|
|
|
|
Posted: |
Sep 8, 2020 - 2:34 PM
|
|
|
By: |
EricHG30
(Member)
|
Finally caught up with this one on Disney Plüs today. Only ever saw bits and pieces back in theaters as I was too busy being a projectionist. Boy this is a treasure. Somewhat under appreciated I think. One of Disney's strongest in a pretty strong decade of Ralph, Frozen and others. I've Got a Dream is instantly in my top 3 Disney 2010s songs easy. It is underrated, especially in the wake of Frozen, etc. I would argue we wouldn't have the success of those films without Tangled's success (and it *was* a big success, but, at the time, it was also an insanely expensive film, partly due to years of pre-production). And the TV version has been much better received than most past Disney feature tv series adaptations (Alan Menken and Garth Slater even have contributed a number of songs which are... cute or nice--not bad, but they remind me of less goofy versions of the songs they wrote for Galavant, in both cases obviously not having a ton of time to re-write). It is too bad that Disney now only seems to see Menken as someone to write new songs for their live action remakes (which, as most Disney/Menken fans have noted, often seem silly as all these properties have decent stuff to pick and choose from in the stage musical adaptations already). I know he's been hired to write songs and score for a new studio's animated Princess fantasy and his involvement is the only thing that got me excited--oh and DisEnchanted is finally happening (for a long time Menken apparently WAS on a Disney exclusive contract--at least when it came to film work, but that seems to be gone). For a while he was working with Dreamworks (?) on a musical based on the 70s show Lidsville. I'm, err, not too upset that that seems to have been abandoned. Years back in this thread someone mentioned how in general his work has gone downhill--citing his gospel obsession and Leap of Faith. I admit, Leap of Faith is his one musical that, on CD anyway, I simply have not ever been able to get into. The previous Gospel infused musical, Sister Act, while not brilliant, is very solid. (And I know soundtrack fans seem to hate Hercules but I think the Gospel stuff there, as well as Meg's 60s pop throwback song, are very very good, even if the rest feels uninspired). He also had a minor hit on Broadway recently with the adaptation of A Bronx Tale which, again, can't stack up with the best, but is much better than I ever expected (and a nice return to his Little Shop influences). But for anyone into his *songs* and not just his scores, the last two really strong cast albums he's had may have flown under their radar. One is The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, which he wrote with David Spencer (who collaborated with him on the underrated early 90s off-Broadway sci-fi show, Weird Romance). They'd been working on it since the 80s--with various rights issues getting in the way, although they claim the score is almost entirely new. The premier in (fittingly) Montreal was recorded in hopes of more regional productions, and it's an incredibly strong musical, at least song wise. And even better was a few years back Encores did a semi-staged version of the very first Ashman and Menken musical, Kurt Vonnegut's God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater, a score I knew from demo recordings and a fuzzy live audio recorded in the late 70s. It's a weird show (yes, much weirder than the follow up, Little Shop of Horrors) but a funny, beautiful, varied and amazing set of songs and I'm so glad it was finally recorded (and once again it proves that Menken did his best work--sorry Schwartz--with Howard Ashman).
|
|
|
|