new clip of Rosario! — Page 6

One Song Glory – When I first saw Rent, the moment that grabbed me by the throat and pulled me into the show was this song. It was so heartfelt, so introspective. And one of the reasons it felt that way was because is was so simple and focused on the emotion in the words, then it broke out into pounding angst. Just amazing. I think the new arrangement completely destroys that. There is beauty in simplicity, dammit! HWT nailed it. If there is anyone from the production team reading this, please, beg, pled them to take the damn drum kit out of the verses of One Song Glory! It is such an important moment in the piece. It is the window into the heart of the show. The song now sounds like a generic pop song instead of a character song and I am so hoping that maybe what they have on the site is a radio-ready version of the song and not what is used in the movie, because if they do use that version in the movie, I'm afraid they will have seriously effected the simple device Larson created to get an audience into the heart of the main character. They'll be too busy tapping their toes to the drum kit instead. And I can't imagine that Larson would have approved of it. It’s such a small change, adding the drum kit to the verses, but it makes a huge difference in distracting from the emotion and "voice" of the song.

That said, I think Adam's voice sounds more appropriate then ever for the character and what he is going through at that moment.

Today 4 U: I was taken back at first by the acoustic (as opposed to Techno) approach to the rhythm in the song but then I realized that it was probably a good character choice. Angel is a street-drummer after all, so it makes sense to have acoustic rhythm sounds. I still miss the "Club" sound though. This is the only place in the score that represented that side of 80s East Village Life, and I think the club scene is very much a part of Angel's world. I think just adding back in that house-bass "thump, thump" on the front-beats would give us a feel for both of Angel's worlds. It’s an easy mixing job that I think would greatly improve the sound of the song.

I think Rosario sounds great, though I wish she (and Wilson in "Will I") had a touch more vulnerability in her voice.

Jesse rules, but he's always been one of my favorites. He sounds better than ever.

I really like the overall "sound" of Life Support, (especially when they start the "Another Day" chorus) though I'm not crazy with this Gordon's interpretation (once again, I think there seems to be vulnerability lacking). A couple of people have commented on how much they like the new harmony on "Because reason says I should have died three years ago" – What harmony? It was in unison on the OCR and it sounds like it's in unison here as well. Are my ears missing something?

Updated On: 8/20/05 at 01:44 PM

I don't understand some of you people. You hearing a soundtrack to a movie not another stage presentation. If the soundtrack sounded exactly like the OBCR I would have been disappointed. Why not wait and see how the scenes are shot in the movie and see where the characters are how the director has set up the scene before coming down on anything in the recording. You are also listening to it on your computers and if that sound can match what will be presented in the movie theatre then more power to you.

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Interesting comments joniray. I don't know anything about the scheduling for CD mixing and releases, so have no idea whether these clips represent anything final for the soundtrack album. However, I know a lot about movie soundtracks, and I'm sure they haven't even started mixing that - it'll probably begin in mid-September. Anything can happen there, and I doubt if they'll feel a need to match the CD mix exactly - in fact it would probably be counterproductive to do that.

Up until now, I had only listened to the clips once through.

I just spent about twenty minutes with them all on repeat - I have to take this stuff in small doses, for a while, I guess.

Anyway, I'm listening to them on some *very* high power, high quality speakers that I have hooked up to my laptop, and they really, truly don't sound like they're fully mixed properly. I mean, if you listen to the balance on Out Tonight, you can hardly hear Rosario over the music. And without making this something about whether or not it's because Rosario's voice is weak - because honestly, even if it is, proper mixing would beef it up and you all know that - the real versions of these clips probably wouldn't have such improper balance.

And hey - nobody complained about the officially released version of SoL.

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*is confused*

What do you mean what happened to him? He's going to do just fine. I don't understand why people are so sad!

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Updated On: 8/21/05 at 10:42 PM

I think it'll just take some time to get used it.

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i think, there's a problem with these recordings in that, yes, we need a different sound from the obcr, but, it sounds as if they were trying to stray too much from the original... but we'll see when the full soundtrack comes in september

I am not going to make any remarks about whose voice sounds bad, etc.

On the other hand did anyone else think that ALL of the songs were slowed down to like 1/2 time, especailly glory and today 4u

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Updated On: 8/22/05 at 12:22 AM

"I really like the overall "sound" of Life Support, (especially when they start the "Another Day" chorus)"

me too!

Hm...I feel like the only one who doesn't hear 'karaoke'...most of the instrumentals that sound slightly karaoke to me are the same as they were in the OBCR. I'm referring to the synthesizer sounds like in Light My Candle, Will I, etc. But that's how they were written.

I scrolled one or two somehoe by accident...but I have that problem too.

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