| re: THE LAST SHIP, KINKY BOOTS, CAPEMAN, TOMMY... and other Bway musicals by pop composers | |
| Posted by: | JohnPopa 04:59 pm EST 11/24/14 |
| In reply to: | THE LAST SHIP, KINKY BOOTS, CAPEMAN, TOMMY... and other Bway musicals by pop composers - GrumpyMorningBoy 03:56 pm EST 11/24/14 |
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| Somewhere in the middle of this is Dave Bryan, from 'Memphis' and 'Toxic Avenger' who comes from Bon Jovi but was never the band's principal songwriter. I think with Jim Steinman, there's a big difference between writing theatrical music and writing for the theater. Yes, his songs are big and emotional and tell these long, romantic stories, but they also tend to be exhausting and two or three hours of them is relentless, even in a Meat Loaf concert, let alone in a theater where there is usually more of a series of big and small moments along the way. They can't ALL be seven minute epics. | |
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| re: THE LAST SHIP, KINKY BOOTS, CAPEMAN, TOMMY... and other Bway musicals by pop composers | |
| Posted by: | keikekaze 05:22 pm EST 11/24/14 |
| In reply to: | re: THE LAST SHIP, KINKY BOOTS, CAPEMAN, TOMMY... and other Bway musicals by pop composers - JohnPopa 04:59 pm EST 11/24/14 |
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| Yes, his songs are big and emotional and tell these long, romantic stories, but they also tend to be exhausting and two or three hours of them is relentless, Plus, good theater songs aren't primarily about telling stories. The musical tells a story, of course, but the individual song usually doesn't. The individual song reveals character and provides emotional or ironic or some other form of commentary on the dramatic moment at hand. Yes, of course, you can get away with a narrative song now and then in a musical. Weill and Gershwin get away with "The Saga of Jenny" because there's a big, whopping production number to go along with it that's like a one-act musical in itself. Lerner and Loewe more or less get away with "Guenevere" in Camelot, even though it's a device to try to get around the fact that the climax of the show is too big (or maybe just too long) to stage. But for the most part, you're in trouble, or prone to trouble, any time you find yourself doing a lot of narrating in the theater, musically or verbally, rather than dramatizing. | |
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| re: THE LAST SHIP, KINKY BOOTS, CAPEMAN, TOMMY... and other Bway musicals by pop composers | |
| Posted by: | Chromolume 11:04 pm EST 11/24/14 |
| In reply to: | re: THE LAST SHIP, KINKY BOOTS, CAPEMAN, TOMMY... and other Bway musicals by pop composers - keikekaze 05:22 pm EST 11/24/14 |
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| I also think this tends to be the problem with a lot of the songs by some of the newer contemporary writers - JRB, Lowdermilk/Kerrigan, sometimes LaChiusa and Lippa, some of the more "cabaret" writers like Gealt, etc - the tendency to get wordy wordy wordy wordy, and to pen very literal lyrics rather than using words that try to convey a more oblique, emotional expression. Often we get story songs from them, created to drive home an eventual emotional point which could have been better expressed without the story to begin with. And pop-infused quasi-melodies that don't tend to soar, but just seem to be basic consequences of the chord changes - so the wordy lyrics dominate, and the music doesn't convey a real mood other than a basic pop/rock beat. (I'm honestly baffled by the popularity of songs like "A Way Back To Then" or Gealt's "Quiet" which just have no creative musical craft whatsoever, IMO. I'm sorry, I just don't think there's one truly interesting note of music in either of those songs, save the musical gesture of "kick-ass time" in the former song.) Looking back at the older "classic" writers (and I know I've posted about this before) you can see the wonderful sense of economy in the lyric, and the craft in building a tune that not only supports the words, but expresses something of its own. Look at a song like "The Party's Over" - the lyric is all recognizable metaphorical images that paint a vivid emotional picture of a breakup without ever literally saying so - and a melody that ingeniously keeps building on itself to bigger and bigger climaxes (and back down from them) as the song goes on. A mere 32 bars (plus the short verse) and we feel everything Ella feels, just through the contour of the melody and some universal images in the lyric. And we feel satisfied because we've just been on an identifiable journey of a full song - we might not be able to qualify exactly how the song affects us, but we know it does. If JRB (or a similar contemporary writer) had written the song, we might have been fed every needless detail about the literal party (or maybe several parties, in "Moon And The Stars" or "I Can Do Better Than That" fashion) over a melody that doesn't soar as much as it might just ramble over the chords, while the hip piano vamp repeats ad nauseum underneath. And we might enjoy the groove of the song, but emotionally, we wouldn't be getting the full-course meal that Styne, Comden, and Green were able to feed us in just one short refrain. | |
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| re: THE LAST SHIP, KINKY BOOTS, CAPEMAN, TOMMY... and other Bway musicals by pop composers | |
| Posted by: | ryhog 12:37 am EST 11/25/14 |
| In reply to: | re: THE LAST SHIP, KINKY BOOTS, CAPEMAN, TOMMY... and other Bway musicals by pop composers - Chromolume 11:04 pm EST 11/24/14 |
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| I decided not to jump into this particular fray, as much as I am tempted, except to say that you have made thoughtful and incisive points that I appreciate. | |
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| re: THE LAST SHIP, KINKY BOOTS, CAPEMAN, TOMMY... and other Bway musicals by pop composers | |
| Posted by: | keikekaze 12:14 am EST 11/25/14 |
| In reply to: | re: THE LAST SHIP, KINKY BOOTS, CAPEMAN, TOMMY... and other Bway musicals by pop composers - Chromolume 11:04 pm EST 11/24/14 |
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| Chromolume--come and sit by me! : ) I agree with every word. "The Party's Over" is an example I might have chosen myself of a perfect theater song. (It may be Comden and Green's best lyric--and it is literally a lyric, not a narrative.) Ella doesn't go on and on telling us her life story--we already know the story, because we've been watching the musical. The few perfectly well-chosen words "The party's over . . . It's time to wind up/ The masquerade,/ Just make your mind up/ The piper must be paid" tell us everything we need to know about what Ella is feeling at this moment, and that, by this time, is what we in the audience are feeling, too. | |
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