[tell security we bout to tear this club up]
OH MAN. OH MAN. I'VE FIGURED IT OUT. I'VE FIGURED OUT WHY I DON'T LIKE ANDREW LLOYD WEBBER.
Okay, there is backstory here, and it starts in middle school. Originally, I didn't like Webber's music because everyone I knew was creaming themselves over Phantom of the Opera and I wasn't a huge fan, and because I was in middle school and so ~edgy omg!!!~, this translated into loathing him, because that was cool, right? Then in high school I saw Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, and really didn't like that either, but I was cooler about it. For three or fours years he settled into the "not my thing" section of my musical taste and I left him there, completely uninspired by his music but not sure why. (I've seen Phantom on Broadway, by the way. It was on last year's spring orchestra trip. I enjoyed myself immensely without actually liking anything about the actual substance of the show, because oh my god the set changes. If nothing else, the man knows how to put on a damn show.)
Welp, this semester's GIANT MUSICAL THING is an Andrew Lloyd Webber production. We are singing all the ALW. All of it. Literally every show he's done will be represented. We'll be performing a song that hasn't actually been done in the U.S. before. It's in two months and one night is already completely sold out. They're revamping our theater to contain this show. It is bigger than even Carmina Burana was-- every single department of the fine arts college and even some departments not in the fine arts college are collaborating on this gigantic, over-the-top, ridiculous production. So I have been immersed in this music for a few weeks now, and will be immersing myself in it for some time to come.
And having immersed myself in it, I have figured out why I don't like Webber's music.
It's simple: There is nothing in which to immerse oneself.
There is, quite simply, nothing there. This music is made entirely out of gimmick. You peel that away, and there is nothing-- no emotion, no virtuosity, nothing to enjoy, nothing to take away. A lot of non-musicians adore Andrew Lloyd Webber. The vast majority of musicians I've met can't stand his music (with the exception of a few vocalists, who admittedly can have a little more fun with it than most instrumentalists). This is because when you have to play or sing something for months and months, you have to get to know it. You have to live in it. With a good piece, you learn something new about it, about the way you play it, every time you return to it; making music is drawing the emotion out of what is already there on the page. It's addicting. It's art. We spend far too much of our existences alone with our music, trying to craft it into something perfect, trying to live up to what is written before us-- all the music is there, buried under the notes. It's a matter of having the skill and the delicacy to bring out its full potential, and the gloriously frustrating feeling of inadequacy when we almost inevitably can't do it.
Webber, I've found, doesn't have that. What's written is written. There is nothing else there. It's frustrating, not because there's something there to find, but because you hunt and hunt through this music for something to care about, some emotion worth conveying, and it's just not there.
Argument: Music doesn't have to be emotional all the time. It's musical theater, it's meant to be entertaining, it doesn't have to be ~deep~ and ~frustrating~ when all it's meant to do is make people smile for a few hours and then go home in a better mood. You wouldn't ask Jason Derulo for a fucking Bach cantata, don't ask Andrew Lloyd Webber for deep, life-changing virtuosity.
Okay, yeah, point. But the thing is, music can be light and entertaining and silly without being shit. I think of Gershwin, and the music I played for Crazy For You, and songs like I've Got Rhythm - it's light, it's happy, the lyrics are nothing deep, but oh god, the shit you can do with it! There's nothing else you can do with Webber. It's jazzy without being jazz. There's nothing to build on. You could change it up, I suppose, but that's not what it's there for. There's nothing alive about it.
And okay, we're getting deep into "well, that's just, like, your opinion" territory here, but it's irritating. His music is so mediocre it bothers me. It's so fucking packed with gimmicks-- the silly jazz chords tacked onto an ending with no motion, just to make it do something. The stupid key changes, to make the second half of a song sound something more than identical to the first. The fucking choir-ography (it's like choreography, only more annoying and possible to do in place on a riser).
And I guess this might be partly a matter of taste. How do you determine the difference between art and a gimmick, after all? Why is a baroque grace note art, but Webber can't tack a high c-sharp onto the end of "Light At the End of the Tunnel" without me wasting half an hour to bitch about it? Why is it cool when Sondheim makes assassination attempts into a carnival game, but Webber can't put people on roller skates and call them trains?
...Well, because in Webber, there's nothing else there. The high c-sharp is not a central part of the phrase. It's not there to serve any real musical purpose. It could be lower down in the choir part (actually, it is-- the tenors have it, too) and the chord would still be complete. It's there to be flashy, to be gigantic, to make people go, "Wow! This is cool shit!" No. It's not. A really fucking high note is not a substitute for good music. It has no real context. It's not even a soloist singing it-- it's just there in the soprano line to serve absolutely no purpose.
And it goes further. Sondheim's Assassins isn't about a carnival game. It's about the dark side of the American dream, and moral ambiguity, and people struggling for what they want, and the laughable, pathetic futility of their desires. Starlight Express is about... people on roller skates who are trains. It doesn't go deeper than that (according to Wiki, however, it remains the most popular musical in Germany, which is perplexing and kind of hilarious, but then again these are the people who gave us OBAMA: THE MUSICAL, so yeah, okay).
And you could argue again that a musical doesn't have to have a deep, complex plot to be good. And that's true. Look back at Crazy For You, which is just a bunch of Gershwin songs tacked together posthumously around a cursory plot. But again, at least the music in that one stands up to scrutiny. If your music is ballin', your plot is perfectly within its rights to be there just to showcase the music. If your plot is artful, your music only has to support it as much as required to bring it to life. Webber, though, has neither. Neither plot nor music is good enough to warrant either being as lifeless as they are.
...Okay, I've talked about this too much. Let me finish by saying this: Having immersed myself in Webber, I can honestly say that there are songs of his I like. There are songs of his that are genuinely good. Just because 90% of what we're singing irritates the everliving fuck out of me doesn't mean it's not, at times, really enjoyable. We're not singing it, but I loved the sequence in Phantom where all the characters sing at once-- and some of the shout-outs to traditional opera were genuinely awesome. I've always liked "Don't Cry For Me, Argentina" (shut up). Jesus Christ Superstar has its shining moments. Even Joseph and the Unnecessarily Long Title can be pretty okay sometimes (except for the chimes-- NEVER START WITH CHIMES this is like RULE NUMBER ONE OH MY GOD). And his Pie Jesu! Holy shit, dude! Write more things like that! Overall, though, I remain unimpressed. I can't wait for this show to be over. Thank god we're also singing Bach, Schubert, and Whitacre, or I would skip a lot of choir.
BUT YEAH for those few still actually reading (anyone here? anyone?), those are my thoughts on yaoi Webber. I hope I haven't estranged anyone permanently-- I don't mean to come off as the kind of bitch who'd hate on other people's music choices. I don't like performing Webber at all, but then again I have also listened to this song four times just today. (I do recognize that anything Webber produces, while it may not be high art, will always be better than this, however catchy it may be, okay.)
Come on, everybody! Sing with me in the name of diverse musical tastes! E'ERYBOOODYYYYYY! SHOTS! SHOTS! SHOTS SHOTS SHOTS SHOTS! IF YOU AIN'T GETTIN DRUNK GET THE FUCK OUT THE CLUUUUUB!
why do i even try to talk about music intelligently, when will i learn that i can't talk
Okay, there is backstory here, and it starts in middle school. Originally, I didn't like Webber's music because everyone I knew was creaming themselves over Phantom of the Opera and I wasn't a huge fan, and because I was in middle school and so ~edgy omg!!!~, this translated into loathing him, because that was cool, right? Then in high school I saw Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, and really didn't like that either, but I was cooler about it. For three or fours years he settled into the "not my thing" section of my musical taste and I left him there, completely uninspired by his music but not sure why. (I've seen Phantom on Broadway, by the way. It was on last year's spring orchestra trip. I enjoyed myself immensely without actually liking anything about the actual substance of the show, because oh my god the set changes. If nothing else, the man knows how to put on a damn show.)
Welp, this semester's GIANT MUSICAL THING is an Andrew Lloyd Webber production. We are singing all the ALW. All of it. Literally every show he's done will be represented. We'll be performing a song that hasn't actually been done in the U.S. before. It's in two months and one night is already completely sold out. They're revamping our theater to contain this show. It is bigger than even Carmina Burana was-- every single department of the fine arts college and even some departments not in the fine arts college are collaborating on this gigantic, over-the-top, ridiculous production. So I have been immersed in this music for a few weeks now, and will be immersing myself in it for some time to come.
And having immersed myself in it, I have figured out why I don't like Webber's music.
It's simple: There is nothing in which to immerse oneself.
There is, quite simply, nothing there. This music is made entirely out of gimmick. You peel that away, and there is nothing-- no emotion, no virtuosity, nothing to enjoy, nothing to take away. A lot of non-musicians adore Andrew Lloyd Webber. The vast majority of musicians I've met can't stand his music (with the exception of a few vocalists, who admittedly can have a little more fun with it than most instrumentalists). This is because when you have to play or sing something for months and months, you have to get to know it. You have to live in it. With a good piece, you learn something new about it, about the way you play it, every time you return to it; making music is drawing the emotion out of what is already there on the page. It's addicting. It's art. We spend far too much of our existences alone with our music, trying to craft it into something perfect, trying to live up to what is written before us-- all the music is there, buried under the notes. It's a matter of having the skill and the delicacy to bring out its full potential, and the gloriously frustrating feeling of inadequacy when we almost inevitably can't do it.
Webber, I've found, doesn't have that. What's written is written. There is nothing else there. It's frustrating, not because there's something there to find, but because you hunt and hunt through this music for something to care about, some emotion worth conveying, and it's just not there.
Argument: Music doesn't have to be emotional all the time. It's musical theater, it's meant to be entertaining, it doesn't have to be ~deep~ and ~frustrating~ when all it's meant to do is make people smile for a few hours and then go home in a better mood. You wouldn't ask Jason Derulo for a fucking Bach cantata, don't ask Andrew Lloyd Webber for deep, life-changing virtuosity.
Okay, yeah, point. But the thing is, music can be light and entertaining and silly without being shit. I think of Gershwin, and the music I played for Crazy For You, and songs like I've Got Rhythm - it's light, it's happy, the lyrics are nothing deep, but oh god, the shit you can do with it! There's nothing else you can do with Webber. It's jazzy without being jazz. There's nothing to build on. You could change it up, I suppose, but that's not what it's there for. There's nothing alive about it.
And okay, we're getting deep into "well, that's just, like, your opinion" territory here, but it's irritating. His music is so mediocre it bothers me. It's so fucking packed with gimmicks-- the silly jazz chords tacked onto an ending with no motion, just to make it do something. The stupid key changes, to make the second half of a song sound something more than identical to the first. The fucking choir-ography (it's like choreography, only more annoying and possible to do in place on a riser).
And I guess this might be partly a matter of taste. How do you determine the difference between art and a gimmick, after all? Why is a baroque grace note art, but Webber can't tack a high c-sharp onto the end of "Light At the End of the Tunnel" without me wasting half an hour to bitch about it? Why is it cool when Sondheim makes assassination attempts into a carnival game, but Webber can't put people on roller skates and call them trains?
...Well, because in Webber, there's nothing else there. The high c-sharp is not a central part of the phrase. It's not there to serve any real musical purpose. It could be lower down in the choir part (actually, it is-- the tenors have it, too) and the chord would still be complete. It's there to be flashy, to be gigantic, to make people go, "Wow! This is cool shit!" No. It's not. A really fucking high note is not a substitute for good music. It has no real context. It's not even a soloist singing it-- it's just there in the soprano line to serve absolutely no purpose.
And it goes further. Sondheim's Assassins isn't about a carnival game. It's about the dark side of the American dream, and moral ambiguity, and people struggling for what they want, and the laughable, pathetic futility of their desires. Starlight Express is about... people on roller skates who are trains. It doesn't go deeper than that (according to Wiki, however, it remains the most popular musical in Germany, which is perplexing and kind of hilarious, but then again these are the people who gave us OBAMA: THE MUSICAL, so yeah, okay).
And you could argue again that a musical doesn't have to have a deep, complex plot to be good. And that's true. Look back at Crazy For You, which is just a bunch of Gershwin songs tacked together posthumously around a cursory plot. But again, at least the music in that one stands up to scrutiny. If your music is ballin', your plot is perfectly within its rights to be there just to showcase the music. If your plot is artful, your music only has to support it as much as required to bring it to life. Webber, though, has neither. Neither plot nor music is good enough to warrant either being as lifeless as they are.
...Okay, I've talked about this too much. Let me finish by saying this: Having immersed myself in Webber, I can honestly say that there are songs of his I like. There are songs of his that are genuinely good. Just because 90% of what we're singing irritates the everliving fuck out of me doesn't mean it's not, at times, really enjoyable. We're not singing it, but I loved the sequence in Phantom where all the characters sing at once-- and some of the shout-outs to traditional opera were genuinely awesome. I've always liked "Don't Cry For Me, Argentina" (shut up). Jesus Christ Superstar has its shining moments. Even Joseph and the Unnecessarily Long Title can be pretty okay sometimes (except for the chimes-- NEVER START WITH CHIMES this is like RULE NUMBER ONE OH MY GOD). And his Pie Jesu! Holy shit, dude! Write more things like that! Overall, though, I remain unimpressed. I can't wait for this show to be over. Thank god we're also singing Bach, Schubert, and Whitacre, or I would skip a lot of choir.
BUT YEAH for those few still actually reading (anyone here? anyone?), those are my thoughts on yaoi Webber. I hope I haven't estranged anyone permanently-- I don't mean to come off as the kind of bitch who'd hate on other people's music choices. I don't like performing Webber at all, but then again I have also listened to this song four times just today. (I do recognize that anything Webber produces, while it may not be high art, will always be better than this, however catchy it may be, okay.)
Come on, everybody! Sing with me in the name of diverse musical tastes! E'ERYBOOODYYYYYY! SHOTS! SHOTS! SHOTS SHOTS SHOTS SHOTS! IF YOU AIN'T GETTIN DRUNK GET THE FUCK OUT THE CLUUUUUB!
why do i even try to talk about music intelligently, when will i learn that i can't talk