What are Generally Considered the Best and Worst Cast Recordings?
What are Generally Considered the Best and Worst Cast Recordings?
What are Generally Considered the Best and Worst Cast Recordings?#1
Posted: 6/2/10 at 12:15amTo preface this thread: I'm not looking for a list of your favorite cast albums. I'm interested in learning what historians, collectors, critics, and the like think are the best and worst made cast recordings in history. Greatly appreciated, ty!
What are Generally Considered the Best and Worst Cast Recordings?#2
Posted: 6/2/10 at 12:20am
The OBC of COMPANY is consistently considered one of the best cast recordings ever, from what I've read.
(A lot of other recordings e.g. Sweeney and Sunday OBC are also considered 'the best' by some but it isn't quite as unanimous)
edit: But these are such obvious choices, that you probably already know, and I don't have time to update with an entire 'list' atm, but maybe someone will get something out of it :P.
What are Generally Considered the Best and Worst Cast Recordings?#2
Posted: 6/2/10 at 12:21amI'm pretty sure MY FAIR LADY, CAMELOT, FIDDLER, WEST SIDE STORY and GYPSY are considered by most historians as a few of the "great" cast recordings.
What are Generally Considered the Best and Worst Cast Recordings?#3
Posted: 6/2/10 at 12:22amDREAMGIRLS and FOLLIES are considered some ofthe worst if only for what they cut.
What are Generally Considered the Best and Worst Cast Recordings?#4
Posted: 6/2/10 at 12:24amI immediately thought of Follies when I read Mildred's post.
What are Generally Considered the Best and Worst Cast Recordings?#5
Posted: 6/2/10 at 12:31amLA CAGE AUX FOLLES' original recording leaves much to be desired in terms of sound quality.
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What are Generally Considered the Best and Worst Cast Recordings?#6
Posted: 6/2/10 at 1:04amIn his book "The Q Guide to Broadway" Seth Rudetsky ranks the top 10 albums every theatre lover should own...with detailed reasoning as to why. Its obviously his opinion but I think it is pretty accurate.
What are Generally Considered the Best and Worst Cast Recordings?#7
Posted: 6/2/10 at 4:55am
It depends on what you value most on a cast album. Completeness? Listenability? Sound quality?
Historically Decca's OKLAHOMA! is indispensable, but it was recorded in 1943. Now the sound on the current CD edition is very good for a 70 year old album. It has the complete song program including 3 songs left off the LP versions, but abridges some of the selections so they would fit onto 3-minute 78-rpm discs. Still, it has a freshness that other cast recordings of the score lack.
The classic Columbia cast albums that Goddard Lieberson produced are exceptionally well produced and recorded. (SOUTH PACIFIC, A TREE GROWS IN BROOKLYN, KISMET, PAJAMA GAME, MY FAIR LADY, THE MOST HAPPY FELLA, FLOWER DRUM SONG, GYPSY, SOUND OF MUSIC, CAMELOT, CABARET, NIGHT MUSIC etc) They may not include every reprise and/or dance break but they capture the sound and feel of the shows.
The only Lieberson produced album that (I find) is disappointing is A CHORUS LINE because of all the cuts and changes he made. he was still applying traditional musical comedy techniques to a show album that required a different approach. You wonder what the album would have been like if Thomas Sheppard had produced it.
Sheppard's RCA period (1976 to 1985) also produced some of the best cast albums of the late-stereo/early digital era. After Sheppard left RCA Jay David Saks and Bill Rosenfield carried on in the same tradition until RCA closed down the division in a cost-cutting move.
These men were masters of translating stage score to records, not just recording "songs" but providing dramatic context.
Even exceptional production can't disguise a lousy score: RCA's LEGS DIAMOND is all but unlistenable because it's a terrible show. COCO is among the most poorly recorded cast albums I have ever encountered. (Paramount did the Lp. When MCA went to issue it on CD all they had were the Lp mix down tapes - someone had discarded all the session tapes!) Even if it weren't technically such a poor album it's a lousy score.
FOLLIES has been mentioned, and yes it is frustrating that it is not more complete, and the sound quality is not the best but the original performances are now legendary. And no DREAMGIRLS album will ever match the electrifying original cast members.
The RCA cast album of LA CAGE was one of the very first all-digital Broadway cast albums (and among the very first to come out on CD) so I wonder if a remastering might solve the problem Theatrekid alludes to. (The used the heavily compressed LP master for the early CD editions.)
When it all comes together - the album production, the quality of the score, the performances, the packaging - you have a cast album that is an art form all its own.
Cast albums are NOT "soundtracks."
Live theatre does not use a "soundtrack." If it did, it wouldn't be live theatre!
I host a weekly one-hour radio program featuring cast album selections as well as songs by cabaret, jazz and theatre artists. The program, FRONT ROW CENTRE is heard Sundays 9 to 10 am and also Saturdays from 8 to 9 am (eastern times) on www.proudfm.com
What are Generally Considered the Best and Worst Cast Recordings?#8
Posted: 6/2/10 at 7:20am
I think that La Cage sounds excellent. But I'm not an audiophile so that's of course just my opinion.
I do know that Jay/TER recordings always sound awful.
What are Generally Considered the Best and Worst Cast Recordings?#9
Posted: 6/2/10 at 12:45pm
From what I have always understood both Pippin and Grand Hotel do not faithfully represent the glorious sound those scores contained in the theater. Dreamgirls and Pippin are also common in that they both leaned more towards pop production in the recording process (fades and so forth).
The original cast of The Most Happy Fella is beyond exceptional in many critics opinions.
The great missed opportunity is The Golden Apple which was heavily cut, but also had some clumsy needless narration. If all the narration would have been dispensed, several more minutes of music could have been included.
What are Generally Considered the Best and Worst Cast Recordings?#10
Posted: 6/2/10 at 1:10pm
The original cast of The Most Happy Fella is beyond exceptional in many critics opinions.
I rank the Most Happy Fella OBC as number one.
What are Generally Considered the Best and Worst Cast Recordings?#11
Posted: 6/2/10 at 1:40pmDef MisterMatt. For that matter any cast recording with Susan Johnson is a winner. I think Whoop-Up is one of the most beautiful brassy recordings ever. Oh! Captain! and Donnybrook! are similarly well produced.
Broadway Legend Joined: 4/13/04
What are Generally Considered the Best and Worst Cast Recordings?#12
Posted: 6/2/10 at 2:26pm
I can barely hear my La Cage
Updated On: 6/2/10 at 02:26 PM
What are Generally Considered the Best and Worst Cast Recordings?#13
Posted: 6/2/10 at 2:31pmThe original London Oliver on vinyl is almost frightening in its presence and reality.
Broadway Star Joined: 8/15/06
What are Generally Considered the Best and Worst Cast Recordings?#14
Posted: 6/2/10 at 2:47pmThe greatest cast album is the RCA Victor recording of the 1966 Lincoln Center production of Annie Get Your Gun. A peerless score with funny lyrics; clear vocals over a lively orchestra; a dramatic shape; theatrical vibrancy; stereo. And a top cast headed by one E. Merman.
Broadway Legend Joined: 5/15/03
What are Generally Considered the Best and Worst Cast Recordings?#15
Posted: 6/2/10 at 8:17pmThe worst obc recording in my mind is COCO. The quality of the recording is piss poor. Did they lay down the tracks in a huge tin can? There may be some nice music in the score but the recording is so poor that I haven't listened to it more than four or five times.
What are Generally Considered the Best and Worst Cast Recordings?#16
Posted: 6/2/10 at 8:20pmWorst cast recordings: Anything recorded before the year of 2000
What are Generally Considered the Best and Worst Cast Recordings?#17
Posted: 6/2/10 at 9:34pm
Worst cast recordings: Anything recorded before the year of 2000
You're missing the point, child.
Broadway Star Joined: 8/15/06
What are Generally Considered the Best and Worst Cast Recordings?#18
Posted: 6/2/10 at 11:09pm
"Anything recorded before the year of [sic] 2000." Ah, yes; that My Fair Lady and Chorus Line were such duds.
Updated On: 6/2/10 at 11:09 PM
What are Generally Considered the Best and Worst Cast Recordings?#19
Posted: 6/2/10 at 11:17pmWhat is this "My Fair Lady"?
What are Generally Considered the Best and Worst Cast Recordings?#20
Posted: 6/3/10 at 12:15pm
I think cast recordings got worse after 2000. They don't sound like theater music anymore just studio productions where each component is separate from the other. I think Goddard Lieberson had it right by putting vocalists and orchestra in the same room. It captures the immediacy of performance.
Side Show was the last good cast recording.
What are Generally Considered the Best and Worst Cast Recordings?#21
Posted: 6/3/10 at 12:27pm
Worst cast recordings: Anything recorded before the year of 2000
I may not be hip to the most current slang, but I believe this would qualify as a "classic snark fail".
Broadway Star Joined: 8/15/06
What are Generally Considered the Best and Worst Cast Recordings?#22
Posted: 6/3/10 at 12:57pmMy Fair Lady was a musical back a few years, maybe in the '90s. It was by the guy who wrote Major Barbra and starred the lady who played Mary Poppins. Some people think it's even better than All Shook Up.
Broadway Legend Joined: 10/13/03
What are Generally Considered the Best and Worst Cast Recordings?#23
Posted: 6/3/10 at 1:13pmFOLLIES, surely, is the most tragic. A mere ghost of what was going on at the Winter Garden.
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