Studio Cast/Concept Album, 2010 (Nonesuch) No stars, not recommended. The controversial life of politician and former First Lady of the Philippines Imelda Marcos hardly seemed ripe for musical interpretation, and a disco opera detailing her rise to and fall from power seemed even more farfetched. But however unlikely, David Byrne (former lead singer for the band Talking Heads) and Fatboy Slim (musician and producer of electronic and indie rock music) collaborated to create Here Lies Love, originally presented to the world as a concept album that was released in 2010. The recording’s musical style is described by the writers as “disco club music,” a style chosen because of the real-life Imelda’s alleged fondness for it. The songs follow the central character and the woman who raised her, Estrella Cumpas, from Imelda’s upbringing as a poor girl to her rise as First Lady of the Philippines, continuing with her family’s forced evacuation from the country along with Ferdinand Marcos, her husband. (Marcos was controversial in his own right for the corruption, scandal, and human rights abuses that occurred during his time in office, from 1965 to 1986.) The album suffers from several issues that obscure the story the authors are attempting to tell. First, they can’t decide if Imelda Marcos is an ambitious, power-hungry temptress or merely an innocent pawn swept up in the political opportunity. And any attempt at storytelling is further marred by the plethora of pop artists enlisted to interpret the songs; the list of more than 20 singers on the album includes Florence Welch, Steve Earle, Cydni Lauper, Sia, and David Byrne himself. All of them perform competently, with Welch making the most of the maddeningly catchy title song, but each of the female artists portraying Imelda gives her a different characterization. The result is narrative whiplash — and that narrative is so loosely constructed that it’s impossible to discern who the characters are and what’s happening without consulting a plot summary. All told, this recording is an entertaining listen for curiosity’s sake, but it offers little value to fans of musical theater. — Forrest Hutchinson

Original Off-Broadway Cast, 2013 (Nonesuch) (1 / 5) It’s unfortunate that we have to judge the 2013 Off-Broadway production of Here Lies Love based solely on this audio recording, as the immersive presentation at The Public Theater was such a key part of its appeal. The show was sung-through, and some songs heard on the concept album were cut while others were added, to overall little effect. The cast album pulsates with synthesized beats, but similar to its predecessor, the songs become repetitive, without providing interesting lyrics or any understanding of the characters’ motives. Imelda is sung by the extremely talented Ruthie Ann Miles. She nails the title song, one of the many melodies that might get stuck in your head as you listen. Her voice cuts through the monotonous music, and though the role itself lacks depth, Miles is a consistently charismatic presence. Ferdinand Marcos is given an unremarkable performance by Jose Llana; surprisingly, Marcos is not the most prominently featured male character in the show; that would be Ninoy Aquino, a political reformer who had a relationship with Imelda when they were young, but who became one of the leading critics of the Marcos administration. (Think of Che in Evita.) Aquino is played by Conrad Ricamora, who gets to show off more emotional range than the others in songs such as “Child of the Philippines” and “Gate 37.” (This character largely replaces the role of the nanny, Estrella Cumpos on the concept album as a grounding presence in Imelda’s life and a reminder of her impoverished childhood.) The album is primarily an endless procession of funk music, interrupted briefly by the penultimate song, “God Draws Straight,” a soft melody accompanied by a single ukulele. The bulk of the score is better suited to a dance club setting than to close listening. If you can get your hands on a physical copy of the CD edition, it’s a colorful double-disc set that includes an 80 (!) page booklet with summaries for each track on the recording. Perhaps the feeling that it was necessary to include song summaries should be seen as an indication that prospective listeners may want to exercise caution. [Editor’s Note: A Broadway production of Here Lies Love, which attempted to recreate the immersive quality of the Off-Broadway presentation, opened in the summer of 2023. It ran for only 150 performances and three previews, and it yielded no cast album.]   — F.H.

Original Broadway Cast, 2013 (Ghostlight) (3.5 / 5) Here is a unique example of American musical theater in the 21st century. With a score by Trey Anastasio and Amanda Green, and a book by Doug Wright, Hands on a Hardbody entertained audiences at the Brooks Atkinson Theater for only 28 performances in 2013, yet from the first twang on the album, we hear a distinctive blend of Country/Western music and bluesy rock. Based on a 1997 documentary that depicts a yearly competition in Texas wherein 24 contestants compete to win a truck by seeing who can keep their hand on the vehicle for the longest amount of time, the musical is a true ensemble piece;  the cast of competitors includes Broadway favorite Hunter Foster alongside newcomer Keala Settle and TV, movie, and Broadway veteran Keith Carradine. Settle gives this album some gas, and she nearly stole the show onstage with her energetic gospel number, “Joy of the Lord.” Foster gets the 11 o’clock barn-burner “God Answered My Prayers,” and Carradine lends a gritty authenticity to his few vocal solos, especially the very touching “Used To Be.” The other contestants — played by Allison Case,  Jay Armstrong Johnson, David Larsen, Jacob Ming-Trent, Kathleen Elizabeth Monteleone, Jon Rua, and Dale Soules — all get their moments to shine, following the tradition of such shows as A Chorus Line and Cats. Some listeners may pump the brakes when they hear the occasional use of slant rhymes (“Cassius/ashes,” “turnip/burn up”) in Green’s lyrics, and  the album does have quite a few clunkers and oddities; two examples are the finale, “Keep Your Hands On It,” which attempts sentimentality but with lyrics so bland that the song comes across as hokey, and “Uncontrollable Laughter,” in which we hear Settle’s religious-zealot character cackling for a full minute. But the great songs on this album are certainly worth sifting through the lesser ones, and the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. — Forrest Hutchinson

Original Broadway Cast, 2014 (Universal Music Enterprises) (2 / 5) The overture of Jason Robert Brown’s Honeymoon in Vegas tells us everything we need to know about the score: It’s full of showbiz razzmatazz, easy on the ears, yet overstuffed and largely generic. The opening number, “I Love Betsy,” is a list song that would’ve made Cole Porter proud, and has rightly become a beloved musical theater standard, but the score doesn’t have much farther to go. Given that the show’s story is deeply silly and farcical, the characters don’t have a lot to sing about, and Brown consistently stretches each emotion and musical moment to its fullest extent. As a result, even songs with clever ideas behind them, such as “Out of the Sun” (an ode to a wife who died from over-tanning) and “Airport Song” (a comic sequence about the difficulties of finding a flight) wear out their welcome. And though the snazzy, Vegas-style orchestrations by Don Sebesky serve the period nicely, they don’t do anything to help the sameness of the songs, especially when it comes to big group numbers. The show’s stars, Rob McClure and Brynn O’Malley, are charming, but neither of them are quite magnetic enough to sustain the piece as it starts to lag. Tony Danza is perfectly cast in the role of professional gambler Tommy Korman, and while he’s not a natural singer, he does have some great moments — one of them comes towards the end of the show, with “A Little Luck.” Featured performers including Nancy Opel and David Josefsberg do their best to sell their material, but there’s only so much you can do with tropes as tired as overbearing mothers and Elvis impersonators. Honeymoon in Vegas, true to its subject matter, may provide a nice vacation from the troubles of daily life, but since several other musical comedies exist that are far more intelligent about their silliness (Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, The Drowsy Chaperone, et al.), one couldn’t be blamed for deciding not to take this trip. — Charles Kirsch

Original Broadway Cast, 2024 (Center Stage Records) (2.5 / 5)  It’s difficult to criticize the cast recording of a show that is so representative in its diversity and so bold in its subject matter. How to Dance in Ohio was powerful onstage, and also very meaningful to the autistic and neuro-divergent communities. It certainly deserves praise for its honest portrayal of a group of autistic young adults (played by autistic performers) who meet under the supervision of their counselor, Dr. Amigo. With a book and lyrics by Rebecca Greer Melocik, and music by Jacob Yandura, the show takes its title and general plot from a 2015 HBO documentary in which we see Dr. Amigo planning a formal dance to teach social skills to the group. Despite the obvious merits of the musical, the cast album rarely flows well, and unfortunately, the songs are musically undistinguished. “Today Is” proves to be  a generic opening number, and though songs such as “Under Control,” “Unlikely Animals,” and “Waves and Wires” allow us to learn more about the inner minds of the characters, they don’t have memorable melodies. One thankful exception is a song performed by two mothers while preparing their daughters for the formal, “Getting Ready for the Dance.” (A heartbreaking sample of the lyrics: “So many things the other kids do, ours get ‘nevers,’ ‘nos,’ and ‘can’ts.’ I want a picture of my daughter getting ready for the dance.”) The ensemble cast members are universally laudable for their vulnerable performances on the album: Caesar Samayoa sounds uncannily similar to the real-life Dr. Amigo, Madison Kopec is just right as Marideth, and Liam Pierce as Drew highlights the recording with his 11 o’clock number, “Building Momentum.” — Forrest Hutchinson

Original Broadway Cast, 2024 (Alicia Keys Records/Interscope) (4 / 5) Hell’s Kitchen is one jukebox musical — in this case, celebrating the artistry of R&B singer-songwriter Alicia Keys through the semi-autobiographical story of teenage rebel Ali (Maleah Joi Moon) — that receives a significant upgrade in the translation from stage to cast recording. On the one hand, the misguided inclusion here of substantial portions of dialogue gives us too much of the show’s paper-thin story and near non-existent character development. (The most frustrating track in this regard is “You Play These Notes” featuring a wildly silly and unconvincing piano pedagogy.) But also showcased are the extraordinary vocals and rousing arrangements of Keys’ songs that a shorter version of the album could have offered with fewer distractions. Rather than simply recreating the sound of Keys’ original hit recordings, Hell’s Kitchen reimagines them: the sped-up, jazzy take on “Fallin’” and the impassioned mother-daughter duet recrafting of “No One” are two exemplars. Keys penned four new songs, including the lovely “The River,” for the musical, but the bulk of the score consists of items familiar from nearly 25 years of her albums. As jukebox musicals go, this one boasts unusual orchestral reinvention; Tom Kitt and Adam Blackstone engage in symphonic spread with rich scoring for strings that never overwhelms the piano-driven gold at the core of Keys’ compositional mines. And there’s a generosity of spirit in Keys’ willingness to spread the wealth of her solo songbook to other vocal artists, an unselfishness rewarded by the four central performances well represented by numerous tracks on the album: the deliciously melismatic rasp of newcomer Moon’s “The River” and “Kaleidoscope,” the seductive syrup of Brandon Victor Dixon’s “Not Even the King” and “Fallin’,” the rafters-raising electricity of Shoshana Bean’s “Pawn It All” and “No One,” and, best of all, the richness and warmth  of Kecia Lewis’ “Perfect Way to Die,” “Authors of Forever,” and “Like Water.” — Dan Rubins

Original Broadway Cast Members and Radio Cast, 1985 (AEI Records) (4 / 5) I Married an Angel is a gem from the collection of Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart. Admittedly, it’s a slight musical; the plot concerns Count Willy Palaffi, who breaks off his engagement, stating that he will only “marry an angel.” Indeed, one flies down from heaven — complete with wings — and Willy learns to be careful what he wishes for. The only songs with a clear connection to the plot are the title song and “Angel Without Wings,” which consists mostly of rhyming dialogue. All the same, Rodgers and Hart supply a few lovely numbers that make this score a necessity for any musical theater fan. The highlight may be “A Twinkle in Your Eye,” a delightfully amoral ode to cheating and the ways that clever women can stay out of trouble, performed with vivacious flair by Wynn Murray. A wistful ballad, “Spring is Here,” also stands out, and it showcases the unique vocal quality of Eve Symington. The makeup of this album is unusual: It features six selections performed by members of the original Broadway cast and recorded by the Liberty Music Shop in 1938, plus a medley-cum-overture, played by popular pianists Cy Walter and Gil Bowers, that serves as the opening track. The five remaining numbers are taken from a 1952 radio production that starred the silver-voiced Gordon MacRae and the charming Lucille Norman. While both sets of excerpts are sung and orchestrated beautifully, this inconsistency makes the recording feel like it presents a series of musical vignettes rather than a complete score. But with music as good as this, why ask for anything more? — Charles Kirsch

Original Broadway Cast, 2024 (Sony Masterworks Broadway) (0.5 / 5) As F. Scott Fitzgerald’s famous and revered novel The Great Gatsby lapsed into the public domain, it was perhaps inevitable that stage adaptations would begin to appear. This musical version had the good fortune of employing two extremely talented vocalists, Jeremy Jordan (Newsies,  Bonnie and Clyde, etc. ) as Jay Gatsby and Eva Noblezada (Miss Saigon, Hadestown) as Daisy Buchanan. Noblezada was cast against type for this role, yet she comes across better than Jordan on the recording, finding genuine emotion in songs such as “For Better or Worse” and “Beautiful Little Fool.” Though Jordan’s singing voice is distinctive in ballads including “For Her,” his accent in his spoken dialogue sounds out of place. And while John Zdrojeski and Sara Chase are well cast as Tom Buchanan and Myrtle, respectively, Noah Ricketts struggles in the role of Nick. The story of Gatsby’s pursuit of the married Daisy is narrated in the novel and the musical by Nick, who has just returned home from serving in World War I, and who also plays a key role in the unfolding drama as he carries on a romance with professional golfer Jordan Baker (Samantha Pauly). Nick is the audience’s reporter on the show’s primary subjects and themes: the tragedy hidden behind the decadence of the Roaring ’20s in America, the life of the mysterious Gatsby, and the everlasting hope or the unreachable dream represented by a single green light in the distance. But narration is much more difficult to execute in a stage show than in a novel, and Nick’s lines often feel shoehorned into the musical. The score for this adaptation was written by Jason Howland (music) and Nathan Tysen (lyrics), and the book by Kait Kerrigan. Howland is not untalented; his melodies for the songs “For Her,” “Only Tea,” and “Past is Catching Up to Me” are enjoyable, and “My Green Light” plays well as the obligatory, highly-anticipated duet between the two leads. But some of Tysen’s lyrics are of shockingly poor quality. For example, in the song “One-Way Road,” a pregnant Myrtle sings “Though I’m not showing, a baby’s growing,” along with “He’s mine, and this baby here is genuine.” Lyrics like these prevent the recording from gaining any real momentum, and further, the score as a whole is structured so generically that some listeners may be able to predict the type and style of each successive song before it plays. Although the standout visuals of this show’s physical production and the presence of two bankable musical theater notables may keep the party moving well enough on stage, this Great Gatsby‘s lack of nuance is clear from the cast album, especially in comparison to the source material. — Forrest Hutchinson

Original  Off-Broadway Cast, 2009 (PS Classics) (2.5 / 5) Scott Brown and Anthony King developed this two-person comic gem about two composers writing a musical. The fictional writers have created a show portraying Johannes Gutenberg and the invention of the printing press to help a town’s illiterate populace. This recording features in the roles of the two aspiring writers Christopher Fitzgerald as Bud Davenport and Jeremy Shamos as Doug Simon. Bud and Doug are very sincere, but their show is very bad. Nevertheless, they are pitching it to audiences and (they hope) to “famous Broadway producers.” Unfortunately, since this is just a reading and they don’t have a cast yet,  Bud and Doug are forced to play all of the parts themselves, including the title role as well as an evil monk, a lovely young woman (aptly named Helvetica), and all of the other various townspeople. This potentially confusing premise is kept afloat by distinctive performances from Fitzgerald and Shamos, who take on unique accents and personas for each of the characters. On stage, the actors would don hats bearing the character names or descriptions to help make it clear to the audience whom they were playing at any given moment, speedily switching from one to another, and while these visual gags can’t be seen on the recording, it’s a credit to the duo that listeners could almost forget that this was a two-person show when listening through the cast album. While the material is enjoyable, it is slight; the comedy is hit-or-miss, and there are crass jokes about dead babies, anti-Semitic flower girls, and even suicide. In the end, the songs most often prompt unfavorable comparisons to other scores: for example, Urinetown comments on itself more cleverly, while [title of show] breaks the fourth wall more effectively. Still,  the “plot” of Gutenberg! The Musical  is delightfully wacky,  crazy enough to keep you laughing but just grounded enough to make you think that someone out there might possibly think the show within this show would be a good idea. — Forrest Hutchinson

Broadway Cast, 2024 (Broadway Records) (2 / 5) The first Broadway production of Gutenberg!  reunited former Book of Mormon co-stars Andrew Rannells and Josh Gad, giving them another excellent vehicle to showcase their comedic chemistry and range. As is typical when an Off-Broadway show goes to Broadway, there were some things lost, some things gained. This cast album is longer than the Off-Broadway recording, which at 58 minutes in length was already threatening to outwear its welcome. The additional 10 minutes of material  to be found here strain a listener’s goodwill. On the other hand, the spoken dialogue that’s included has been cleverly modified to address listeners to the recording rather than live audience members, and the new jokes are mostly an improvement over those in the previous iteration. Most likely, one’s enjoyment of this album will be closely linked to one’s affinity for Rannells and Gad. They are appropriately earnest as Bud and Doug. and fully committed to each of their bit parts. The best songs are Helvetica’s love ballad, “I Can’t Read,” which contains some expert comedy lyrics; the stereotypical Act 1 Finale, “Tomorrow Is Tonight”; and the deliciously evil “Monk With Me.”  On Broadway, the show featured different celebrity guest stars at each performance,  playing the famous Broadway producer who offers Bud and Doug their Broadway contract. Mel Brooks was chosen to appear in that brief role on the album, and he’s a wonderful choice for it. — F.H.