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| Title: | Welcome to the CD Notes Conference |
| Notice: | Welcome to COOKIE |
| Moderator: | COOKIE::ROLLOW |
|
| Created: | Mon Feb 17 1986 |
| Last Modified: | Fri Mar 03 1989 |
| Last Successful Update: | Fri Jun 06 1997 |
| Number of topics: | 1517 |
| Total number of notes: | 13349 |
1479.0. "STARLIGHT EXPRESS" by ASABET::BOYAJIAN (Oil is the work of the Diesel himself) Tue Jan 17 1989 02:59
Does anyone here know if there's a CD of the Broadway Cast for
the musical STARLIGHT EXPRESS? I caught the musical the other
week in NY just before it closed, and liked a lot of the tunes.
I haven't seen any album for it around, though.
BCD has a London Cast CD, but aside from being a tad on the
expensive side (almost $50 for a double-CD; it's an import, but
still...), it's "trimmed". There's a hilarious (unintentionally)
note from lyricist Richard Stillgoe about how the show is 2 hours
and 10 minutes long, and as a [double] CD can only accomodate
1 hour and 40 minutes of music "before it bursts", they had to
leave out some material.
Now, 1:40:00 yields 50 minutes per disc, way undersized. At the
general standard of 74 minutes per, a double-disc should certainly
accomodate a 2:20:00 long show. Now, granted, it's a tight enough
fit that *some* trimming might have been necessary since there's
no guarantee that the music will easily break in a convenient spot,
but they shouldn't need 40 minutes worth of trimming!
--- jerry
| T.R | Title | User | Personal
Name | Date | Lines |
|---|
| 1479.1 | No Broadway Album | USEM::MULA | | Tue Jan 17 1989 06:38 | 5 |
| There is no cast album for the Broadway version. MCA, I believe
made a album of songs from the show, featuring pop artists like
DeBarge. The closest thing to a cast album is the British import;it's
also available in (shudder) vinyl.
|
| 1479.2 | Webber Goes for the Quick-&-Easy | CASPRO::WRESINSKI | | Tue Jan 17 1989 10:45 | 44 |
| Composer Andrew Lloyd Webber has been doing some strange things
with his cast albums (he produces the albums for his recent shows).
He seems to be content with some shoddy work.
The album for PHANTOM OF THE OPERA was an analog original and had
_no_ included liner notes or lyrics (you had to go through the trouble
of sending for them). Seems odd since this is one of the ultimate
high tech stage shows and is making bundles of money on two continents.
In addition, the editing was very sloppy and inferior to what one
would expect ... at least to what _I_ would expect.
The other *more* ultimate ( ;-) ) high tech show is STARLIGHT.
Neither of these shows had U.S. albums. This probably made sense
since the original Broadway cast of PHANTOM was the same as the
London cast and there aren't any significantly different performances
between the U.S. and British casts of STARLIGHT. (They even get
sneaky with some ofthe recent PHANTOM albums. Someone had the
idea to stick a small American flag in the corner, giving the
impression that this is the New York cast recording, but it is
identical to the _original_ U.K. release!)
The liner notes for both shows state that some trimming was done.
Although the available time for a 2 CD set for either show is probably
sufficient to accomodate the entire score, I originally thought
that the trimming was done to excise redundant material or to cut
some portions which were more interesting visually than aurally.
Now I think the real reason is because they didn't want to spend
any more money for studio time than would be required for an LP
release. The note about the music "bursting" the release is taken
from the LP, where Stilgoe says the same thing about squeezing that
amount of music onto a record.
Just one more interesting thing about the STARLIGHT release is that
it was recorded over three live performances. This is a very unusual
practice for cast albums which are usually recorded in a studio
where there is more control over the quality of the product.
--- probably cheaper to do a live recording at the theater.
By the way, the LP version is on Polydor.
( Maybe Webber just doesn't like digital sound and that's why he
records his originals in analog and gives CD releases short shrift.)
>R.Michael
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