"Honeymoon in Vegas" sounds like a grown up version of "13" with all those stupid lyrics. Example: "like Jay Z and Beyonce, I'm going to make her my fiance"... who the hell is going to know who they are 40, 50 years from now. Not a fan of Jason Robert Brown's music to any of his shows, nor HIM. In all the interviews I've seen of him, he sounds like a know it all asshole. *personal opinion.
^You're not too far off. There's definitely an air of superiority and he seems to think very highly of himself and his work including 13 which was the topic of discussion when I met him. I fought to keep a straight face.
I forget who said it (it was an author, though), related to using modern day references in creative work, and how that could potentially date the material in the future. And their take was that it is a needless concern, because in the majority of cases, if the work isn't relevant when it comes out when everyone gets the reference, the future doesn't matter. And if it is relevant when it comes out, it captures the period in which it was created, and locks the work into a specific time.
Cole Porter's Youre The Top uses what were then contemporary references that make no sense to us now (does anyone really get the reference to the Roxy usher pants???) ....and Stephen Sondheim turned the contemporary reference lyrics on its ear with I'm Still Here from Follies, a 1970's showtune with 50 year old cultural references....I dont think it has diminished either showtune over the years...
One thing that irks me about JRB is that he retweets every positive piece of feedback that he finds about himself on Twitter. He clearly goes out of his way to search for it all given that a good bit of them aren't even tweeted directly at him. To me, that's a sign of an over-inflated ego.
I even have friends who refer to him as "that composer" when they tweet about him to avoid attracting his attention. Updated On: 10/31/14 at 06:49 PM
I find songs with references that are so specific, so corny. Like what if Jay Z & Beyonce divorce? THAT song would not support it's purpose to the story at all. Had the lyrics not said specific people it wouldn't matter. I know it's just ONE SONG. Another REALLY dumb choice for a show, not lyrics to a song but CHARACTER is Gary Coleman in Avenue Q. I don't even know who he is. I feel like the piece would be more "tony winning"/respected if they didn't even name that character as a known celebrity (to some people). It dates it so bad.
If a Jay-Z/Beyonce reference is so integral to the storytelling that a change in their marital status would affect the audience's ability to follow the show, then they have much bigger problems to worry about.
As to Gary Coleman, I do wonder if that character was more accessible to audiences, then they might have won Best Musical, Best Book Of A Musical, and Best Original Score. I guess we'll never know.
Where in my initial post did I say I followed him, haterobics? I never have. I learned of his habit when I tweeted about how much I enjoyed Bridges, and he retweeted my praise despite the fact that I hadn't directed the tweet at him.
Well, it seems like it would take some amount of due diligence to know that "he retweets every positive piece of feedback that he finds about himself on Twitter," no? That would be quite a leap based on one tweet from last season.
I mentioned friends who were familiar with his tweeting style, did I not? It was my hope that based upon the information I shared in my two posts that you'd be able to ascertain for yourself that they described their experiences of following and tweeting about his work to me, but I see now that you needed that all spelled out for you.