The other thread got me thinking about cast recordings and about how some of them I can listen to again and again, but then there are those I could barely get through the first time. What are yours? my list of these include... Newsies Catch Me If You Can Follies OBCR (NOT the new cast recording which I LOVE - the quality of the OBCR is just awful) Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat Baby It's You My Fair Lady (I just don't like this show in general) The Lion King Grease (the most recent revival)
"There’s nothing quite like the power and the passion of Broadway music. "
The Will Rogers Follies (besides Willimania) Into the Woods Most Andrew Lloyd Webber West Side Story (not that I don't like it, I just know the songs already so well)
There are some, probably too many (I'm afraid to count), that I could never bring myself to play even once. The prospect was too forbidding. Why play Hello, Again or Passion even once when you could play Kiss Me, Kate and My Fair Lady for the ten thousandth time and still get as much pleasure as the first?
2016 These Paper Bullets (1/02) Our Mother's Brief Affair (1/06), Dragon Boat Racing (1/08), Howard - reading (1/28), Shear Madness (2/10), Fun Home (2/17), Women Without Men (2/18), Trip Of Love (2/21), The First Gentleman -reading (2/22), Southern Comfort (2/23), The Robber Bridegroom (2/24), She Loves Me (3/11), Shuffle Along (4/12), Shear Madness (4/14), Dear Evan Hansen (4/16), American Psycho (4/23), Tuck Everlasting (5/10), Indian Summer (5/15), Peer Gynt (5/18), Broadway's Rising Stars (7/11), Trip of Love (7/27), CATS (7/31), The Layover (8/17), An Act Of God (8/31), The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (8/24), Heisenberg (10/12), Fiddler On The Roof (11/02), Othello (11/23), Dear Evan Hansen (11/26), Les Liaisons Dangereuses (12/21) 2017 In Transit (2/01), Groundhog Day (4/04), Ring Twice For Miranda (4/07), Church And State (4/10), The Lucky One (4/19), Ernest Shackleton Loves Me (5/16), Building The Wall (5/19), Indecent (6/01), Six Degrees of Separation (6/09), Marvin's Room (6/28), A Doll's House Pt 2 (7/25) Curvy Widow (8/01)
- A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (original cast recording. i'm fine with listening to the revival recording) - Love Never Dies - Baby It's You - Wonderland - The Little Mermaid
I will listen to most of my shows in pits and pieces but I will say that the only show I actually listened to once and then I put it away.. and have not even listened to since is "Which Witch"
"Whenever I get gloomy with the state of the world, I think about the arrivals gate at Heathrow Airport. General opinion's starting to make out that we live in a world of hatred and greed, but I don't see that. It seems to me that love is everywhere. Often it's not particularly dignified or newsworthy, but it's always there - fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, boyfriends, girlfriends, old friends. When the planes hit the Twin Towers, as far as I know none of the phone calls from the people on board were messages of hate or revenge - they were all messages of love. If you look for it, I've got a sneaky feeling you'll find that love actually is all around."
This is an easy one for me: The Life I hate this album. But I can't get rid of it because I like the foot on thefront cover. LOL, I dont have a foot fetish, I just think the cover is interesting. I hate how the show begins with "Check it out, check it out, check it out!" Bleh, no thanks.
I can listen to individual songs, but I cannot listen to the recording of Mamma Mia all the way through. Such bad acting, and the Sophie has an odd voice. I would get the one for the movie, but then there's Pierce...
First one that comes to my mind: LOVE NEVER DIES. (My copy was free, but still resent the time lost listening to it.)
Another that still gives me shudders is SUNSET BLVD. The OLC was bad enough but at least Lupone could sing it. Then we get Ms.Close pouring her "chesty" belt all over a score obviously not intended to be sung by a non-singer. These discs are still part of my collection but rarely pulled off the CD shelf.
Then there are the revivals recorded by producers hoping to make a quick buck (as if such a thing is even possible in today's cast album market) when the originals are still in print and showing no signs of losing sales steam. It is rare that a revival cast album completely eclipses the original. So also on my CD shelf are revival recordings of MY FAIR LADY (1976 B'way and 2001 London) that are never played.
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
Lots of revivals sit sad upon the shelf ... the worst were the Broadway version of "Charlie Brown" with those hideous new songs and orchestrations, and "Once Upon a Mattress" with the underpowered SJP. Just awful.