musical list update

(What started out as a single post on random subjects suddenly grew too long for one post, so I'm making several unrelated posts instead.)

I went on a musical watching/listening binge over the break, after seeing Book of Mormon live in SF (which was really good! if a bit raunchy, but I actually like raunchy humor - like Louie and Archer). It started with the TV movie version of Gypsy, the new Les Mis movie, and a live showing of The Addams Family in Irvine with the brother, but then it progressed into a bunch of Sondheim musicals: a rewatch of PBS's filmed version of Company, followed by Follies, Into the Woods, Merrily We Roll Along, Sunday in the Park with George, and A Little Night Music.

Sondheim musicals have this thing for not tending to be inherently popular or conventional like the more prevalent musicals out there- I think most of them never really turned up a profit on Broadway- but they end up being more musically and lyrically... complicated, I guess. I keep having to look up the lyrics whenever a new song comes up because I don't readily catch the meaning or some of the more clever rhymes and alliteration present in the lyrics on a first listen. Some songs or moments don't even strike me as memorable until a few listens later. But overall I end up liking each musical as a whole a lot more after revisiting it again or listening to the soundtrack right after watching it.

I actually wound up buying the Hat Box collection as a result- it contains all of the lyrics Sondheim wrote for every major musical he's worked on, including the ones whose music he didn't compose, like Gypsy and West Side Story, and the songs that didn't make it into the final work of each. I haven't read far into them yet, but one thing that struck me from the preface was his insight into how song lyrics differ from poems. It's kind of ironic to have a book that collects all of the lyrics, he says- considering that unlike poems, lyrics are meant to be sung rather than read (silently or aloud), with music, and musical lyrics in particular are meant to be sung within the context of whatever musical show they're a part of. Consequently, simpler lyrics tend to have more power than lengthy, complicated or "poetic" lyrics, as the accompanying music will generally either amplify the meaning (in the former case) or make the entire work feel clumsy (in the latter case). Reading a lyric for the first time without its context robs it of the power it would otherwise have being heard the way it's meant to be heard... but it helps to have the complete lyrics available for reference anyway.

Random aside, but I tend to think of my liking of anime music in a similar sense. I have the guilty pleasure of having a playlist of anime songs on my phone... that I probably would never play in front of anyone unless someone asked. Even to me, if I had heard the songs outside of their visual context in the show, I probably wouldn't think much of them - I actually wind up hating most full size versions of anime opening and ending songs; they sound better to me the way I originally heard them, in their shorter TV sized format. Most of my enjoyment of them is from being able to recall the visuals associated with them in my head. In the same sense, a lot of my enjoyment of listening to the soundtracks of musicals comes from being able to recall the physical scenes associated with them. It just winds up being harder to share these kinds of songs with someone who hasn't seen them in their original context, but I wind up playing them on repeat more than the normal music I listen to... although normal is up for debate anyway, haha.

If I were to rank favorite musicals now...

Seen live:
1. A Chorus Line
2. Book of Mormon
3. You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown
4. Sweeney Todd
5. Spring Awakening
6. Wicked

Seen recorded (but definitely will see live if the opportunity comes up):
1. Into the Woods
2. Follies
3. Sunday in the Park With George
4. Company
5. Les Miserables
6. Merrily We Roll Along

I realize now that I missed the chance to see the Follies revival in LA and Les Mis in SF last year, but oh well. Next time. (and also that Sondheim's dominating these rankings now. >_>)