Wicked's Score

[whatyouown223]

Wicked's Score#0

Posted: 3/19/05 at 3:01pm

I know a lot of you find the score to be not so great. I was just wondering why you thought that. Were there any specific parts?

[Derek]

re: Wicked's Score#1

Posted: 3/19/05 at 3:03pm

this doesnt answer your question, im just saying right now that i love the score lol :)

[ikmbway]

re: Wicked's Score#2

Posted: 3/19/05 at 3:05pm

i agree with you Derek i love the score

[Derek]

re: Wicked's Score#3

Posted: 3/19/05 at 3:05pm

Its so alive, idk, and powerful

[RentBoy86]

re: Wicked's Score#4

Posted: 3/19/05 at 3:43pm

I agree that its awesome. At first I thought Avenue Q deserved the Tony because it was just a solid musical with almost every song being good. But then i got the Wicked Cd and can't stop listening to it. So I dunno which one is better live, but I def. prefer the Wicked score.

[luvtheEmcee]

re: Wicked's Score#5

Posted: 3/19/05 at 3:49pm

I don't think Avenue Q quite deserved the award for score. Wicked's score is better, but Taboo absolutely should've gotten that award. We definitely need to get over last year's Tonys, though, so I'll stop being a hypocrite and shut up.

I like parts of Wicked's score, but other parts of it are very forced, as if they were just written because there felt like there needed to be a song somewhere. Some of it's really boring, mainly the Wizard's songs and "What is This Feeling?" There's just not really that much substance to them. I wouldn't really call it awesome, or even one of the best scores I've ever heard, but I don't hate it. Some of it is done pretty well, and I'm a fan of the overture, too. I think it's pretty well orchestrated, for what it's worth.

A work of art is an invitation to love.

[munkustrap178]

re: Wicked's Score#6

Posted: 3/19/05 at 3:52pm

While some of the sounds are undoubtedly pretty and catchy, some are just god awful - so bad that someone like Stephen Schwartz should have known better. Besides some adequate melodies, it is really the arrangements and orchestrations that make the score sound as grand as it does - and that has nothing to do with Mr. Schwartz. Also, "score" includes the lyrics as well - and the lyrics to WICKED are among the words I've ever heard. It's just very clunky and amateur, atleast to me.

"If you are going to do something, do it well. And leave something witchy." -Charlie Manson

[Thesbijean]

re: Wicked's Score#7

Posted: 3/19/05 at 3:53pm

I think my problems with it are that it goes back and forth too much from powerhouse ballads to cheesy, flimsy music way too often, almost one right after the other. While I like the show a lot, the score seems a tad disjointed for me to LOVE it...

[HeyMrMusic]

re: Wicked's Score#8

Posted: 3/19/05 at 3:55pm

The Wicked score is definitely uneven. I mean, you have your "Popular"'s and "Defying Gravity"'s, but then you also have unnecessary filler like "Something Bad," which is funny because it truly is what the title claims it to be. Also, there are just so many power ballads. Many of the lyrics are cliche and many don't rhyme when they try to. Ugh, "Oz" and "was" do not rhyme no matter how hard you try to make them. I just find the lyrics to be atrocious at times, especially the line, "There are bridges you cross you didn't know you crossed until you've crossed." WTF?! Like really, I had expected much better from Mr. Schwartz. I mean, it's catchy as all hell and definitely addictive, but it's just not consistent at all and there is much room for improvement.

I know this has nothing to do with the score, but I'm pretty unsatisfied with the orchestrations as well. I just don't find them any good. Too much synth maybe, or that solo clarinet that's always out of tune... it just makes me cringe sometimes.

But whatever, that's just me.

Anyone else wanna take a stab at it?

~Steven

[HeyMrMusic]

re: Wicked's Score#9

Posted: 3/19/05 at 3:58pm

I absolutely love Taboo by the way. Its score is better than Wicked's. And even though it has many ballads itself, it fits in, while after a while in Wicked, it seems to get old.

~Steven

[Joshua488]

re: Wicked's Score#10

Posted: 3/19/05 at 4:23pm

Oh, goodness. You can't complain about the "Oz" and "was" rhyming line unless you go through every other musical in existence and pick out the weak rhymes. That line is really not that bad.

[munkustrap178]

re: Wicked's Score#11

Posted: 3/19/05 at 4:23pm

I agree.

edit: I agree with the comment about TABOO. And, "was" and "Oz" really isn't all that bad. It was done in THE WIZARD OF OZ.

"If you are going to do something, do it well. And leave something witchy." -Charlie Manson

Updated On: 3/19/05 at 04:23 PM

[redhotinnyc2]

re: Wicked's Score#12

Posted: 3/19/05 at 4:27pm

I find the entire score lackluster. It just doesn't give me chills, the way a great melody and lyric should. I've never been much of a fan of Stephen Schwartz' music and once again I think he's written a mediocre score. If I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times: Stephen Sondheim should have written Wicked. Schwartz and Holzman just got so far away from the dark and sinister quality of the book, and I just don't find myself caring about anyone on stage at all.

"I don't really get the ending,all i can go with is when after several months,Judith saw Pat sang,and later she kissed him on the toilet,after that the story back to where Pat went down from the stage after he'd sung,and he went to the italian lady.I just don't get it,what Judith exatcly meant when he kissed Pat that she had seen,and did Pat end up together with The Italian Lady?Please help me,thank u very much!" Quote from someone on IMDB in reference to a movie he/she didn't understand. Such grammar!

[BlueWizard]

re: Wicked's Score#13

Posted: 3/19/05 at 5:07pm

I've never liked Schwartz's music, and I find that his score for WICKED is one of his weakest. I'm just so tired of these (probably American Idol-inspired) banal, pop-wailing ballads with awful, synthetic orchestrations. I think one or two numbers from WICKED are quite good: "Popular" is perhaps the best of the lot, and the vocal acrobatics of "Defying Gravity" is thrilling. On the whole, however, the score is hugely disappointing, with some of the worst lyrics we've heard in a large-scale musical in awhile. Some of the songs are stuffed full of cliches that the sentiment feels empty.

For examples:

-- "As Long as You're Mine" is just a bland, generic love song. It doesn't say anything about the particular characters who sing it, or about the situation they're in. Schwartz seems to be echoing Wildhorn in composing a banal Top-40 love duet and sticking it arbitrarily in the musical.

-- I really, really dislike "What is this Feeling?". It reminds me of a song from FAME, where a certain line or joke is taken and run away with; the point of the song can be expressed in one spoken punchline. What's the point of having an entire song dilute the joke?

-- "Dancing Through Life" seems to belong more in a Disney cartoon than sung by an adult in a stage musical. And dear god, the arrangement is awful, sounding like the theme of an 1980s movie.

-- "No Good Deed": this is really more of a book problem, but the song just isn't convincing enough that Elphaba, all of a sudden, turns dark and gives up her moral crusade. It completely goes against her character.

-- Even "Defying Gravity" has problems; it becomes too much of a contrived "Elphaba-finds-herself" moment, which clashes with the dramatic tension of the scene. It sounds like a song from an Olympics closing ceremony.

Most of the songs would seem right at home on a Celine Dion album, but don't serve to tell this story well.

BlueWizard's blog: The Rambling Corner HEDWIG: "The road is my home. In reflecting upon the people whom I have come upon in my travels, I cannot help but think of the people who have come upon me."

Updated On: 3/19/05 at 05:07 PM

[HeyMrMusic]

re: Wicked's Score#14

Posted: 3/20/05 at 2:12am

Yes, I guess it is used in "The Wizard of Oz," but if you listen to those lyrics, they're so twisty and intricate (and brilliant!) that you can hardly notice it. I mention it here because it really sticks out when I listen to it. There are probably other instances in the show, and there are definitely instances in other shows and songs, but it just irritates me since it's the big closing statement of the song and the act. I mean "world" and "girl" are used in "Mix Tape" in Avenue Q, but it's not something you would notice. I guess I'm just being anal now, but I think you get my drift.

~Steven

[BSoBW2]

re: Wicked's Score#15

Posted: 3/20/05 at 2:44am

HeyMrMusic...

Nobody in all of OZ
No Wizard that there is or was
Is ever gonna bring me down...

Technically speaking, there shouldn't be an overally forced rhyme there since down has nothing with which to rhyme (other than "down" again (due to the repeated line).)

If you want to harp on bad rhyming - go to "Nessa, confess a..."

[BlueWizard]

re: Wicked's Score#16

Posted: 3/20/05 at 2:48am

I mean "world" and "girl" are used in "Mix Tape" in Avenue Q, but it's not something you would notice.

Interestingly enough, that's the only imperfect rhyme in all of Avenue Q, and Marx and Lopez have said those lines reflect the mismatched expectations of Kate and Princeton -- so there's method behind the madness of that imperfect rhyme!

BlueWizard's blog: The Rambling Corner HEDWIG: "The road is my home. In reflecting upon the people whom I have come upon in my travels, I cannot help but think of the people who have come upon me."

Updated On: 3/20/05 at 02:48 AM

[HeyMrMusic]

re: Wicked's Score#17

Posted: 3/20/05 at 2:59am

O yes, the Nessa line, how could I forget that? That one gets me every single time!

O no, I wasn't criticizing "Mix Tape," but I was just saying that to be nitpicky because someone brought it up. I love the song and I think it works well. It doesn't bother me there.

~Steven

[BSoBW2]

re: Wicked's Score#18

Posted: 3/20/05 at 3:03am

Blue -

OR, that was their excuse for F*ing up...

I can't listen to AQ anymore - it gets on my nerves...

[HeyMrMusic]

re: Wicked's Score#19

Posted: 3/20/05 at 12:33pm

Haha, yeah, I agree that they just couldn't find any perfect rhymes for it. I love Avenue Q,though, I forgive Jeff and Bobby, haha.

~Steven

[GirlforTartaglia]

re: Wicked's Score#20

Posted: 3/20/05 at 1:22pm

I havent seen Wicked, but I have the recording and I used to be obsessed with it and I still like it..But some people who I know who've seen it said the problem they had with the score was that there wasnt anything too memorable to walk out of the theatre with a song being stuck in your head or being caught humming it..I guess you have to listen to it a lot and understand its greatness. I love Norbert's voice and I think he adds a lot to *some* semi-childish lyrics.

And the other thing about the Phantom Lady was, Bert, she realized, in the city that never sleeps... What did she realize, Kitten? That all the songs she'd listened to, all the love songs, that they were only songs. What's wrong with that? Nothing, if you don't believe in them. But she did, you see. She believed in enchanted evenings, and she believed that a small cloud passed overhead and cried down on a flower bed, and she even believed there was breakfast to be had... Where? On Pluto. The mysterious, icy wastes of Pluto.

[CATSNYrevival]

re: Wicked's Score#21

Posted: 3/20/05 at 1:27pm

I have no problems with the score. It's the lyrics I can't stand. They're god awful most of the time. He should have had an assistant lyricist to help him out.

[BroadwayDiva]

re: Wicked's Score#22

Posted: 3/20/05 at 1:32pm

Some of the songs in the score are amazing (Defying Gravity, For Good, etc). Some make me cringe (all of the Wizard's songs, Dear Old Shiz, Something Bad, etc.). The part of the score that I do like, I think it's brilliant. The lyrics are fantastic, the music is catchy. But the not-so-great songs pull down the score.

I have my books and my poetry to protect me...

[tcb122]

re: Wicked's Score#23

Posted: 3/20/05 at 2:06pm

Is there a reason people need to keep picking apart Wicked? It’s a complete success, get over it.

Everyone already know what people like and don't like about it. We all know where they went wrong: "Nessa, Confess-a" is stupid and awkward, "Something Bad" actually is, the wizard’s songs should be SCRAPPED. No one likes “There are bridges we‘ve crossed we didn‘t know we crossed until we‘ve crossed.” (Yet no one ever actually thinks about what it means.)

The Wicked fan inside wants to say: within the context of the show- should a very shy little guy trying to win someone's heart be smooth and graceful? For him to sound stupid makes sense. "Something Bad".....should it be a good song, should we really love how something bad is going on?

AND then the orchestration is amazing (listen to the strings in "No Good Deed") blablablablabla.

And if Sondheim HAD written it, making it dark and sinister like the book- yes, there would be much much more depth but no audience- AND it would ruin The wizard of Oz for a lot of people. I'm sure it would be an amazing piece though, not doubt, and last as long as Caroline or Change (And that should never have closed). If its so horrible and needs to be bashed over and over, if its honestly that bad, why don't you write your own WICKED and see how that sells and how soon that gets all its money back.

Sorry to babble and rant. Just my 2 cents.

[mattvcrewse]

re: Wicked's Score#24

Posted: 3/20/05 at 3:20pm

I have not seen the show, but only heard the score and know the story, so I can't comment 100% on the effectiveness of it.

I don't like the score. Some of it flat out gets on my nerves. "What Is This Feeling?" is really bouncy and annoying. The line and music "The wickedest witch there ever was/ the enemy of all of us here in Oz..." made me cringe the first time I heard it. I think the score was too bright for the subject material.

IN SCHWARTZ'S DEFENSE, I think he is very good at writing generic pop ballads. Also, the "was/Oz" rhyme is not so terrible. It's a near rhyme, and a perfect rhyme if you pronounce "was" correctly, rather than "wuz". I'd rather hear a near rhyme than a perfect rhyme that is forced with akward wording. Sondheim uses slant rhyme in "Comedy Tonight" and no one bitches about that.

However, I hate Schwartz's work. We are sworn enemies and will one day meet each other in epic battle.