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)
Jekyll and Hyde
Once Upon a Mattress
Chess
Miss Saigon
Sister Act
The Wedding Singer
the Wild Party (both versions)
Featured Actor Joined: 4/10/11
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)
Cats
Oklahoma
Shrek
Spring Awakening(Something about Lea Michele's voice gets to me)
Godspell
Little Women
As much as I loved seeing GREY GARDENS and especially Mary Louise Wilson, I have only listened to the cast album once. I really can't explain why.
Adding Machine
Broadway Legend Joined: 6/5/09
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?
Broadway Legend Joined: 6/21/06
Spring Awakening
Silence the Musical
Urinetown
ANYA
PASSION
Broadway Legend Joined: 10/16/11
- 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"
Fanny
Plain and Fancy
OBC of Finians Rainbow
Hard Job Being God
Here's Love
Cats
Oh yea...Which Witch. Hate it.
But I think was expecting more of a 80s type sung through style show and as I recall it was more of an ersatz opera.
Also forgot Silence!.
The Color Purple
The Light in the Piazza
Personals
Into the Woods (Original London Cast)
Camelot
Broadway Legend Joined: 9/30/08
Memphis
Once
Cats
(haiku?)
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.
Avenue Q
Spelling Bee
Spring Awakening
Funny, 'cuz I ended up seeing them 2, 11, and 5 times. I just don't like the cast recordings.
Pacific Overtures: Revival recording.
What a remarkably disappointing recording of a score I really like.
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...
Updated On: 5/25/12 at 12:20 PM
Leading Actor Joined: 11/21/10
Children of Eden
Marie Christine
They just don't grab my attention that much...
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
I listened to the 9 to 5 recording, put it away, and have yet to take it out again since.
Broadway Legend Joined: 2/17/04
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.
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