Category Archives: A-C

Ain’t Supposed to Die a Natural Death

Original Broadway Cast, 1971 (A&R, 2LPs; no CD) 2 out of 5 stars (2 / 5) Onstage, this piece with book, music, and lyrics by Melvin van Peebles was intensely theatrical; I was actually frightened when cast member Minnie Gentry looked straight at me and vowed to “Put a Curse on You.” On record, it’s a less powerful experience — an interesting assemblage of jazz-based songs, dramatic monologues, and narratives delivered by a cast including Bill Duke, Albert Hall, Garrett Morris, and Beatrice Winde. (Ossie Davis and Phylicia Rashad joined the company in 1972, after this recording was made.) Much of the show is written in what might be called a “street poetry” style, if that phrase is not too pretentious. Ain’t Supposed to Die a Natural Death is skillfully constructed, with the songs and the very attractive underscoring enhancing the monologues as they move into, out of, and around them. I can’t say this is a cast album I listen to every day, but if you can find a copy, it certainly won’t bore you. — David Wolf

After the Fair

Original Off-Broadway Cast, 1999 (Varèse Sarabande) 2 out of 5 stars (2 / 5) It’s the very model of a modern chamber musical: a four-character, four-musician adaptation of a Thomas Hardy short story, here brought to life by Matthew Ward (music) and Stephen Cole (book and lyrics), and lovingly recorded by producer Bruce Kimmel. The slight plot — about a bored, unhappy, provincial couple (Michele Pawk and David Staller) and the wife’s Cyranoesque adventures in helping her maid (Jennifer Piech) conduct a romance with a London barrister (James Ludwig) — comes through clearly and affectingly. Cole’s lyrical craftmanship is striking (“With each passing missive, you grew more passive”) , and Ward’s music, aside from some dreary recitative, isn’t afraid of tunefulness or smart melodic development when the occasion demands. Diligent as the authors are, though, the score’s a bit studied; it sounds something like a Sondheim disciple’s thesis for a graduate degree in musical theater. And the unvarying parade of duets, quartets, and genteel accompaniment adds up to a rather limited musical palette. (Maybe the score worked better in the context of the show onstage.) The cast is variable: Pawk is excellent, Ludwig is sturdy, but you could drive a lorry through the hammy Staller’s vibrato, and Piech’s cartoon-Brit accent simply won’t do. Who was her dialect coach, Dick Van Dyke? — Marc Miller

As You Like It

Original Public Works Cast, 2022 (Concord Theatrical Recordings) 3 out of 5 stars (3 / 5) The second of composer-lyricist Shaina Taub’s Shakespeare adaptations for the Public Theater’s Public Works program, following Twelfth Night, this As You Like It is a joyful update of Shakespeare’s comedy. In songs like “You Phoebe Me” and “Gettin’ Married Tomorrow,” Taub playfully riffs on Shakespeare’s text in her lyrics. These songs sound closer to those that may be heard on Taub’s solo singer-songwriter albums than to her work on Twelfth Night, so Rosalind sings with a confessional, conversational cynicism in Rebecca Naomi Jones’s thoughtful, strongly-sung performance. Ato Blankson-Wood, who played Orsino in Twelfth Night, sounds wonderful again here. Taub herself is the best interpreter of Taub, and her opening delivery of “All The World’s A Stage” as the moody Jacques (reimagined here as a climate activist) is the album’s highlight. If you’re somehow immune to her charming navigation of her bluesy pop melodies, the chorus of children joining in her song will win you over. These young singers are part of Public Works’ engagement in each of these productions of nearly 100 performers, most of them amateurs, through partnering community organizations. The numerous ensemble moments heard here — including the rousing “In Arden,” led by Darius de Haas, and the gospel-inspired anthem “Still I Will Love” — capture the sense of massive community singing better than the Twelfth Night cast album does. But there’s a little bit of you-had-to-be-there energy to the recording; it’s the memory of the Public’s multi-generational staging that lends these tracks their greatest emotional potency. — Dan Rubins

Chaplin

Original Broadway Cast, 2012 (Masterworks Broadway) 2 out of 5 stars (2 / 5) In “Just Another Day in Hollywood,” the ensemble of Chaplin sings of “Stars on the rise / Stars on the fall / Stars you forget / Stars you recall.” For all its potential in dramatizing The Little Tramp’s rise and fall in stage musical form, Chaplin turns out to be largely forgettable. Composer-lyricist Christopher Curtis has some neat ideas: for example, an early diegetic number, “Whatcha Gonna Do?”, sung by Charlie Chaplin’s music hall performer mother (Christianne Noll), gradually evolves into a threatening anthem for the McCarthyist columnist Hedda Hopper (Jenn Colella) who tries to bring down Chaplin (Rob McClure) by branding him as a Communist. But Curtis’s songs do little either to develop character or counteract the show’s breakneck race through Chaplin’s life, and most of the first act is a movie-making montage with pastiche songs that don’t evoke the era of the action precisely enough. Often, the score tries to rev up emotional intensity that the storytelling hasn’t earned; one musical sequence, “The Exile,” is almost hilariously melodramatic, as Larry Hochman’s orchestrations follow Curtis’s music in somehow being simultaneously undercooked and overwrought. Elsewhere, thankfully, as in Charlie’s ballad “The Life That You Wished For,” the orchestrations calm down enough to be genuinely stirring. Colella’s belting is impressive, as are Erin Mackey’s very lovely, shimmery singing and Michael McCormick’s avuncular take on Mack Sennett — yes, the same guy from Mack and Mabel! Though McClure in the title role doesn’t have great material to work with, he’s particularly enlivening in the driving “Tramp Shuffle — Pt. 2,” and quite moving in portraying an elderly Chaplin returning to the Oscars at the start of the finale. — Dan Rubins

Cinderella (Andrew Lloyd Webber)

Studio Cast, 2021 (Polydor) 0 stars, not recommended.  What’s there to write about Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Cinderella that hasn’t already been written and/or said? Though this “modern twist” on the fairy tale premiered in the West End to a forgivingly warm reception as one of the first shows to open after the lengthy shutdown for the COVID-19 pandemic, the musical has since been plagued by bad press and public ridicule that only intensified when it opened on Broadway under the new title Bad Cinderella, giving critics and the internet plenty of fodder for its drubbing. No stage cast recording of the score exists, only this concept album, which was recorded before the show began performances in London. It would be easy to say that the album is a flat-out disaster — and it would probably be more entertaining if it were. To be clear, there is a lot of bad material here; but on the whole, the recording is just dull, with every song sounding like a first draft. A few of the performers who would go on to appear in the West End production are on hand. As Cinderella’s Stepmother, Victoria Hamilton-Barritt goes for glorified camp and does an uncanny Joanna Lumley impression, though with diminishing returns as the album continues. And in the title role, Carrie Hope Fletcher gives as close to a fully formed performance as the material will allow. While Webber is still capable of writing a decent ear worm (“Only You, Lonely You” “I Know I Have a Heart”), every song lasts far too long, until the melodies become white noise. Plus, Webber is back in his ’80s style of musicalizing scenes that don’t need it (“So Long,” “Unfair”). The orchestrations are thin, and the lyrics, by the usually reliable David Zippel, sound like placeholders for something wittier to be written later. In an attempt to give the listener an idea of the musical’s new story line, a fair amount of dialogue is sprinkled throughout the album, but the plot is so confusing and messy that you may feel it’s easier to make sense out of a James Joyce  novel. Due to the harshly negative reception of the Broadway production, a new recording of (Bad) Cinderella is unlikely, making this one a must-have for all flop collectors as a token of what will probably come to be known as the biggest failure of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s career. For anyone else, there are far better Cinderellas out there. Best to take one of them for a spin on the dance floor and leave this recording out in the pumpkin patch. — Matt Koplik

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Original London Cast, 2013 (Watertower Music) 1 out of 5 stars (1 / 5) The first stage iteration of Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman’s musical adaptation of Roald Dahl’s children’s novel preserves only one of Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley’s songs from the film Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory — “Pure Imagination” — but the entire album seems to hold its breath until that track arrives very late in the proceedings. Nothing else in the new score sounds anything like it, and Shaiman and Wittman fail to crack the code on converting the episodic structure of Dahl’s book to musical theater form. Jack Costello’s Charlie is charming in the opening number, “Almost Nearly Perfect,” but the other four kids who win a tour of Willy Wonka’s factory are as madly annoying as they’re meant to be, resulting in a quartet of bad songs introducing each child in the first act and a quartet of worse songs getting rid of each child in the second. Shaiman writes music in different styles for the four families — a polka for the Gloops, an English patter song for the Salts, a poppy rap for the Beauregardes, and electronic cacophony for the Teavees — so the score never gets a chance to advance beyond Russian Roulette-style genre-jumping. Nor does the show comfortably translate Dahl’s self-aware rudeness for a contemporary audience. Augustus Gloop’s fat-shaming yodel is cringe-worthy, but the lyrics for “Vidiots,” the Oompa Loompas’ condemnation of kids who play video games, are the album’s nadir: “Alas, alas, poor Mike Teavee / For OMG, he’s ADD.” (Credit Iris Roberts for making a strong, frantic impression as Mike’s harried mother.) The songs for Wonka (Douglas Hodge) are insubstantial, too, until he finally arrives at “Pure Imagination” and listeners can breathe a sigh of relief. — Dan Rubins

Original Broadway Cast, 2017 (Masterworks) 2 out of 5 stars (2 / 5) This  Broadway recording is a marked improvement over the London cast album, not least for the reintroduction of most of the songs from the 1971 film Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory: “Candy Man,” “I’ve Got A Golden Ticket,” and “Oompa Loompa” all join “Pure Imagination.” Christian Borle has greater range than Douglas Hodge as Willy Wonka, and his opening rendition of “The Candy Man” sets a clearer tone for the character. The album generously rotates through the three young actors who played Charlie on Broadway, with Jake Ryan Flynn making a particularly terrific impression in a new, joyous waltz, “Willy Wonka! Willy Wonka!” and also in “The View From Here,” a sweet ballad with rousing counterpoint. Most of the other kids’ songs, including the deadly “Vidiots,” remain in some form; but a major casting change, with adults playing all the children except Charlie, makes the show’s added cruelties towards these characters somewhat more tolerable. That said, a notorious scene from this production, in which squirrels tear Veruca Salt (now inexplicably Russian) to pieces, is commemorated on the album in “Veruca’s Nutcracker Sweet,” which contains tasteless couplets such as “Veruca Salt was once en pointe / But watch as we dislocate each joint.” On the plus side, Trista Dollison is especially good in “The Queen of Pop,” Violet’s intro song, which recalls Shaiman and Wittman’s far superior work for Hairspray. The new, discomfiting song “When Willy Meets Oompa” seems to double down on the Oompa Loompa plot line’s colonial undercurrents, but there’s enough inoffensive sweetness elsewhere — courtesy of the three Charlies, John Rubinstein’s Grandpa Joe, and Borle’s ballads — to make this a listenable album. — D.R.

Between the Lines

Original Off-Broadway Cast, 2022 (Ghostlight) 3 out of 5 stars (3 / 5) Are you ever too old to fall in love with a fairytale? Or a fairytale prince? This question is the basis for Between the Lines, a musical by Elyssa Samsel and Kate Anderson that premiered Offf-Broadway in 2022. The show centers on troubled teen Delilah McPhee, who has to navigate life as a target of school bullies and the daughter of a divorced, broke, single mother. In order to survive her situation, Delilah has to find a way out, and she does that by falling in love with the prince from a fairytale book she has recently begun to read, the only copy of which happens to be in her school library. As the location of the show switches back and forth between reality and the fantasy world of the book, it’s easy for the cast album listener to get lost, all the more so because no interstitial dialogue is recorded here. For example, does Will Burton’s charming soft-shoe “Out of Character” come off as well if you don’t realize until the end of the song that he’s playing a dog? Or will you understand that, when Vicki Lewis performs “Can’t Get ‘Em Out,” she is playing the book’s author rather than a therapist or one of the few other characters she portrays in the show? As for the score itself, the main problem it that it suffers from a lack of originality. Since there are comparatively few teenage musicals, it’s impossible not to draw comparisons between this show’s high school outcast anthem “Allie McAndrews” and “I’d Rather Be Me” from Mean Girls, or between “Leaps and Bounds,” the nostalgic ballad heartbreakingly performed here by Julia Murney as Delilah’s mother, and, say, “Stop, Time” from Big. None of this is meant to suggest that Between the Lines is without its merits, the greatest ones being the catchiness of the tunes, whether melancholy or up-tempo, and the charming vocal performance by Jake David Smith as the handsome prince. Arielle Jacobs’ portrayal of Delilah is also compelling, and if some of the challenging score lies a bit outside of her vocal range, she has the acting chops to make up for it. Because of the many nice opportunities this show affords its cast in addition to the relatable story, it almost cries out for regional productions, and one can easily imagine that some of the score’s solo ballads will become audition room standards. So, ultimately, Between the Lines is worth your time, even if it’s a story you may feel you have read before.  –– Charles Kirsch

Busker Alley

Studio Cast, 2007 (JAY) 1 out of 5 stars (1 / 5) Busker Alley never made it to Broadway, but it sure came close, first with a Tommy Tune-led national tour in 1995 (felled by Tune’s broken foot) and then with the York Theatre Company’s 2006 benefit concert starring Jim Dale (intended for a Broadway transfer that never happened). It’s the latter iteration that’s captured on this recording, including the one-night-only luxury casting of Glenn Close as the grown-up version of Libby, a pickpocket-turned-London busker-turned film star who abandons her lover and fellow street performer Charlie Baxter (Dale) in exchange for fame and fortune. Close introduces Charlie’s story in a spoken prologue and then returns at the end to sing, quite beautifully, “He Had A Way,” the gentle highlight of the album. Given the subject matter, many of the songs by the Sherman brothers (Mary Poppins, Over Here, etc.) are cloying street numbers, diegetic to the buskers’ world. The cast approaches these tunes with aggressive Cockney accents married to unnecessarily grating vocals meant to demonstrate, apparently, that these are resilient paupers down on their luck. Dale is fine, if ill-served by thin material, and he’s in his prime when farthest removed from the abiding, overzealous performance style, as in an angry reprise of the ballad “How Long Have I Loved Libby?” and in the short, sweet “Charlie the Busker.” As the younger Libby, Jessica Grové offers an endearing “He Has A Way,” but her Eliza Doolittle drawl is unsubtly distracting. Brevity here is not necessarily the soul of either wit or rich character development, and many of the songs are so brisk that it’s hard to glean much of a dramatic through-line. The street numbers also quickly become indistinguishable from one another (only the lively “Paddle Your Own Canoe” stands out), not helped by the repetitive arrangements for piano and drums. For the completist, it’s nice to have this score recorded, but this album doesn’t make a convincing case that the disappearance of Busker Alley was any great loss. — Dan Rubins

All in Love

Original Off-Broadway Cast, 1961 (Mercury/Stage Door) 2 out of 5 stars (2 / 5) With its lithe but insubstantial score, preserved nearly complete on the cast album, All In Love turned Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s classic farce The Rivals into a jaunty musical comedy. Featuring music by Jacques Urbont and lyrics by Bruce Geller, the show ran Off-Broadway briefly in 1961, though the album cover misleadingly declares that it was a “Broadway Hit Show.” The plot: Wealthy Captain Jack Absolute (David Atkinson) must disguise himself in pursuing Lydia Languish (Gaylea Byrne) because she desperately wants to marry a poor man. (“He can’t be all bad if he’s good and poor,” she sings in the opening number.) Urbont’s melodies are solidly good-natured but unmemorable throughout; the best of them include Atkinson’s ballad “I Love A Fool” (in which Jack praises Lydia’s “refined imbecility”) and the chipper “I Found Him,” sung by Christina Gillespie as the enamored servant Lucy. The composer ventures towards harmonic ambition only in “Why Wives?,” a vocally intricate but thematically dubious ensemble piece in which the men air their frustrations with monogamy. Geller’s lyrics could be wittier, but his love songs aren’t bad. For example, at one point Lucy exclaims: “I want everyone to know/That, just a miracle ago, I found him.” Lee Cass stands out among the singers, showing off his exquisite bass timbre in “The Lady Was Made To Be Loved.” The Rivals is now probably best known for introducing the character Mrs. Malaprop, Lydia’s twisty-tongued aunt; Mimi Randolph in that role delivers an appropriately silly number, “A More Than Ordinary Glorious Vocabulary,” in which she drops such jumbled wisdom as “Men are never contraceptive to a well-turned phrase.”  All in Love is notable for the involvement of actor Dom DeLuise, who appeared in this show three years before his film debut, and orchestrator Jonathan Tunick. DeLuise’s only major moment on the album comes when he leads “Odds,” a goofy, disposable novelty number about cursing. But Tunick’s work glows throughout, emulating the best of his Golden Age forebears in using a large orchestral palette while en route to his game-changing collaborations with Burt Bacharach and Stephen Sondheim — Dan Rubins

A Beautiful Noise

Original Broadway Cast, 2023 (UMe) 3 out of 5 stars (3 / 5) This recording differs from the cast albums of many other jukebox musicals, including biomusicals such as Jersey Boys and Beautiful, in that the arrangements and orchestrations here are not close copies of those heard in these songs as originally written and recorded — in this case by Neil Diamond, the subject of this show. A Beautiful Noise exhibits more creativity in that regard, with fresh arrangements (by Sonny Paladino) and orchestrations (by Brian Usifer, Bob Gaudio, and Paladino) that recall the originals just closely enough to keep Diamond fans happy without sounding like carbon copies of the old charts. There’s also a delightful “Opening Montage” featuring snippets of a large handful of Diamond hits in piquant choral arrangements for the ensemble. Another plus for the album is the stellar work of Will Swenson, who somehow manages to very credibly channel Neil Diamond’s husky rock baritone in such hits as “Sweet Caroline,” “Cracklin’ Rosie,” “Love on The Rocks,” etc., etc., even though the natural timbre of Swenson’s singing voice as heard in other shows and on other recordings is considerably lighter and higher. A persuasive argument for experiencing this show through the cast album, rather than actually attending a performance on Broadway, is that the audio-only option means you don’t have to suffer through the sometimes ridiculous setups for these pop songs as they have been placed within the book that Anthony McCarten has written around them — none more egregious than the setup for “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers,” here presented as a bittersweet farewell sung by Neil and his second wife, Marcia Murphey (Robyn Hurder), even though the lyrics have nothing to do with the issues that actually broke up their marriage. Recorded with no dialogue introduction whatsoever, this song may be thoroughly enjoyed out of context, along with all the rest on the album.    — Michael Portantiere

Anyone Can Whistle

Original Broadway Cast, 1964 (Columbia/Sony) 5 out of 5 stars (5 / 5) The show was a flop, but virtually every number is a winner, and so is this recording. Broadway audiences were bored by Arthur Laurents’ bizarre, satirical fable in which corrupt, small-town politicians fake a miracle by pumping water out of a rock, thus creating a new Lourdes with its attendant tourist trade. But what a cast! Angela Lansbury launched her musical theater career as Cora Hoover Hooper, the scheming mayor. Her co-stars were Lee Remick as Fay Apple, head nurse in the local nuthouse (named The Cookie Jar!), and Harry Guardino as J. Bowden Hapgood, a phony psychiatrist who stirs up trouble. And what a score! Stephen Sondheim’s wildly inventive songs include a lengthy musical-dramatic sequence, “Simple,” and a campy ballet, “The Cookie Chase.” Lansbury’s opener, “Me and My Town,” is a riotous spoof of nightclub-diva dramatics. Remick gets the achingly beautiful title tune, and Guardino delivers the biting, driving “Everybody Says Don’t.” The final duet for Hapgood and Fay, “With So Little to Be Sure Of,” is one of Sondheim’s finest, most adult love songs. Don Walker’s orchestrations are brassy and delightful. Recorded the day after the show closed, the album has a raw quality — Lansbury, for one, evidences some vocal strain — that, paradoxically, makes it seem fresher than many recordings that are more polished. One of Remick’s numbers, “There Won’t Be Trumpets,” was cut before the show opened and left off the LP, but has been restored for the CD. This kind of “failure” is far more interesting than lots of long-running hits. Note: Look for the version of the cast album marked “Deluxe Expanded Edition.” It includes bonus tracks of Sondheim singing demo versions of, among other things, the cut number “The Lame, the Halt, and the Blind” and an alternate version of “With So Little to Be Sure Of.” — David Barbour

Carnegie Hall Concert Cast, 1995 (Columbia/Sony) 1 out of 5 stars (1 / 5) This live recording of a starry concert version of Anyone Can Whistle, produced as a benefit for Gay Men’s Health Crisis, preserves more of the score than is heard on the original cast album. It includes “There Won’t Be Trumpets” as well as “There’s Always a Woman,” an unpleasant bitch-fest between Cora and Fay that was also cut from the score before the show opened on Broadway. But, 30 years on, nobody can muster much conviction for Laurents’ talky satire. As Cora, Fay, and Hapgood, Madeline Kahn, Bernadette Peters, and Scott Bakula respectively offer tentative, vocally wobbly performances, while Angela Lansbury narrates. Peters manages a lovely version of the title tune but lacks Remick’s vulnerability, and she’s really at a loss in the scenes where Fay impersonates a sexy French temptress. Kahn is the biggest disappointment here, giving a performance that lacks bite or energy. And Bakula doesn’t possess Guardino’s rough authority. What’s especially missed is the urgency of the original album. As sometimes happens in live recordings, the balance between singers and the orchestra is not ideal. Even Don Walker’s orchestrations, supervised by Jonathan Tunick, lose some edge. — D.B.

Studio Cast, 1997/2020 (JAY, 2CDs) 2 out of 5 stars (2 / 5) Elephants, who take 23 months to gestate, have nothing on this two-disc set, which incubated for 23 years. Recording began, and the bulk of it was completed, in 1997 — several presidential administrations ago. This is one of those JAY efforts billed as complete recordings, including playoffs and curtain call and exit music. Chat room savants insist that certain numbers have been cut slightly, and “There’s Always a Woman” is M.I.A. Nevertheless, this is the fullest recorded edition of Anyone Can Whistle that we are likely to get. Happily preserved are “The Cookie Chase” (in a lengthier version than that contained on the OBCR) and the ballet attached to “Everybody Says Don’t,” one of the jazzier passages in any Sondheim-composed musical. But the overly reverent approach to this score, treating a scrappy, satirical musical like a tony Gesamtkunstwerk, is counterproductive. Of the three stars, Julia McKenzie comes off best, punching her way through “Me and My Town” and “A Parade in Town” with gusto, but, unlike Lansbury, she doesn’t seem to be having fun with Cora’s cartoon-villain qualities. John Barrowman is a disconcertingly boyish Hapgood, which may be why he oversells “Everybody Says Don’t,” shouting every fifth or sixth word of the lyrics to signal his passion. Also problematic is Maria Friedman as Fay — a joyless Joan of Arc, lacking in warmth and applying an unpleasant vibrato to several numbers. Everyone’s line readings are pretty dire; this is a real issue in “Simple,” which weaves together music and dialogue. Conductor John Owen Edwards gets an expansive sound out of the National Symphony Orchestra, not always an asset in a show designed to be a sprightly spoof. It’s a pity that nobody recorded the 2010 New York City Center Encores! production of Anyone Can Whistle, which boasted the nearly ideal cast of Raúl Esparza, Sutton Foster, and Donna Murphy. But if you’re a superfan of the show, you’ll want to hear this recording if only because it does have material not available anywhere else — with Arthur Laurents, sounding like he needs a nap, providing occasional narration — D.B.

Carrie

Premiere Cast Recording, 2012 (Ghostlight) 2 out of 5 stars (2 / 5) Based on the supernatural horror novel by Stephen King, which had previously been adapted as a highly successful film in 1976, Carrie is/was one of the most infamous, ignominious flops in musical theater history. After a disastrous tryout run in Stratford-Upon Avon, the show managed only 16 previews and five performances on Broadway in the spring of 1988, yielding no cast album. Many critics and others felt that the work of composer Michael Gore, lyricist Dean Pitchford, and book writer Lawrence D. Cohen was wildly inconsistent in quality, with several riveting moments of confrontation between the bullied, telekinetic teenager Carrie White and her religious zealot mother Margaret playing out powerfully in the midst of risible scenes and songs concerning Carrie’s experiences in high school. Apparently, much of the problem with the production rested in the fact that the American creative team and director Terry Hands of the Royal Shakespeare Company were not on the same page as to what the look, tone, and presentation style of the show should be. But, as noted, there were also huge problems in the writing, leading to major changes for the revisal that was presented Off-Broadway in 2012. The songs “Dream On,” “It Hurts to Be Strong,” “Don’t Waste the Moon,” “Heaven,” “I’m Not Alone,” “Wotta Night,” and the camp classic “Out for Blood” were all dropped, while several new ones were added; two of the best of them are the ballad “Dreamer in Disguise,” sweetly sung by Derek Klena in the role of Tommy Ross, and “Stay Here Instead,” in which Margaret pathetically pleads with her daughter not to go to the prom. (If only she had listened!) But there are still a few mediocre or worse numbers among both the old and new songs, for example, “In” and “A Night We’ll Never Forget.” As was the case with the original version, the score’s musical/dramatic highlights are the unnerving Carrie/Margaret duets “And Eve Was Weak” and “I Remember How Those Boys Could Dance,” and Margaret’s moving solo “When There’s No One.” On the cast album of the 2012 production, these and other songs benefit greatly from the deeply committed performances of Molly Ranson as the tormented Carrie and one of the all-time Broadway greats, Marin Mazzie, as her sadly deranged mother.  Rounding out the strong cast are Christy Altomare as Sue, Jeanna de Waal as Chris, Ben Thompson as Billy, Wayne Alan Wilcox as Mr. Stephens, and Carmen Cusack in a wonderfully warm turn as Miss Gardner.  — Michael Portantiere

Broadway Bounty Hunter

Original Off-Broadway Cast, 2020 (Ghostlight) 4 out of 5 stars (4 / 5) Here’s a highly enjoyable cast album of a fun show with a fanciful, meta-theatrical concept, built around the dynamic singer-actress Annie Golden, who started out as the leader of the punk band The Shirts before going on to play Jeannie in the film version of Hair, then to numerous other film, TV, and stage roles. In Broadway Bounty Hunter, Golden played a highly fictionalized version of herself caught up in a crazy plot involving — well, bounty hunting. The show was (obviously) crafted specifically for her by the super-talented composer-lyricist Joe Iconis, working in collaboration with co-book writers Lance Rubin and Jason Sweettooth Williams. It would have been interesting to see if Broadway Bounty Hunter would have worked with someone else in the title role in subsequent productions, but it was not a box-office success in its limited Off-Broadway run, and there was no transfer to an open-ended engagement on Broadway or anywhere else. So it’s nice to have Iconis’s clever, tuneful, post-modern theatrical rock and pop songs preserved on this well produced cast album. Golden’s strong, exciting voice and her abundance of charisma come through big-time in a clutch of songs, from the roof-raising “Woman of a Certain Age” (wisely used as both the show’s opener and closer) to the soulful “Spin Those Records” and the intense, hard-rocking 11 o’clock number “Veins.” Other major voices and personalities heard on the album include Badia Farha, Alan H. Green, Christina Sajous, Emily Borromeo, and the always welcome Brad Oscar. A kick-ass band is led by conductor/musical director Geoffrey Ko, and Joel Waggoner’s vocal arrangements are excellent. Given the lack of commercial success of both Broadway Bounty Hunter and Iconis’s Be More Chill, at least in their NYC runs, it’s devoutly to be wished that he’ll soon have the major hit he deserves.  — Michael Portantiere

Be More Chill

Original Cast, Two River Theater, 2015 (Ghostlight) 4 out of 5 stars (4 / 5)  Based on a novel by Ned Vizzini, Be More Chill is a cautionary tale about a loner teenager named Jeremy Heere who attempts to become “chill” by ingesting something called a “squip” (super quantum unit Intel processor), which winds up controlling his thoughts and actions. The show premiered at the Two River Theater in Red Bank, New Jersey for a one-month limited run in 2015.  That production received mixed reviews, but this cast recording gained huge popularity via internet streaming and downloads, eventually sparking the Off-Broadway production of 2018 and the subsequent Broadway transfer (see below). Even if it’s hard to explain exactly how the score “went viral,” it’s easy to understand why it did: Composer-lyricist Joe Iconis has a firm grounding in the classic musical theater canon, and a great talent for being able to wed traditional song structures and other methods of craft with an up-to-the-minute sound and sensibility. Listen to the opener, “More Than Survive,” a spot-on, character-establishing, “I want” song for Jeremy that begins as follows: “C-c-c-come on, c-c-c- come on! Go, go! I’m waiting for my porn to download.” (The album has an “explicit lyrics” label.) Or sample “The Smartphone Hour (Rich Set a Fire),” a super-clever takeoff on “The Telephone Hour” from Bye Bye Birdie. Also quite amusing is Iconis’s depiction of present-day high school theater subculture, as in “I Love Play Rehearsal.” The pretty much ideal cast heard here is led by Will Connolly as a charmingly nerdy Jeremy, with Eric William Morris as The Squip; George Salazar as Jeremy’s staunch friend, Michael; Stephanie Hsu as Christine, the girl with whom Jeremy’s obsessed; and Gerard Canonico in a ball-of-fire performance as Rich, the ill-fated guy who turns Jeremy on to The Squip. Salazar does a tour-de-force job with arguably the best song in the score, the one that became the biggest viral phenomenon of all: “Michael in the Bathroom,” an affecting anthem of teen angst. — Michael Portantiere

Original Broadway Cast, 2019 (Ghostlight, 2CDs) 4 out of 5 stars (4 / 5) Buoyed by the extraordinary online popularity of its score, as described above, Be More Chill was presented Off-Broadway at the Irene Diamond Stage at the Pershing Square Signature Center in the summer of 2018, with plans for a move to Broadway already largely in place at that time. This production featured several cast members from the Two River Theater production mentioned above, including Hsu, Salazar, and Canonico reprising the roles they originated. New cast members included Will Roland as Jeremy, Jason Tam as the Squip, Tiffany Mann as Jenna, Britton Smith as Jake, and Jason “Sweettooth” Williams as Mr. Heere, but not all of these changes were improvements; for example, Roland’s performance doesn’t have quite the likeability of Connolly’s, and Smith is miscast. On the plus side, Tam makes the role of The Squip very much his own with his strong, distinctive voice and his very funny Keanu Reeves imitation. The score is well performed as heard here, with some relatively minor rewrites and additions to the material. (This album is longer than the original, 24 tracks as compared to 21.) Both the Off-Broadway and Broadway productions of Be More Chill were marred by painfully loud sound amplification, which may have been partly responsible for the brevity of the 2019 Broadway run (only 177 performances) of a show that many had expected to be a big hit, so the fact that listeners to the cast album are in full control of the volume is a huge plus for the experience. Music and lyrics this good don’t need to be blasted at an audience; on the contrary, any score suffers greatly rather than benefits from such treatment, a lesson that Iconis and his colleagues will hopefully learn for future productions of his shows. — M.P.

Anything Can Happen in the Theater: The Musical World of Maury Yeston

Original Off-Broadway Cast, 2019 (PS Classics) 4 out of 5 stars (4 / 5) Maury Yeston is one of the finest and most versatile musical theater composer-lyricists of his era, so it’s good to have this cast album of a very enjoyable and well-crafted revue of his work that was presented Off-Broadway by the York Theatre Company in 2019, directed by Gerard Alessandrini of Forbidden Broadway fame. The program includes songs from Yeston’s most famous shows, with one major exception (see below), along with a healthy sampling of  less-well-known material. From Nine, we have the bravura number “Guido’s Song” and the lyrical “Only With You,” both rendered with lovely tenor tone by Benjamin Eakeley, as well as the gorgeous “Unusual Way” and the wittily seductive “A Call From the Vatican,” two fine showcases for the talents of Mamie Parris. Also to be found here is “Cinema Italiano,” written by Yeston expressly for the film version of Nine, performed with verve by Parris, Justin Keyes, and Jovan E’Sean. Two selections from Grand Hotel, for which Yeston contributed much but not all of the score (to augment songs previously written by Wright and Forrest for an earlier incarnation of the show), are the passionate  “Love Can’t Happen” (Eakeley) and the delightful “I Want to Go to Hollywood” (Parris).  Yeston’s Phantom, a lesser-known alternative to Andrew Lloyd Webber’s adaptation of the same source material, is represented by “Home,” sung by the full company. “New Words,” from a Biblical musical titled In the Beginning , is a touching song, movingly performed here by Eakeley, about a parent teaching language to a young child; the writing is marred only by a surprising error in the lyrics. (Mars is a planet, Mr Y., not a star!) This recording also embraces several stand-alone songs, i.e., not from the scores of musicals. Two of the best of these are “Danglin’,” a soulful torcher eased on down by Alex Getlin, and the specially written title tune of the revue, delivered by all as the opening number. An exceptionally noteworthy item is the sexy/funny “Salt n Pepper,” originally written for the unproduced musical The Queen of Basin Street, here given a spicy turn by E’Sean. Not sampled is the score of one of Yeston’s biggest hits, Titanic; although an exquisitely harmonized arrangement of that title song was featured as an encore in the York production, it’s not on the album, for some reason. Conversely, one thing the recording boasts that the show itself did not are Doug Besterman’s excellent orchestrations for eight musicians variously playing a total of about 20 instruments. Greg Jarrett is the top-notch musical director — Michael Portantiere

Aladdin (Alan Menken et al.)

Film Soundtrack, 1992 (Walt Disney Records) 3 out of 5 stars (3 / 5) Following the immense success of The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast, Disney Animation firmly solidified what is now known as “The Disney Renaissance” with the critical and financial success of Aladdin in 1992. All three films featured scores with music by Alan Menken and lyrics by Howard Ashman, previously best known for their work on Little Shop of Horrors. Ashman envisioned Aladdin,  the story of a teenage hoodlum who happens upon a magic lamp containing a genie, as a madcap romp set in the Middle East. But Ashman succumbed to complications from AIDS before he could finish work on the project, and some of the songs he co-wrote were ultimately not used. In fact, only three songs with lyrics by Ashman remain in the film — “Arabian Nights,” “Friend Like Me,” and “Prince Ali” — with Tim Rice providing lyrics for two additions, “One Jump Ahead” and “A Whole New World.” If Rice’s lyrics don’t have the same level of wit and character as Ashman’s, they’re still fun and don’t feel like a jarring departure. This is a very enjoyable recording, and it boasts what remains the best vocal leads of any Aladdin recording. Brad Kane is a charismatic Aladdin, blending well with Lea Salonga’s Princess Jasmine on the Oscar-winning “A Whole New World,” and Robin Williams is definitive as the genie of the lamp. Note: The deluxe edition of this soundtrack album includes bonus tracks of Howard Ashman singing demos for two songs cut from the film, the moving “Proud of Your Boy” and the fun “High Adventure.” — Matt Koplik

Original Broadway Cast, 2014 (Walt Disney Records) 3 out of 5 stars (3 / 5) The success of Aladdin as an animated film led to a stage adaptation two decades later. The good news is that the results were far more successful than many other Disney transfers, though with some caveats. Choosing to underline Ashman’s original concept of presenting the story as a zany romp, the Broadway Aladdin is shinier, zippier, and sillier than the film. But while the show benefits from the inclusion of three songs with lyrics by Ashman that did not make it into the movie (“Proud of Your Boy,” “High Adventure,” and “Babkak, Omar, Aladdin, Hassim”), Chad Beguelin’s libretto isn’t quite clever enough to hold it all together. Although this is less of a problem on the cast recording than it was on a stage, enough of Beguelin’s meta-commentary jokes are peppered throughout the album (“Everyone here has a minor in dance!”) to make you roll your eyes. On the bright side, the score is given loving treatment in Danny Troob’s vibrant orchestrations and Michael Kosarin’s tight vocal arrangements. The one major misstep is turning the Genie’s “Friend Like Me” into a nearly 10-minute-long production number. While it’s performed energetically by James Monroe Iglehart, the song now feels overstuffed and tiresome. Iglehart is given a much better opportunity with “Prince Ali,” which has also been expanded from the film version, but to more satisfying effect. New additions to the score, such as “These Palace Walls” and “A Million Miles Away,” are pleasant enough, with Menken once again proving his gift for ear worms, but Beguelin’s lyrics are not on the same level as his predecessors’. Adam Jacobs gives an earnest performance as Aladdin, which works in ballads like “Proud of Your Boy” and “A Whole New World” but less well in peppier songs like “One Jump Ahead.” Courtney Reed’s Jasmine is mostly serviceable, though her voice is not as comfortable a fit for “A Whole New World” as Lea Salonga’s. And in a fun bit of déjà vu, Jonathan Freeman vamps it up as the evil villain Jafar, the part he voiced in the 1992 film. If this recording doesn’t have the overall charm of the original soundtrack, it’s still enjoyable, and it introduces audiences to some wonderful Ashman/Menken songs that had previously gone unheard. — M.K.

Film Soundtrack, 2019 (Walt Disney Records) 1 out of 5 stars (1 / 5) This is the soundtrack recording of Disney’s recent live action remake of Aladdin, a trend the company has continued ever since the massive financial success it had with its remake of Beauty and the Beast. The Aladdin soundtrack is not nearly the disaster that Beast was: the arrangements are mostly similar to the originals (though some pop and hip hop influenced percussion has been added), and the cast is of a higher vocal caliber (if still auto-tuned). Yet, the recording is mostly free of personality; everything is clear and pleasant enough, but it’s missing energy and character. Nowhere is this more evident than in Will Smith’s performance as the Genie. Whereas both Robin Williams and James Monroe Iglehart gave everything they had to the role, Smith goes for a more laid back, casual approach to the magical sidekick. This is a mistake, and though he doesn’t completely bungle his two big songs, “Friend Like Me” and “Prince Ali,” they barely register here. Mena Massoud and Naomi Scott are both fine as, respectively, Aladdin and Princess Jasmine, but they certainly don’t wipe away memories of their predecessors in these roles. Scott has been given a new number written by Menken with lyrics by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, “Speechless,” but the lyrics are so nondescript and the melody so jarringly different from the rest of the score that it doesn’t do anything to distinguish Scott’s Jasmine from Salonga’s or Reed’s. So, while this isn’t the worst soundtrack of a Disney remake, it’s the blandest of all three Aladdin recordings and is really more for completists than for anyone who want to be exposed to the score for the first time. — M.K.

Ain’t Too Proud: The Life and Times of the Temptations

Ain't Too ProudOriginal Broadway Cast, 2019 (Universal Music) 5 out of 5 stars (5 / 5) There’s always a sense of déjà vu when a jukebox musical opens on Broadway,  as most people walk in humming the tunes. If Ain’t Too Proud: The Life and Times of the Temptations doubles that feeling, it might be due to another “ain’t” from distant memory: Ain’t Misbehavin’, the first jukebox revue to take home the Tony Award for Best Musical. Ain’t Too Proud offers audiences just what that 1978 show did, with great songs delivered in great performances. Praised for its spirited direction (Des McAnuff), clever book (Dominique Morisseau), and high-voltage choreography by Sergio Trujillo, who took home a Tony for his work, Ain’t Too Proud also delivers the goods in its cast recording. The energy of what’s being performed eight times a week at the Imperial Theatre is all here in an album made up of more than two dozen Temptations songs, featuring the one-of-a-kind Detroit rock & roll rhythms and harmonies for which the group became famous. Highlights include such favorites as “My Girl,” “Just My Imagination,” “Get Ready,” and “Papa Was a Rolling Stone.” As the show’s storytelling reveals, there were more than a few “Temps” over the course of the group’s long career besides its original foursome. But Derrick Baskin, James Harkness, Jawan M. Jackson, Jeremy Pope, and Ephraim Sykes stand front and center, leading a tremendously talented cast. The recording also offers a good deal of interstitial narrative, directly from the show’s book, that aids in the appreciation of the story.  (Of course, if you so choose, you can eliminate those tracks and custom design the album for your own listening pleasure). Mention should also be made of the fine orchestrations by Harold Wheeler, who at age 75 had his legendary, 50-year Broadway career capped with a special 2019 Tony Award for his contribution to the American musical. — Ron Fassler

The Band’s Visit

TBVOriginal Broadway Cast, 2017 (Ghostlight) 5 out of 5 stars (5 / 5) Stranded in an Israeli desert town by mistake, an Egyptian band stays overnight with the locals before heading on to their engagement. Composer-lyricist David Yazbek has created a luminous score that highlights not the differences between these strangers, but their commonality, mankind’s shared needs for love and connection. The music incorporates klezmer influences and American jazz, but especially Arabic folk and classical idioms and instruments: the oud, riq, and darbouka. Katrina Lenk’s nuanced voice brings life to the role of cafe owner Dina; she and her friends offer the Egyptians a heaping dish of sarcasm and watermelon in “Welcome to Nowhere.” (Their sleepy village has more “blah, blah, blah” than that Gershwin song.) “It Is What It Is” hints at Dina’s history, but the haunting “Omar Sharif” reveals more, describing how young Dina and her mother adored Sharif movies and the exotic singing of Oum Kaltoum. This admission resonates with Tewfiq, the Egyptian band’s buttoned-up conductor (Tony Shaloub). His single solo is an a cappella number in Arabic, “Itgara’a,” hinting at inner sorrows. Yazbek deftly slides the concluding phrase of “Itgara’a” into Dina’s response, “Something Different.” The other Egyptians also forge bonds with the Israelis, often through music. “The Beat of Your Heart” is an exuberant memory song, evoking how former musician Avrum (Andrew Polk) met his late wife; Camal (George Abud) and Simon (Alok Tewari) joyfully add their violin and clarinet. The awkward Papi (Etai Benson) relates his trouble with girls in the hilarious “Papi Hears the Ocean,” so Haled (Ari’el Stachel) advises him in the style of his idol, Chet Baker (“Haled’s Song About Love””). Camal accompanies Itzik (John Cariani) as he soothes his child in “Itzik’s Lullaby.” The transcendent “Answer Me” concludes the vocals, sung by the “Telephone Guy” (Adam Kantor), who’s forever waiting by the village’s single pay phone in the hope that his girlfriend will call. For a few glorious seconds, the entire company joins in, reflecting the basic human need for connection. Like the Telephone Guy, our ears are “thirsty” for more of that. – Laura Frankos

Beetlejuice

BeetlejuiceOriginal Broadway Cast, 2019 (Ghostlight) 4 out of 5 stars (4 / 5) How far will a musical go to give you a good time? In the case of Beetlejuice, all the way to the Netherworld and back. Based on Tim Burton’s cult ’80s classic movie of the same title, the show centers around its title character, a fast-talking and wisecracking demon who helps a recently deceased couple try and scare away the family that’s recently moved into their home (though he has his own agenda for doing so). While Burton’s film famously delivered its morbidity with a wry sense of humor that earned it a PG rating, the musical adaptation takes a much zanier, PG-13/R approach. Eddie Perfect’s score has some classic Broadway flourishes sprinkled throughout, but it mostly leans to ’80s-style pop and musical theater faux-rock, which Kris Kukul elevates with his rollicking arrangements and orchestrations. Perfect’s lyrics are also reasonably well crafted, walking the line between wit and crassness. As Beetlejuice, the endlessly energetic Alex Brightman heavily indulges  in vocal fry (as a respectful nod to Michael Keaton’s performance in the film) and devours songs like “The Whole ‘Being Dead’ Thing” and “Say My Name” to enjoyable effect. Kerry Butler and Rob McClure are also terrific as the recently deceased couple, Barbara and Adam. They embrace their characters’ intentional blandness in “Ready, Set, Not Yet” without being bland themselves, giving Brightman even more comedic fodder to play with in all of their tracks together. Leslie Kritzer is delightfully wacky as Delia; her “No Reason” duet with Sophia Ann Caruso’s Lydia has some of Perfect’s best lyrics, and is a major highlight of the recording. As the death-obsessed Lydia, Caruso displays a thrillingly unique voice that’s put to good use in her solos “Dead Mom” and “Home.” Enjoyable as the album is, there’s one gripe: Because the score is so eager to entertain, most of the extremely lively songs are packed back to back against each other, and are given no room to breathe. This makes for a rather overwhelming listening experience, with some numbers offering diminishing returns (“Creepy Old Guy” and “That Beautiful Sound” for example). The album may also repel listeners who wanted a more direct replica of the movie, or who prefer their musical comedy without references to cocaine and “ghost zombie Jesus.” But those who are willing to accept Beetlejuice on its own terms are in for a highly entertaining listen. — Matt Koplik

Amélie

AmelieOriginal Broadway Cast, 2017 (Rhino Warner Classics) 1 out of 5 stars (1 / 5) The 2001 Jean-Pierre Jeunet film Amélie caused a major resurgence in American audiences’ interest in French cinema and at least briefly made a star of its leading lady, Audrey Tatou. Set in Paris, the film tells of an introvert who decides to do random acts of good deeds for her fellow Parisians while maintaining her distance so as not to actually get involved with the messiness of real life. The film is recalled by many as purely airy and whimsical, remembered largely for its fantastical imagery and Tatou’s impish charm. The stage musical follows the movie very closely in plot and structure, and has a very talented cast at its disposal. Unfortunately, writers Daniel Messé, Nathan Tyson, and Craig Lucas don’t seem to have realized that Amélie also deals with disappointment, grief, and loneliness, none of which comes across in the show or on this album. It doesn’t help that the score by Messé and Tyson aims more for a contemporary musical theater sound than for a classically French one. (There is no accordion to be heard in Bruce Coughlin’s orchestrations). Two of the least effective songs in the score are “Goodbye Amélie” and  “A Better Haircut,” which are meant to be comedic relief but instead come across as glaringly wrongheaded. Some of the other songs begin with fascinating, ethereal introductions that give hope for what’s to come, but then the songs themselves seem to evaporate, never delivering on the promise of the intros and the incidental music. In the title role, Phillipa Soo is surprisingly dry and often restrained by the score’s inability to properly showcase her mellifluous voice. She is, however, given strong support by a diverse cast that gives everything they can to add some spunk to the show. Sometimes they succeed, as in songs like “World’s Best Dad” or “Times Are Hard For Dreamers,” but these are small victories in an inoffensive yet undistinguished adaptation. — Matt Koplik