Music Review: Coco - Original Motion Picture Soundtrack by Michael Giacchino and others

Coco: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
by Michael Giacchino, Kristen Anderson-Lopez, Robert Lopez, Germaine Franco and Adrian Molina (Compact Disc j782.14 Coc)

One of the Fall 2023 events on the stage of the Lied Center for the Performing Arts was a showing of the 2017 Disney/Pixar animated film Coco, with the music performed live by a Mexican orchestra on the stage right below the projection screen. It was absolutely terrific to hear the music done live, and made me want to revisit the recorded soundtrack — and I’m happy to say that the libraries still have this soundtrack available on CD.

 

The Coco: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack breaks its content into two sections. First, there are the vocal songs. 8 songs were written for the film, including the Academy Award-winning song “Remember Me” by Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez (also Oscar winners for the music from Frozen). Additional songs are by Germaine Franco and Adrian Molina. There are alternate takes on “Remember Me”, including a very emotional one, featuring actors Anthony Gonzales and Ana Ofelia Murguia, sung as the film’s main character, young Miguel returns from the Land of the Dead to sing the song to his aged grandmother, Coco, who awakens from a stupor to sing with him in the film’s emotional climax. There’s also a pop-infused take on “Remember Me” sung by pop artist Miguel (with Natalia Lafourcade) during the film’s closing credits. The rest of the songs are highly entertaining as well, with their strong Mexican flavor and peppy tones. I particularly enjoyed “Un Poco Loco”, “The World Es Mi Familia” and “La Llorona”.

 

Following the vocal tracks are an incredible 27 tracks from the film’s instrumental score by noted film composer Michael Giacchino, arranged in the chronological order of how they appeared in the film. Giacchino is one of my favorite contemporary film and TV composers, and his tracks for Coco certainly don’t disappoint, with lush strings and vibrant brass, and beautiful guitar work.

 

(If you enjoy this soundtrack, you’ll obviously want to see the film Coco itself.)

 

( Wikipedia page about the Coco: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack )

 

Recommended by Scott C.
Bennett Martin Public Library — Public Service

 

Have you read or listened to this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?

New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide Blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewer’s recommendations!

Music Review: Some Like It Hot (Official Broadway Cast Recording) by Marc Shaiman and others

Some Like It Hot (Official Broadway Cast Recording)
music by Marc Shaiman, lyrics by Scott Wittman and Shaiman, and a book by Matthew López and Amber Ruffin (Hoopla Music, and hopefully on CD eventually)

The 1959 film Some Like It Hot, directed by Billy Wilder and starring Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon and Marilyn Monroe, is considered by many film critics and fans to be among the greatest films ever made, a certainly one of the best Comedy films of all time. This stage musical, which opened on Broadway in 2022, is scheduled to close before the end of 2023, and features much of the same plot as the film, but has been expanded to explore issues of racial disparity and gender identity.

 

Joe (Christian Borle) and Jerry (J. Harrison Ghee) are best friends and musicians, trying to break into a big-name club in Chicago during prohibition. Though do they receive a break, they then witness a gangland slaying and have to go on the lam to avoid being rubbed out by the mobster whose club they were performing in. Desperate, they decide to impersonate women, and join the all-girl band Sweet Sue and Her Society Syncopaters, leaving Chicago and traveling by train to California. Joe becomes Josephine, and Jerry becomes Daphne. Joe falls for Sugar Cane, a young woman with dreams of California stardom. When they reach San Diego, the Syncopaters are booked to perform at the glamorous Hotel Coronado, owned by quirky eccentric millionaire Osgood Fielding III, who immediately finds himself attracted to Jerry’s alter-ego Daphne.

 

Sue, Sugar Cane and Jerry/Daphne are all portrayed by actors of color in this production, and some of the new songs refer to the societal hurdles they face as musicians and performers. Jerry also finds himself far more comfortable in the skin of Daphne than he does of himself, and Osgood reveals that he likes Daphne, no matter who s/he is. The arrival of the pursuing mobsters leads to chase sequences and the revelation of Joe and Jerry’s actual identities…but it’s all okay in the end.

 

Featuring music by Marc Shaiman with lyrics by Shaiman and Scott Wittman (both of whom did the music for the musicals Hairspray, Catch Me If You Can and the film Mary Poppins Returns), this musical is filled with rousing song-and-dance numbers as well as more introspective, pensive songs. The musical opens with the fast-paced “What Are You Thirsty For?” and “You Can’t Have Me (If You Don’t Have Him)”. I particularly enjoyed “At the Old Majestic Nickel Matinee”, “Let’s Be Bad”, “Dance the World Away” and “Ride Out the Storm”. And, of course, the title song “Some Like It Hot” is really catching as well. Personally, I enjoyed listening to this on CD, with a booklet that included extensive liner notes that helped explain what’s going on.

 

This is definitely a 21st Century take (with updated societal views) on a 64-year-old film masterpiece. Both are excellent in their own separate ways. I’ve been a fan of actor Christian Borle for many years, and while he does a terrific job as Joe/Josephine, it is J. Harrison Ghee who steals the show as Jerry/Daphne, and won the Tony Award for Best Lead Actor in a Musical.

 

(If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try the original classic film starring Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon and Marilyn Monroe, or Hairspray by the same creative team as this musical.)

 

( Wikipedia entry for the Some Like It Hot musical )

 

See Donna G.’s review of the film Some Like it Hot in the March 2011 Staff Recommendations here on BookGuide!

 

Recommended by Scott C.
Bennett Martin Public Library — Public Service

 

Have you listened to this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?

New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide Blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewer’s recommendations!

Music Review: Barbie the Album

Barbie the Album

by various (Music Compact Disc 782.14 Bar & Hoopla)

 

On the same day that the international bombshell film Barbie: The Movie opened in July, the soundtrack album was released, both digitally and in physical formats (vinyl LP and CD). Five of the 17 tracks on Barbie the Album were released as singles for radio and streaming-service play, with several making the Billboard hot singles lists. A secondary, expanded, soundtrack was released as the “Best Weekend Ever” edition, with two additional tracks not previously available.

 

Like the film it accompanies, Barbie the Album is a celebration of female empowerment, with the vast majority of the tracks featuring music written by and/or performed by female artists, including Lizzo, Nicki Minaj and Spice Ice, Billie Eilish, Charlie XCX, Pinkpantheress, Gayle, Ava Max and Dua Lipa. Complimenting all these powerful female performers are a handful of male entries, including the film’s “Ken”, Ryan Gosling singing his plaintive character theme song, “I’m Just Ken” (he also sings the Matchbox 20 hit “Push” on the extended soundtrack), Sam Smith, Dominic Fike, The Kid Laroi and Khalid (among others).

 

The music ranges from peppy bubblegum pop to introspective, but leans more toward the electric and high-energy, including a couple of “dance” numbers. All the songs on this album appear in the film, so this isn’t one of those “songs from and inspired by” albums. If you’ve seen the movie — and at the time of this review’s writing, it was the #13 all time money marker in the U.S. market (and #15 internationally), so you’re hardly alone — each of these energetic tunes will remind you of moments within the film. Tracks that stand out for me are “Pink” by Lizzo (the film’s opening scenes in Barbieworld), “Dance the Night” by Dua Lipa, “Barbie World” by Minaj and Spice, “What Was I Made For?” by Billie Eilish, and “Choose Your Fighter” by Ava Max. (I also enjoyed “I’m Just Ken”, but it has a completely different tone than the rest of this upbeat album.)

 

The libraries have the basic album as a CD, and both the basic and extended album versions are available via our Hoopla Digital Music service. I don’t listen to a lot of contemporary music, preferring my old classics from the 1960s through the 1990s, but I’ll have to admit, Barbie the Album ended up being compulsive listening for me!

 

Recommended by Scott C.
Bennett Martin Public Library — Public Service

 

Have you read or listened to this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?

New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide Blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewer’s recommendations!

Compact Disc Review: Music Man - The 2022 Broadway Cast Recording

Music Man: The 2022 Broadway Cast Recording
by Meredith Willson (Compact Disc 782.14 Mus)

I’ve been a huge fan of the actor Hugh Jackman for years, and have really enjoyed his performances in such musical films as Les Miserables and The Greatest Showman. Similarly, I’ve enjoyed what performance by Sutton Foster that I’ve had the chance to see and hear, including her multi-season fun on Younger, and her contributions to soundtrack albums like Young Frankenstein, Anything Goes and The Drowsy Chaperone. But I’ve never had the chance to see either of them live, in person, in a stage show. None-the-less, I had high hopes for enjoying them as the leads in the soundtrack to the 2022 Broadway version of The Music Man, the classic American musical.

 

This soundtrack is fine, on its own, and is particularly rewarding as a two-disc set, which includes a LOT more music than has been on the single-disc releases associated with earlier stage and film productions. And, I actually did enjoy listening to it in the end. Both Jackman and Foster are enthusiastic performers and more-than-capable singers. BUT…and it’s a big but…as someone who grew up listening to the soundtracks to both the 1957 Broadway production and the 1962 feature film version, Jackman and Foster simply do not inhabit the characters of Harold Hill and Marian Paroo like Robert Preston did for both stage and screen, and Barbara Cook and Shirley Jones did for the stage and screen versions. The late Robert Preston simply IS Harold Hill, and Jackman was a mere pretender.

 

For Broadway soundtrack fans, I do still recommend this 2022 version…its got an infection sense of energy, and some of the tracks featuring group performances are outstanding. And if you’ve never heard the songs of The Music Man before, you may end up loving this version. But for someone well-versed in the history of Broadway music, this one ultimately falls a bit short. Its main selling point, for me, is the fact that there’s twice as much music represented as in previous production albums.

 

(If you enjoy this, you may also wish to see if you can find the soundtracks to both the 1957 Broadcast Cast Album, and the 1962 movie version of this story. But by all means, avoid the 2003 TV-movie version, starring Matthew Broderick, as it is far inferior to all other versions.)

 

( official Music Man on Broadway 2022 web site )

 

Recommended by Scott C.
Bennett Martin Public Library — Public Service

 

Have you read or listened to this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?

New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide Blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewer’s recommendations!

Music CD Review: MJ: The Musical, based on the life and works of Michael Jackson

MJ: The Musical
based on the music of Michael Jackson (and others) (Compact Disc 782.14 MJ)

 MJ: The Musical is what they call a “jukebox musical” — in which a variety of songs (usually by a single artist or group) are integrated into the plot of an on-stage storyline, often featuring the artist(s) who created or performed the music. But not always, for instance the hit Mamma Mia exclusively featured the music of ABBA but not those performers as characters.

 

MJ: The Musical, however, really does tell the story of Michael Jackson, from his very earliest days performing with The Jackson Five, up through 1992, and the beginning of his Dangerous World tour. The music doesn’t appear in purely chronological order — in fact, the musical opens with Jackson’s hit Beat It, before segueing backwards to the early years.

 

MJ: The Musical has a complicated history. It was originally supposed to open on Broadway in 2020, but was one of many shows impacted by the Broadway closures due to COVID-19. After a recasting of the lead role, which lead to Myles Frost playing the adult Michael Jackson, the show did eventually open in February of 2022 (after two months of previews). Critics have not been kind to the show, but it has been popular with audiences. In the 2022 Tony Awards, the show was nominated for 10 Tony Awards and won four: Best Lead Actor for Frost, Best Choreography, Best Lighting Design and Best Sound Design. Obviously, the show’s soundtrack can’t really show up dance, lighting and sound design effective, but it DOES shine a spotlight on Myles Frost’s incredible singing. He truly “becomes” Michael in this show, and the medleys of Jackson music come across beautifully in this production. There are only a few moments in a few of the songs where it sounds like somebody else singing these highly recognizable songs.

 

I highly recommend listening to this soundtrack, if you’re a Michael Jackson fan, and catch MJ: The Musical when it begins its national tour in 2023 or 2024.

 

(If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try all the original albums/music by Michael Jackson himself.)

 

( official MJ: The Musical web site ) | ( MJ: The Musical page on the official Michael Jackson web site ) | ( Wikipedia entry on MJ: The Musical )

 

Recommended by Scott C.
Bennett Martin Public Library — Public Service

 Have you read or listened to this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?

New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide Blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewer’s recommendations!

Check out this, and all the other great music resources, at the Polley Music Library, located on the 2nd floor of the Bennett Martin Public Library at 14th & "N" St. in downtown Lincoln. You'll find biographies of musicians, books about music history, instructional books, sheet music, CDs, music-related magazines, and much more. Also check out Polley Music Library Picks, the Polley Music Library's e-mail newsletter, and follow them on Facebook!

DVD and CD Review: Encanto and the Encanto Soundtrack

Encanto
(DVD j Encanto)

This latest Disney animated movie, Encanto (2021), broke outside the typical constraints of a Disney animated film, featuring a soundtrack that incorporates hip-hop-influenced songs from Lin-Manuel Miranda (who also created songs for Moana), and foregoing a typical “villain” in favor of a storyline about familial bonds, both broken and repaired.

 

Tapping into South American culture (primarily Columbian), Encanto is about the members of the Madrigal family, who live in an enchanted home that imbues each of them with a special magical ability, as a rite of passage. Almost everyone, that is, since the central character is Mirabel Madrigal, a young woman who was seemingly passed over for a special ability, though her sisters and other relatives enjoy super strength, flower growing, healing through cooking, super hearing and other unique skills. But ordinary Mirabel is the normal one, the glue that holds the family together. Until she discovers that the “magical house” (and the village that has grown up to surround it) is losing its magic and cracking apart. Mirabel goes on a quest, to find her missing uncle (whose ability of seeing future events foresaw this very calamity), and to see if there is anything she can do to prevent catastrophe for her family.

 

The music in Encanto is catchy and memorable, particularly the snappy songs “We Don’t Talk About Bruno”, “Surface Pressure” and “Dos Orugitas”. The musical orchestral score by Germaine Franco is very atmospheric and flavorful, and I strongly recommend checking out the soundtrack CD to supplement your enjoyment of the film itself. As with many Lin-Manuel Miranda songs (see: Hamilton, and In the Heights), many of his rapid lyrics can slip by you on first exposure, but listening to the songs several times allows for greater appreciation of his wordplay.

 

I missed the typical “villain” to rail against, but the theme of family, forgiveness and perseverance in times of chaos and adversity was a strong one. The many, many colorful characters also gave all viewers someone to identify with and root for. I found Mirabel’s journey of personal growth very fulfilling.

 

All in all, Encanto is a very strong entry in the Disney animated film catalog, and I highly recommend both the film and the soundtrack album!

 

(If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try Moana, or Raya and the Last Dragon.)

 

( Internet Movie Database entry for this film ) | ( official Encanto Facebook page )

 

Recommended by Scott C.
Bennett Martin Public Library — Public Service

 

Have you watched this one or listened to the soundtrack? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?

New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide Blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewer’s recommendations!

Music Book Review: Planet Wax: Sci-Fi/Fantasy Soundtracks on Vinyl by Aaron Lupton and Jeff Szpirglas

Planet Wax: Sci-Fi/Fantasy Soundtracks on Vinyl
by Aaron Lupton and Jeff Szpirglas (Music 781.542 Lup)

I have a love/hate relationship with this book. I really want to love it — it covers one of my primary passions — the collecting (and playing) of SF/Fantasy movie soundtracks. But Planet Wax is riddled with so many problems that I have considerable difficulty in allowing myself to recommend it.

 

But first, the good things: For anyone who grew up on the science fiction and fantasy films of the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s (the book sets a cut-off point of films released in 1999), the visuals in Planet Wax will trigger lots of pleasant memories. The authors profile over 180 films whose soundtracks stand out in some way, and over 2/3 of each page of the book is dedicated to a reproduction of the album cover associated with the soundtrack. The authors break their content into some oddly-chosen categories: Epic Sci-Fi, Adult Fantasy, Dark Dystopia, Action/Adventure, Pop, Family Features, Comic Book/Superheroes, Television, and Unidentified Objects.

 

Unfortunately, the large graphics lead to very short sections of explanatory text — the authors even mention at one point that they limit themselves to 350 or fewer words for their background blurbs about most of the albums. Now, I’ll admit that the title of the book actually refers to the “vinyl” releases of soundtracks, but speaking as someone who’d much rather have the CDs, the constant refrains from the authors of “hopefully this one will have a vinyl re-release soon” got tiresome quickly. The authors do a good job of clearly identifying the many different versions of a film’s soundtrack album releases (both vinyl and CD), and the differences in those (expansions, inclusion of previously unreleased music, etc.) but then they do not clearly identify which version’s art they’ve reproduced on the page above the text.

 

It is obvious that the authors of Planet Wax are incredibly enthusiastic about their topic — they’ve also previously put out a volume on Horror Movie music. But they do NOT include some major film soundtracks from pre-2000 films that seem like they should be in this book. What they have included seems mainly the authors’ personal favorites, including some very obscure films at the expense of more logical inclusions. And, worst of all, the book is riddled with typos, grammatical errors and simple factual errors (the legendary composer Carl Orff is repeated referred to as Carl Off) — Planet Wax could have really used some heavy editing.

 

Like I said, I really wanted to love this book…it’s the kind of reference volume that I usually adore. And it DOES have a lot of good stuff in it. But I constantly winced at every error or glitch in the book. Your mileage may vary, especially if you’re willing to overlook the obvious mistakes. And, honestly, if you’re just looking for a great nostalgia fix, you’ll probably love this.

 

Personally, it gets a positive review from me for two big reasons — the authors include the single “Theme From The Greatest American Hero (Believe It or Not)” (from my all-time favorite TV show) as a significant genre music contribution, in their chapter on genre TV-show music, and because of their detailed descriptions of the history of alternative soundtrack releases for each film included, I’ve been able to identify at least a dozen expanded soundtracks for some of my favorite films, for which I only own the original, apparently incomplete recordings — guess I’ll be doing some soundtrack shopping!

 

So…consider this a reluctant thumbs up for Planet Wax. Definitely worth exploring, but not with a critical eye.

 

(If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try Blood on Black Wax: Horror Soundtracks On Vinyl, also by Lupton and Szpirglas.)

 

( Aaron Lupton video interview about Planet Wax ) | ( official Aaron Lupton Twitter feed )

 

Recommended by Scott C.
Bennett Martin Public Library — Public Service

 

Have you read or listened to this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?

New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide Blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewer’s recommendations!

Music Review: Summon the Heroes by John Williams and the Boston Symphony Orchestra (on CD)

Summon the Heroes
by John Williams and the Boston Symphony Orchestra (Compact Disc 781.68 Bos)

As I write this review, we are about halfway through the Tokyo Summer Olympics of 2021 (postponed from 2020 by the global pandemic). Ever since 1996, one of my every-other-year traditions during both the Summer Olympics and the Winter Olympics is to listen to this album on auto-replay for two straight weeks as the sporting events take place.

 

Summon the Heroes is both the album title and the title of the first track — which in 1996 was a newly created work by composer/conductor John Williams (yes, he of the many Oscar-winning soundtracks), in honor of the Centennial Celebration of the Modern Olympic Games in Atlanta, GA in July of that year. Overall, the disc contains twelve tracks, three of which are Williams’ music. Track three opens with Leo Arnaud’s “Bugler’s Dream”, which leads immediately into “Olympic Fanfare and Theme”, written by Williams for the 1984 Los Angeles Summer Games. And track #1 is “The Olympic Spirit”, a piece composed by Williams for the NBC Sports Division, in celebration of the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul, South Korea. All three of Williams’ pieces feature a wide range of musical stylings, from challenging brasses and pulse-pounding percussion, to pensive woodwinds and striving strings — there’s a little thing in there for all types of athletic experience, from individuals struggling to complete a marathon, and gymnasts flying through the air like birds, to driving beats symbolizing the charge of the speed swimmer or the compulsive excitement of men and women testing the boundaries of human strength and endurance.

 

Admittedly, those are the three tracks I gravitate towards most often, considering that they are still heavily sampled for use in NBC’s ongoing Olympics television and streaming coverage of the games. But the disc does include 9 other tracks of music, some written specifically for the Olympics, and some just thematically appropriate: “O Fortuna” by Carl Orff; “Ode to Zeus” from Canto Olympico (for the 1992 games in Barcelona” by Mikis Theodorakis; “Javelin” by Michael Torke, written for the 1996 Atlanta games; “Olympic Theme” by Leonard Bernstein, written for the 1981 International Olympic Congress; “Festive Overture, Op. 96” by Dmitri Shostakovich, theme of the 1980 Moscow summer games, “Conquest of Paradise” by Vangelis; “Parade of the Charioteers from Ben Hur” by Miklos Rozsa; “Toward a New Life” by Josef Suk, Silver medal-winning composition at the 1932 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, and “Chariots of Fire (Theme)”, also by Vangelis, written for the 1981 film but also performed at the 1984 Winter Games in Sarajevo. I find most of these non-Williams’ tracks to be more about the fanfare and pageantry of the Games, and less about the experiences of the athletes themselves.

 

None-the-less, each of these pieces, in their own way, is inspirational and celebrational. But the three Williams tracks, clocking in at around 14 1/2 minutes total, get my pulse racing and put me in the mood to see the world’s greatest athletes pushing their limits. Of the hundreds of CDs (and digital albums) I own, I’ve probably listened to Summon the Heroes more often than any other…and it never fails to lift me up, no matter what mood I’m in!

[Note: Williams also composed yet another piece of Olympics music — “Call of the Champions” — for the 2002 Winter Olympics, after this 1996 album was released. I wish it was also on this disc!]

[If you enjoy this, I’d suggest listening to other John Williams works. But his soundtracks, tremendous though they are, are very much tied in to the films they were written for. The works he created for the Olympics seem to stand out as an entirely different field of music.]

[ Wikipedia page for John Williams (he doesn’t have an official website) ]

 

See the new Summer Olympics Reading List on BookGuide!

 

Recommended by Scott C.
Bennett Martin Public Library — Public Services

 

Have you listened to this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?

New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide Blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewer’s recommendations!

Music Book Review: Scored to Death: Conversations With Some of Horror's Greatest Composers by J. Blake Fichera

Scored to Death: Conversations With Some of Horror’s Greatest Composers
by J. Blake Fichera (Music 781.542 Fic)

It’s the season for scary movies, and there’s nothing better than the perfect soundtrack to go with a horror film. Some horror soundtracks do such a good job tracking on-screen action that you can almost watch with your eyes closed and still have a sense of what’s happening as quiet, subtle tension builds in the music to an intense violin stab or dissonant repeating figure. There has been renewed interest in this music lately, too, as several record labels have cropped up who focus on reissuing classic horror movie scores on vinyl or CD.

In Scored to Death, J. Blake Fichera conducts interviews with 14 renowned composers of horror film music, responsible for classics like Suspiria, Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday the 13th, and Halloween. The conversations generally shy away from getting too technical about musical details, instead focusing on issues like collaborating with directors, trying out new technology, the freedom of working with horror film compared to some other genres, and some of these composers’ own favorite films and inspirations. You don’t have to be a musician to find many of these interviews interesting — just a fan of scary movies! You’ll find that most of Fichera’s interview subjects are fun-loving movie fans themselves, no matter how frightening their music can be.

[If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try Sounds of the Future: Essays on Music in Science Fiction Film, edited by Michael J. Bartkowiak, or Blood on Black Wax: Horror Soundtracks On Vinyl, by Aaron Lupton.]

[ official Scored to Death web site and companion podcast ]

 

Recommended by Scott S.
Polley Music Library

Check out this, and all the other great music resources, at the Polley Music Library, located on the 2nd floor of the Bennett Martin Public Library at 14th & "N" St. in downtown Lincoln. You'll find biographies of musicians, books about music history, instructional books, sheet music, CDs, music-related magazines, and much more. Also check out Polley Music Library Picks, the Polley Music Library's e-mail newsletter, and follow them on Facebook!

 

Have you read this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?

New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide Blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewer’s recommendations!

Soundtrack Review: Yesterday

Yesterday: Motion Picture Soundtrack
mostly performed by Himesh Patel, mostly written by Paul McCartney and John Lennon

This is the soundtrack album to the film Yesterday, which came out earlier in 2019 and starred Himesh Patel, Lily James and others. The concept of the film is that a struggling British indie-folk-rock singer, Jack Malik (Patel), on the verge of giving up his musical dreams of being discovered, is in an automobile accident during a mysterious global blackout and awakens to discover that he’s the only person alive who remembers The Beatles, and their hundreds of “unforgettable” songs. In the course of the film, Jack makes the decision to recreate all those legendary songs for an audience that has never heard them before — so, from memory, he writes out the music for the classic Beatles hits, modified for a single singer — himself. The film goes into a lot more layers, and I’ll save that review for when the DVD of the movie is released (soon!), but the soundtrack album came out on CD, and has been available via the libraries’ Hoopla digital service, since the time when the film was in theaters.

The soundtrack includes 27 tracks. One is Jack Malik’s own original “The Summer Song” (a good example of why he hadn’t hit it big on his own), seven others are brief interstitial instrumental pieces from the film’s orchestral score composer Daniel Pemberton. And the remaining 19 tracks are actor Himesh Patel as Jack Malik, singing the Lennon/McCartney hits. Some are changed very little from their original versions, while others have had major alterations to them. “Yesterday”, “Let it Be”, “The Long and Winding Road” and “Hey Jude” all pack emotional punch, if you’ve seen the film and can picture their use in the context of the film’s events, but they’re also superbly done covers of the songs just in their own right. Patel has a good singing voice, and carries off the Beatles songs well, if not expertly. The CD had a “bonus” track — within the film, Ed Sheeran appears as himself, albeit in a Beatles-less universe, and advises Jack Malik during the recording of “Hey Jude”, that it would work better as “Hey Dude”. The bonus track is the full-length version of the studio recording of “Hey Dude”.

Honestly, this album works best if you’ve seen the film, Yesterday, but as a collection of “covers” of Beatles songs, its stands perfectly fine on its own. Personally, I loved the film — it’s one of my favorite films of 2019, and as such, I found this album to be tremendous. Not as good as listening to the actual, original, Beatles performing their own music. But still highly recommended as a fun album to listen to!

[If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try all the original Beatles albums, from whence all this beautiful music originally came.]

[ official IMdB page for Yesterday ] | [ Yesterday soundtrack track listing on Allmusic.com ]

Recommended by Scott C.
Bennett Martin Public Library

Have you read this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?

New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewer’s recommendations!

Review: Mary Poppins Returns: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack

Mary Poppins Returns: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
composed by Marc Shaiman, performed by Emily Blunt, Lin Manuel Miranda and more

Creating a sequel to a legendary classic musical is always a daunting project, particularly one that comes 54 years after the original. That was the challenge faced by the creators of Mary Poppins Returns, a 2018 film that is a direct sequel to the original Mary Poppins in 1964. Though the P.L. Travers novels that inspired the original Walt Disney film first saw publication as early as 1934, I would venture to presume that most peoples’ memories of Mary Poppins are of the Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke film, filled with unforgettable tunes such as “A Spoonful of Sugar”, “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious”, “Feed the Birds”, “Chim Chim Cheree”, “Step in Time” and “Let’s Go Fly a Kite”. That film featured music by Richard M. Sherman and Robert B. Sherman, and is, perhaps, one of the most recognizable and memorable movie soundtracks of all time.

For Mary Poppins Returns, the film starred Emily Blunt as Mary Poppins, Lin-Manuel Miranda as Jack the Lamplighter, Ben Wishaw as Michael Banks and Emily Mortimer and Jane Banks (the two children from the original film), as well as Dick Van Dyke, and many more. The film-makers brought in composer/lyricist Mark Shaiman and co-lyricist Scott Wittman. The film is witty, emotionally engaging and visually stimulating, with great performances across the board. But, for me, the key question was — will the soundtrack hold a candle to the quality of the original. In my opinion, the soundtrack to Mary Poppins Returns is excellent, but still not quite up to the “classic” standard set by the music of the Julie Andrews film. There are several marvelous songs, which serve as the anchor for some of the film’s most impressive sequences, including: “Can You Imagine That?”, “The Royal Doulton Music Hall”, “A Cover is Not the Book”, “Turning Turtle”, “Trip a Little Light Fantastic” and “(Underneath the) Lovely London Sky”. But for me, the most memorable song is “The Place Where Lost Things Go”, which was recently nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song.

Emily Blunt and Lin-Manuel Miranda are incredible singers and easily hold their own with the music from this film, though I’ll have to admit that Emily Blunt is no Julie Andrews. Miranda is probably the most…energetic…of the performers, and even gets to have shades of his trademark hip-hop influence in a few moments of his centerpiece songs. Many (most) of the songs are multi-voice pieces (i.e. the full cast), and I wish that there had been more than just one song as a solo for Blunt as Mary Poppins. But it is what it is. I’m also quite pleased that the soundtrack includes not just the vocal tracks, but 11 tracks of instrumental score music from the film. And many of those include ghostly little refrains of the music from the original film, expertly woven into the action of the new film.
If you can’t tell, I do, indeed, love this soundtrack, and strongly recommend it. And if you haven’t seen the film in the theater, it will soon be out on DVD/Blu-Ray and streaming services.

[If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try Mary Poppins (Soundtrack from the original film).]

[ official Mary Poppins Returns web site ] | [ official Mark Shaiman web site ]

Recommended by Scott C.
Bennett Martin Public Library

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Charlie and the Chocolate Factory: The New Musical: Original Broadway Cast Recording (on CD)

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory: The New Musical: Original Broadway Cast Recording
by Mark Shaiman & others [Compact Disc 782.14 Cha]

Based on the classic 1964 youth novel Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by British author Roald Dahl, and its 1971 film adaptation, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (which starred the late, great Gene Wilder), this staged musical Charlie and the Chocolate Factory: The New Musical played on London’s West End from 2013 to 2017. A re-worked stage version for American audiences was performed on Broadway from April 2017 to January 2018. This is the soundtrack to the American version, which starred actor Christian Borle as Willy Wonka, and Broadway legend John Rubinstein as Grandpa Joe.

Brilliant but eccentric “candy man” Willy Wonka realizes that he needs to find a replacement for himself as head of his chocolate factory — someone with a brilliant imagination but a good sense of humanity, who won’t screw up his legacy. He runs a contest, in which any child who finds a Golden Ticket hidden under the wrapper of one of his Wonka Bars will be invited into Wonka’s factory, with a chance at winning “the Grand Prize”. The five children who each find a Golden Ticket are Augustus Gloop, a glutinous slob, Veruca Salt, a Russian heiress with no self control, Violet Beauregarde, a self-obsessed media celebrity (who holds the record for longest continuously chewed wad of bubble gum), Mike Teavee, a TV-and-Internet obsessed loner, who hacked his way to a free Golden Ticket, and our hero, Charlie Bucket, an idealistic waif who idolizes both his Grandpa Joe and Wonka. The children (and their adult companions) get a tour of the Wonka factory they (and the audience) will never forget, and Wonka ultimately finds his worthwhile successor.

The stage musical makes effective use of several of the pieces of music that appeared in the Wilder film, including “The Candy Man”, “I’ve Got a Golden Ticket”, “Pure Imagination”, and the hauntingly creepy “Oompa Loompa Song”. But composer and lyricist Mark Shaiman and Scott Wittman also created numerous new songs for the show. There is poignancy, in “A Letter From Charlie Bucket” and “If Your Father Were Here”, there’s wacky comedy in “Strike That! Reverse That!” and a new longer version of the Ooompa Loompa song, and each of the primary “children” characters has both an introductory song, and a song that is tied to their eventual demise. Along with the fast-paced “Strike That! Reverse That!”, my favorite two tracks are also new: “It Must Be Believed to Be Seen” and “The View From Here” — both are hauntingly beautiful pieces of music, in the midst of an over-the-top candy-coated fantasy of a musical. Christian Borle (“Something Rotten”, “Peter and the Starcatcher” on Broadway, and “Smash” on TV) is absolutely magnificent as Willy Wonka in his performances on this album — I would have loved to have seen him in the role on stage. He channels Gene Wilder’s unforgettable film performance, while still managing to put his own stamp on it. A national touring company will be starting a U.S. tour of this stage musical in late 2018, however it looks like the closest it will come to Lincoln/Omaha is Minneapolis and Denver. So, in the meantime, enjoy listening to this soundtrack CD and keep your fingers crossed that the musical makes it to Lincoln or Omaha or Kansas City!

[If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try the film Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, starring Gene Wilder. I recommend avoiding the 2005 version starring Johnny Depp.]

 

[ official Charlies and the Chocolate Factory musical web site ] | [ official Roald Dahl web site ]

 

Recommended by Scott C.
Bennett Martin Public Library

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Anastasia (Original Broadway Cast Recording) (on CD)

Anastasia (Original Broadway Cast Recording)
music by Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty

In 1997, Fox Animation and 20th Century Fox released an animated film entitled Anastasia, a fictionalized adventure about the legendary missing Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna from the Romanov family of Russia, who disappeared during the events of the Russian Revolution that overthrew the Russian monarchy and aristocracy, as the rest of her family was executed in 1918. The film, featuring the voices of Meg Ryan, John Cusack, Kelsey Grammer and Christopher Lloyd (among many others), was a musical and a spectacle, designed to compete with the animated films being produced on an almost annual basis by the Walt Disney Studio.

As a musical, the film featured 17 songs by lyricist Lynn Ahrens, including two highly memorable works, “Once Upon a December” and “Journey to the Past”. The story of the film supposes that Anastasia survived the deaths of the rest of her family, and has lived on the street as an amnesiac, Anya. She gets caught up in a con artist’s plot to have her impersonate the missing Anastasia to collect a potential reward from Anastasia’s grandmother if Anastasia was to return. An unlikely love story is wrapped around the discovery that Anya truly is Anastasia.

in 2017, the beloved animated film was adapted into a stage musical on Broadway, with Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty taking some of the songs from the film, and adding many more new musical numbers for the stage, including “In a Crowd of Thousands”. Some of the more fantastical elements of the film are rendered more realistic for the stage show — eliminating some mysticism and the popular animal character of Bartok the Bat — and the musical Anastasia becomes a true historical epic.

The CD of the soundtrack for the Broadway musical includes 25 tracks, ranging from powerful and emotional, to humorous and wistful. Christy Altomare plays Anya/Anastasia, and Derek Klema plays Dmitri. Both have excellent, beautiful voices and their songs are the most powerful on the album. I hope Anastasia has a long and healthy life as a Broadway hit, but I also hope it tours the U.S. and makes it to Lincoln and/or Omaha, as I would love to see this show!

[Sadly, the libraries do not own the animated film Anastasia, however we do have the soundtrack to that film available on CD!]

[ official Lynn Ahrens & Stephen Flaherty web site (creators of the music) ] | [ official Anastasia: The New Broadway Musical web site ]

Recommended by Scott C.
Bennett Martin Public Library

Have you listened to this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?

New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewers recommendations!