begin with, but she even surprised me with how well she did writing for the theatre.
Posted: 11/6/15 at 4:56pm
Opening Up won't get out of my head. In a good way.
Posted: 11/6/15 at 5:28pm
Are all the songs on the album from the female's perspective? I love them. It just sucks they're coming in with Hamilton. As I think Hamilton will overshadow everyone even though I think this is a really strong score.
Posted: 11/6/15 at 5:53pm
I know nothing about the movie, Sara Bareilles, or the musical, but I love the song "She Used to Be Mine". Just bought her album can't wait to hear it all through.
Posted: 11/6/15 at 6:00pm
I also really like "She Used to Be Mine," but I gotta say this, unfortunately...Sondheim's lyricism has borderline spoiled a lot of songs for me. He comes up with these rhymes like "Schweitzer" and "lights're" that are so smart that whenever I hear a half-rhyme like "time" and "mine" it sticks out in my ears. It's actually aggravating...
Posted: 11/6/15 at 10:13pm
I listened to the album last night, and I don't think it's her strongest album but I enjoyed it.
Ado Annie, I agree that pop songs have mostly been ruined for me by great Broadway lyricists like Sondheim. I still enjoy some pop music, but the lyric-writing is usually not technically impressive (although can still be very emotionally engaging).
Posted: 11/6/15 at 11:42pm
RippedMan said: "Are all the songs on the album from the female's perspective? I love them. It just sucks they're coming in with Hamilton. As I think Hamilton will overshadow everyone even though I think this is a really strong score"
"Never Ever Getting Rid of Me" is sung by a man (Obie, Christopher Fitzgerald's character) in the show. There are a few other songs sung by men that she didn't record for this album.
Posted: 11/7/15 at 1:05am
I agree that the music is superior to the book (and I didn't know from Bareilles until I saw this show).
"Take It from an Old Man" is a particularly beautiful and tear-jerky song that's not on this album. Glad Dakin Matthews is reprising his role as Joe because he sung it gorgeously at ART.
pnewelljr, "Opening Up" won't get out of my head either. I love it.
Posted: 11/7/15 at 1:26am
Sara performed "Take It From An Old Man" (the song rcwr mentioned above me) on Prairie Home Companion.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swTQh0Ffzhk
Updated On: 11/7/15 at 01:26 AM
Posted: 11/7/15 at 1:30am
Well, I think you're going to have to get over the lyrics issue. Sondheim is a master, for sure. But, I think you're missing out on some really pretty melodies and some really pretty lyrics here. I like how she can turn a phrase like "life snakes in through a back door'" among others. I think there's some really pretty stuff going on. I'm curious if having listened to this album will ruin hearing Mueller & Co. sing these songs cause I love Bareilles' voice.
Posted: 11/7/15 at 1:31am
Thank you, ClumsyDude15! I love that song so much.
Posted: 11/7/15 at 1:34am
Ripped - I saw the show at ART and downloaded the album (which I love) and I feel like both versions are wonderful in their own regard. I feel like what Jessie and the cast perform in the show is their take on it, just as Sara's on the album. Both are terrific, and the score is just so warm and fresh.
You're so welcome, rcwr - I totally got teary during that number in the show, as well.
Updated On: 11/7/15 at 01:34 AM
Posted: 11/7/15 at 1:51am
Are they different orchestrations? I will say that I understand people's concerns that the songs kind of meld together after a few listens, but "She Use To Be Mine" "Door Number 3" and "I Didn't Plan It" have me so in love with this score. I need to see this show like tomorrow.
Posted: 11/7/15 at 2:45am
"Are they different orchestrations?"
I don't think so, no. I think it's a little fuller of a sound in the show maybe, but overall, it's not much different.
Updated On: 11/7/15 at 02:45 AM
Posted: 11/7/15 at 7:07am
I have an audio of the first preview and Sara's album is the lyrics from that first preview. Bad Idea was shortened in the show but not on the album. Door Number 3 has completely different lyrics on the album then it did by the end of the run of the show.
Posted: 11/7/15 at 8:07am
While I only saw Waitress at ART once, from what I recall I would not say orchestrations on all the album songs are identical. She Used to Be Mine has been picked up a little bit in tempo and is much fuller. On stage it's simpler and they just let Jessie rip your heart out with it.
Posted: 11/7/15 at 3:21pm
RippedMan, you're totally right. It's not quite that bad- I love a lot of Taylor Swift lyrics despite their overabundance of half-rhyme, for example. Incidentally, it's actually a coincidence that my favorite line in the song IS a perfect rhyme: "I'd rewrite an ending or two for the girl that I knew."
As an aside- the album cover artwork is very pretty too.
Posted: 11/7/15 at 3:30pm
Ado Annie D'Ysquith said: "I also really like "She Used to Be Mine," but I gotta say this, unfortunately...Sondheim's lyricism has borderline spoiled a lot of songs for me. He comes up with these rhymes like "Schweitzer" and "lights're" that are so smart that whenever I hear a half-rhyme like "time" and "mine" it sticks out in my ears. It's actually aggravating...
"
You know. I could never pinpoint why I really dislike pop music after I started listening to musical theatre, and you hit the nail on the head. I definitely am going to download this album, though.
Posted: 11/7/15 at 3:49pm
I'd contend that the type of writing Sara Bareilles provides for the Waitress score is entirely appropriate for the plain spoken characters and story. Her idiosyncratic story-telling style especially suits the wandering, wondering Jenna and the other two waitresses. (There's something to be said for a female songwriter writing for female characters. She gets into the head of these women who are sorting out their lives, knowingly making mistakes, expressing their deepest fears or looking at themselves and trying to figure out how they got to this point). It's not the type of score where one would need, want or expect the dazzling internal rhymes and exacting structure of a Sondheim lyric (like for example, the way Sondheim feels he overwrote for the character of Maria in West Side Story). The Waitress score at A.R.T. struck me as one of the better marriages of pop music and musical theatre. Her songs either drive plot or character, and avoid the mistakes other pop and rock composers have made writing for musicals, where the songs sucked all of the air out of the room or served as so much aural wallpaper.
Posted: 11/7/15 at 4:06pm
I'm on my 3rd time through and really enjoying it. "You Matter to Me" is so simple, yet beautiful.
Posted: 11/8/15 at 2:48am
Listening through the second time here, and really enjoying it. I have a fairly cursory familiarity with Sara's work (mainly her big hits) but it definitely sounds like her typical voice as it were. There isn't a song on the album I find eh or worth skipping (though I too admit perhaps a tad bit of meshing).
Can't wait to hear Mueller & co. on the cast album. Are they releasing any tracks from the concept album as singles?
Posted: 11/8/15 at 8:11am
She Used to Be Mine had a radio release when it came out about a month before the album and I caught it the first day or two after that. I'm not sure if it's been getting air time now though.
Posted: 11/8/15 at 8:31am
"She Used To Be Mine" is getting radio play. It's the first single from a new musical to chart in the Top 40 since "One Night In Bangkok" from the Chess concept album in 1985. It currently stands at #31.
http://charts.bdsradio.com/bdsradiocharts/charts.aspx?formatid=10
Updated On: 11/8/15 at 08:31 AM
Posted: 3/7/16 at 9:00pm
When this album was released I didn't listen to it much, but the last few days I've been listening to it a lot and these songs are really growing on me. You Matter to Me, Opening Up, Everything Changes, Bad Idea and She Used to Be Mine are all becoming among my favorite Sara Bareilles songs (and I'm a huge fan of her and her work). I hope a cast album is released, I can't wait to hear Jessie Mueller singing the songs (as well as the songs from the show that weren't on the album)
Updated On: 3/7/16 at 09:00 PM
