STEREOPHONIC Original Broadway Cast Recording Thread- Page 4
STEREOPHONIC Original Broadway Cast Recording Thread
#75STEREOPHONIC Original Broadway Cast Recording Thread
Posted: 5/11/24 at 10:43am
macnyc said: "When I was watching the show, I was disappointed that the musical numbers were few and far between. I think the play would have benefited from some subtle cuts off its three-hours-plus running time and had a few more of Butler's tunes inserted.
For those of you who have listened to the album, is there a reason the songs were not included? Maybe they didn't fit into the narrative?"
What you’re essentially asking is why this wasn’t a more traditional musical. And the answer to why it’s not is that David Adjmi wrote a play, not a musical. It’s fine if you didn’t like it as much as if it were more aligned with traditional musical sensibilities (songs driving the narrative vs. supplementing it), but I generally find questions of “Why didn’t they do X instead of Y?” pretty useless, since the only real answer is “Because they didn’t.”
That being said, Will Butler wrote songs for specific moments where Adjmi wanted music to play. And instead of writing 10-second snippets or 1-minute starts of songs for the times where we don’t hear the whole thing, he found a way to write whole songs that could be repurposed however they fit dramatically. It’s similar to how Sondheim wrote “A Weekend in the Country” for A Little Night Music: stage the scene, plot it out, and write the song to meet the play where it’s at.
At the end of the day, it’s a play about a band recording an album and all that entails for their interpersonal dynamic. The music we hear is deployed for specific dramatic effect, and all the other songs on the album that we don’t hear were possibly a part of it in some way at some point, but they were cut (or cut down/repurposed for incidental music used in act transitions) for time for the same reason dialogue is cut: to focus the narrative.
bear88
Broadway Legend Joined: 4/26/16
#76STEREOPHONIC Original Broadway Cast Recording Thread
Posted: 5/11/24 at 9:11pm
macnyc said: "When I was watching the show, I was disappointed that the musical numbers were few and far between. I think the play would have benefited from some subtle cuts off its three-hours-plus running time and had a few more of Butler's tunes inserted.
For those of you who have listened to the album, is there a reason the songs were not included? Maybe they didn't fit into the narrative?
Another question: For the Best Score Tony, does the committee just judge the music that is in the play, or would they take the whole album into consideration?
Wouldn’t those count, for Tony Awards purposes, as cut songs? It would be different for music awards like the Grammys.
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Is Bright the only full song that is in the play?
#77STEREOPHONIC Original Broadway Cast Recording Thread
Posted: 5/11/24 at 10:22pm
bear88 said:
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Is Bright the only full song that is in the play?
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At least as far as the band is concerned, the only full song we hear is “Masquerade” before intermission. “Bright” is technically still truncated from its final form, since they mention it’s about 6 minutes long; the longest on their album. We hear what I assume is the entirety of the song between “Bright (Fast)” and “Bright (Take 22)” since there are differences in the lyrics, though neither version is the full version the band would have released in their actual album. But we do hear the entirety of those three songs from the real-life album in the show.
bear88
Broadway Legend Joined: 4/26/16
#78STEREOPHONIC Original Broadway Cast Recording Thread
Posted: 5/11/24 at 10:40pm
ColorTheHours048 said: "bear88 said:
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Is Bright the only full song that is in the play?
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Thanks.
#79STEREOPHONIC Original Broadway Cast Recording Thread
Posted: 5/12/24 at 9:45am
macnyc said: "Another question: For the Best Score Tony, does the committee just judge the music that is in the play, or would they take the whole album into consideration?"
Since they're judging the best score written for the theater rather than an album, I'm quite sure they're only supposed to consider what's on stage. I'm almost as sure that the Stereophonic people are distributing copies of the full cast recording to Tony voters for their consideration.
Dreamboy3
Understudy Joined: 10/8/18
#80STEREOPHONIC Original Broadway Cast Recording Thread
Posted: 5/12/24 at 10:02am
Does anyone else have trouble understanding the lyrics? Both in the play and on the album.
#81STEREOPHONIC Original Broadway Cast Recording Thread
Posted: 5/12/24 at 10:22am
Somehow this album slaps even harder on a Sunday.
Miss10036
Understudy Joined: 6/21/22
#82STEREOPHONIC Original Broadway Cast Recording Thread
Posted: 5/12/24 at 12:05pm
It does! I've been looping the album all "sunday moooornin'" and have been for the past few days. While Drive and Bright (Take 22) are probably my favorite tracks, this morning I keep looping the part of Masquerade before "I'll see you when I get there" to chase the high of hearing that part live.
raddersons
Broadway Legend Joined: 11/14/13
#83STEREOPHONIC Original Broadway Cast Recording Thread
Posted: 5/13/24 at 12:26am
I love all these songs but… Masquerade is really just everything.
#84STEREOPHONIC Original Broadway Cast Recording Thread
Posted: 5/13/24 at 9:03am
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I seem to remember we also hear quite a bit of "Drive" in the play.
“I knew who I was this morning, but I've changed a few times since then.”
#85STEREOPHONIC Original Broadway Cast Recording Thread
Posted: 5/13/24 at 9:06am
Has Will Butler talked at all about his process creating the songs for the show? I'd love to read any interview that people are aware of. I would 'guess' that he wrote the songs in their entirety first and they selected the desired building block pieces of each to show the evolution of the songs as is relative to the script, but of course I could be completely wrong.
“I knew who I was this morning, but I've changed a few times since then.”
#86STEREOPHONIC Original Broadway Cast Recording Thread
Posted: 5/13/24 at 9:13am
QueenAlice said: "Has Will Butler talked at all about his process creating the songs for the show? I'd love to read any interview that people are aware of. I would 'guess' that he wrote the songs in their entirety first and they selected the desired building block pieces of eachto show the evolution of the songs as is relative to the script, but of course I could be completely wrong."
From Vulture: How to Write a Fake Rock Song
