Good subject, BUTTTT, this is Blab About Books.  Pudding's Place is the better place to talk about music. :)  Try not to speak of the Jo Bros... it brings up harsh arguments!  :P 

I love pop, but I hate all the typical people.  Like Gaga and K$sha (SERIOUSLY SHE CANNOT SING FOR HER LIFE!) And Lady Gaga is just too weird for me and so opposite of EVERYTHING I believe in and my religion, so I try to avoid her music, even though some of it is pretty catchy. ;)  Black Eyed Peas are fun, and Katy Perry is so-so... her songs just get way overplayed and I'm sick of them in a week.  Taylor Swift is all right, accept she seems to sing about the same thing.  HONESTLY, I don't love anyone right now.  No one is original, every song has rap in it (why???? I don't HATE rap, I just don't enjoy it), and all the songs are about inappropriate subjects and influence kids the wrong ways! 

Woah.. sorry I sound like my mom here. :)  Just stating my opinion-- but don't get me wrong, I listen to all music and know just about any artist out there today so I'm not like against music or anything. I just think it's terrible that the only music playing these days is so explicit, in language and themes, that it's wrong.

Admins, if you move this thread to PP, please try to save my comment?  I'd hate to rewrite this whole thing.  I'm just saying this because my comment to Vida on her story was lost on the move to Inkwell.  Thanks!! <3

((Shouldn't this be in PP? Oh well.))

I like... musicals. And movie scores. Which... most of you probably know.

So! In order to avoid repetitiveness, and because I cannot seem to speak concisely about music, rather than briefly detail the numerous albums, singers, and composers whom I frequently SQUEE!! over, how about a slightly in depth analysis of some of my favourite songs? (er, for the sake of the admin having to review this, I will try to limit myself to five ish and minimal squeeing about Bernadette Peters...) 

In no particular order:

• Everybody Says Don't (Anyone Can Whistle) even though Sondheim pointed out a cleverly disguised mis-stress ("if you do them") in Finishing the Hat and now I notice it every time and it is annoying. Mainly I love this song because it is (a) ridiculously wonderful in terms of character development, (b) Hapgood is like the most amazing fictional love interest/functional lunatic EVER, (c) the character to which it is sung is so Asperger-y it isn't funny, and therefore I can Relate™, and (d) it is second only to Pretty Little Picture in terms of "well-written patter song". Anyway, this is also the song to which I turn whenever I start to have panic attacks (or after, when necessary), because the entire premise of the song itself is basically Hapgood stopping a potential panic attack dead in its tracks. I think. (it's difficult to know for sure because I haven't seen the actual script [yet. I bought it for 40$ recently, it just shipped today] and because the entire play is ridiculously convoluted) At any rate, that's how I've always interpreted it, and the circumstances would certainly seem to be the sort of thing that would trigger an anxiety/panic attack in someone like Fay ("Hey, so even though you've already admitted that you're so fixated on the rules and structure and logic, I think your best option is to tear your patients' records into little bitty pieces, on the advice of someone you met literally thirty minutes ago, sound good?"), particularly considering the rapid emotional changes from "Come Play Wiz Me" to "Anyone Can Whistle" to "Everybody Says Don't" ("romantic comedy IN FRENCH vibes" to "sad, slightly bitter, admission of Inability to Have Fun" to "passionate detail of life philosophy combined with encouragement to Learn to Have Fun", essentially). Aspergians really don't handle rapid emotional shifts like that very well. 

My favourite part is "I insist on miracles/if you do them/miracles/nothing to them/I say don't--/Don't be afraid!" (er, the mis-stress Sondheim pointed out notwithstanding). It makes me smile every time.

• Finishing the Hat (Sunday in the Park with George). "Good... let her look for me/To tell me why she left me/As I always knew she would/I had thought she understood/They have never understood/And no reason that they should.../But if anybody could..." Just... this. Given George's previous display of complete emotional detachment and inability to express his feelings for Dot, the... desperation and sadness inherent in that last, unfinished thought is just... gah.

((WHY does Sondheim turn me into a hopeless romantic?! I'm not like this normally!))

And then when George goes in and tries to justify himself, and he fixates on the hat issue, and eventually you realize just how much work went into these lyrics, because this song is proving the bit in Colour and Light when George admits he cares that Dot is (justifiably) miffed at him ("Do I care?/...Yes.") but seems to be lying because he does nothing about it... And it's still bothering him now, to the point that even his apparently happy declaration of "Look, I made a hat!" has very bitter undertones, even though this painting is literally his life's hopes, dreams, ambitions, and work all wrapped up in one gigantic canvas. And WHILE the lyrics are making it clear that George regrets pushing Dot away, they simultaneously prove his devotion to and passion for his work, something which should have been impossible because the latter caused the former, so the lyrics logically should favor one over the other, but they don't. ((This sort of thing is why I compare Sondheim to Shakespeare)) 

And of course there's "And how you're always turning back too late/From the grass and the stick and the dog and the light/And how the kind of woman willing to wait/'s not the kind that you want to find waiting..." and it was about here that the waterworks started the second time I watched the show (the first time I didn't have time for the ABSOLUTE SADNESS of that admission to sink in. Also I didn't know that the We Do Not Belong Together scene was coming up the first time, and that scene makes everything in Sunday about a thousand times worse. To say nothing of "there she is, there she is, there she is/mama is everywhere/isn't she beautiful/he must have loved her so much" from Children and Art)

The worst part, I think, is "And when the woman that you wanted goes/You can say to yourself, well I give what I give/But the woman who won't wait for you knows/That however you live, there's a part of you/Always standing by... Mapping out a sky..." because he knows that he chose to put the painting first and he knows he's trying to justify that to himself now that Dot's gone, and he knows it isn't working and that Dot was probably right to leave him and he knows that at this point, he can't change. And then like thirty seconds later the song ends on this triumphant sounding chord and it sounds like it ought to be this happy, victorious ending and it isn't. 

And that the short, slightly incoherent version of "Why Mr. Sondheim is a Genius".

• Ladies Who Lunch (Company). Post-"Oh wow that one verse is self referential I GET IT NOW" epiphany, of course (which came about... the third time I watched the 2006 film). (Also, eee the company in Jackson is doing the show, yay yay yay). 

Anyway. Not only is this song completely epic, it is a slight nervous breakdown (Sondheim has a lot of these, and he's very good at them) and sarcastic and snarky and it addresses every. single. one. of my various social insecurities (namely, the ultimate uselessness of snark, emotional detachment and the futility of trying to bridge that detachment by being "smart" or "witty", the impossibility of maintaining a façade of happiness and confidence in oneself when one harbors all these doubts in oneself, the pointlessness of trying to live in this "cold-distant-sarcastic-ice-queen" mode all the time...) and completely justifies them, WITHOUT resorting to making Joanne look foolish for falling into those traps. The last verse is... complicated. Mostly I think it's a very minor Sanity Slippage, a final declaration of Joanne's contempt for humanity and bitter acceptance of her spiteful, acerbic personality, combined with a final, fruitless attempt to unsay the things she admitted about herself in the penultimate verse. Other times I'm not entirely sure that's it, which means the song is still blatantly challenging, and it still holds the promise of one of those brilliant "THAT'S WHAT THAT MEANS! I GET IT NOW!!" moments (a lot of Sondheim's songs are like that, actually, but LWL is the most obvious example).

Also. The end. "Rise! Rise! Rise!" over and over and over, and then the music fades away and she keeps shouting... I have numerous songs about murder (Chrysanthemum Tea, Epiphany), killers (Ballad(s) of Sweeney, the entirety of Assassins), plenty of villain songs, BSoD songs, nervous breakdown songs... None of them come even close to how chilling the end of Ladies Who Lunch is. Especially in the 2006 recording, with the echoing. *shiver*

• Rose's Turn (Gypsy). Yes, yes, another nervous breakdown.

First. If you have not already done so, go look up Bernadette Peters' Tony performance of this song. Go go now. You must. It is the best performance of the song that I have ever seen. AND she was sick that day, believe it or not.

Anyway. Aside from being the most epic song ever, Rose's Turn is just chock full of crazy and awesome and sadness and terror and the major benefit of that is that it is (a) difficult to mess up [unless your name is Chris Colfer...], and (b) a treat to watch, but at the same time absolutely terrifying and uncomfortable to watch, in a good way. 

Another thing. Rose's Turn is simple, but not simplistic, which is the most important thing to note, technically speaking. It tells the story so beautifully and concisely that it doesn't need to be dressed up in fluffy symbolic bits or what-have-you. In terms of the story of a complete mental break of this domineering, egomaniacal stage mother, it does the job perfectly because it is so forward. Rose isn't subtle at the best of times, even less so when her mental distress is causing her to hallucinate. I bring this up because in "mainstream" music (by which I mean, the stuff I don't like but seems popular nevertheless, not necessarily the stuff actually categorized as "mainstream") the lesson that "simple does not mean simplistic" seems to have fallen on deaf ears. There is such a thing as too much symbolism, guys.

Also. "I had a dream/I dreamed it for you, June/It wasn't for me, Herbie/And if it wasn't for me/Then where would you be/Miss Gypsy Rose Lee?"

There is nothing more awesome than those last three lines. The bitterness, rage, despair, egomania, self-delusion, and desperation Rose is experiencing... words cannot express how deeply it all runs. And it cannot be grasped without watching a version of the song (preferably, BP's Tony performance). Seriously.

I'll stop now, because this is getting a little long.

I might add, however, that this is the way I tend to think about all my music, and most of what attracts me to musical theatre is the depth of all (er, most) of the songs. There is also still a noticeable sense of craftsmanship in most musicals (excluding, of course, jukebox musicals [except for Moulin Rouge] and musicals with music by bands, which tend to be little more than glorified concerts) and their music. 

This is something I don't find in "mainstream" music (my definition, not the normal one, that is). More and more it seems that band artists rely on sound distortion and sloppy diction to cover up the fact that their lyrics aren't well written or well thought out. And there is rarely any true substance beyond the surface meaning (though the amount of substance varies depending on genre. Pop, for instance, usually has zero substance).

And that is the short version of "Why Haley Only Listens to Musicals and Movie Scores". I'd probably rant more, but I know a lot of people here like pop (including the thread creator, in this case), and I've probably stepped on enough toes as it is. For which I apologize, I'll go be a music snob elsewhere for a while. 

Haha, thanks for "limiting" your post TNO -Admin

Also, Sam, are you new? I don't think I've seen you around. If so, *hi*! Welcome to the CB!

If not, umm, I'll crawl under a rock and be embarrassed for a while now. 

I like Lady Gaga, Taylor Swift is cool. I like Miley Cyrus's music and I used to be a HUGE fan but she's gone a bit crazy so I'm not a big fan anymore. I have a mowtown CD with some of their hits and I absolutely love it!! I'm a pop person but I also like other genres. Except rap!! It hurts my ears and they have a lot of swear words that they like to say. Also most of what they say is unimportant and kind of stupid. The only rap I can stand is Flo Rida and Black Eyed Peas. 

I like Katy Perry too but I mean who uses song lyrics like: "Do you ever feel like you're a plastic bag?" I mean come on!!

I think some people elctronize their songs too much so that you can't get if they sing well or not...

I play piano. Does anyone else play piano? And for how long. I've been playing for a year or so... 

@RD-- I agree with you about Ke$ha. I mean she seriously CANNOT sing. It's like she sings off key purposfully. But I have to admit, her songs are pretty catchy.

I'm not really 'NEW' to CB, I'm just mostly on PP. I did post a couple of times on some warriors and HP threads. I was Sunblaze in Crystalclan. So ya, not really new, not really old. But ya. Anywayz, I TOTALY agree with you guys about Ke$ha, the only song I like by her is Tick Tock. Thats it. Otherwise she's AWFULL!!!!! I hate that all the songs I consider good have like "inapropriate" stuff in them. (Sorry Admins!) I'm ify on Miley Cyrus. Don't get me wrong I hate her now, but I used to like most of her songs. Anyway, I also like Pillar. IDK if any of you've heard of them, but they don't have any dirty songs that I know of. My favorite song by them is either Shine or Rewind. They're rock, but they're REALLY good! I don't like clasical, plain and simple. I mean, some songs are OK, but honestly I DONT LIKE IT AT ALL! (No offense to anyone. For the people who like classical, I'm sorry, but that's just my opinion.)

BTW, I showed up around August last year as Sunblaze & Ravenfrost.