Sneezy's Music - The Musical Edition

I love musicals. I've known for years that I love them. Still, even now, I'll start listening to a Broadway-style song, and it will irritate me to no end for the first 45 seconds. The performers act with their singing, and at first, it sounds like obnoxious overacting. However, as the singers continue, they never waver in adding as much oomph as possible, and I realize it's not obnoxious overacting. It's unashamed theatricality, and I love it! So much emotion. That's the other part I love. Musicals contain so much emotion because the characters are allowed to sing out their feelings in expository fashion, and it's believable because, well, they burst into song in the first place. If you can take that, you can take their expository singing. It's so much drama, in such a fantastic way. Like soap operas, only good, with singing and costumes and occurrences that never take place in real life. Musicals are forever young.

Wicked
Wicked is a fractured version of The Wizard of Oz. In Wicked, the Wicked Witch of the West (or Elphaba) is the hero, shunned by the multitudes because she was born with green skin. The wizard is the villain, who, I think, steals the voices of the anthropomorphic animals of Oz. He also tries to kill Elphaba. Forever determined to be good, Elphaba makes it her mission to stop the evil wizard. Because of this, the people of Oz label her "wicked." Idina Menzel plays Elphaba, and Kristin Chenowerth plays Galinda. I hope they make a movie of this musical because, even after listening to and reading about it, I'm not sure what all happens. All its songs are so clever. I shall take you step by step through the three that here appear.

The Wizard and I
She sings so wonderfully, so fiercely, it's hard not to sing along. As you can see, it's a happy song, but it holds some pretty ironic foreshadowing. Elphie envisions a "celebration throughout Oz that's all to do with me." She'd be so happy she could "melt." Now, I may not have to tell you this, but all of Oz will celebrate only because she literally melts. Of course, she doesn't know that. So I'll let you decide whether it's really a happy song.



What is this Feeling?
This is so smart and funny. I may be stating the obvious again, but replace the word "loathing" with "love" or "loving" throughout the song, and you'll see it could just as well be a love song...but it's not! It's a hate based on superficial qualities, brought on in an instant, expected to last forever, but doomed to end, all just like infatuation. "It's so pure, so strong!" Heh! Ri-ight.



Dancing through Life
This song presents meaning in layers. First comes the obvious truth that life IS "more painless for the brainless." If one doesn't think, one never hurts. If one doesn't care, one is never saddened. Next comes the spoiler that Fiyero later becomes the Scarecrow. Supremely sneaky, I'd say.



I love all the songs not only because they're easy on the ears but also because they're smart. They're all worth listening to. *Hint*

Jekyll and Hyde
I find this song so pretty, and the picture pretty cool. I like other songs from this musical, but this one sticks most in my mind.

No One Knows Who I Am



Spiderman Turn off the Dark
Yes, they have created a Broadway musical of Spiderman. At first, this seemed like a completely ridiculous idea. How can the Spiderman we know from the movies be contained in a tiny stage when he should be swinging around from New York skyscrapers? From the preview below, though, they will have some pretty amazing effects. And you know, the movies didn't capture it well, but Spiderman is a pretty emotional chronicle, as I know it from the 1992 TV series. It's like a soap opera, but glorious, with goblins and black holes and science and genetic mutation and cloning, instead of lame stuff like ex-husbands. In other words, Spiderman's sort of perfect for a musical.


Preview
I hope it does well, so that it runs a long time, so that I can still go see it when I'm rich.



Rise Above
I like this song well enough. It's a bit repetitive, but, eh. I'm not sure if they've released more songs. To be honest, I only started looking today because I didn't feel that two musicals was enough for this post.

I'm through with Playing by the Rules of Someone Else's Game...should "through" be capitalized?

I just finished my first ever college exam. Yay! It's done. I did okay. I missed, like, three questions. One was worded badly, the other was a trick question, and whatever was wrong with the third it wasn't my fault!

To celebrate, I treated myself to writing this blog post. I also treated myself to an early luncheon, and not just any early luncheon, a food-based early luncheon, more expensive than its comparative non-food-based early luncheon. Also, I called it a luncheon.

Here's a song I listened to while studying.



Concerning the filmishness of this video, at 0:20 where it starts at her feet and pans up as she walks? Usually, that would be done in slow motion, but I think it looks even stronger for the fact that it's in regular motion. She's walking normal. It looks cool.

Also, I have a really hard time distinguishing between music genres. What constitutes pop? What constitutes rock? What constitutes hip-hop? I like any music that sounds like music to my ears, and that encompasses a wide range of genre songs that just happen to mesh with my soul. I do find most of them in pop/rock, though. From what I can TELL, the above song is kind of rock, because it's heavy on the guitars and drums. I like that. It meshes with my soul. It's also kind of techno, though, because it repeats itself a lot. Some techno meshes with my soul, too, especially when it repeats CATCHY phrases again and again. I've never heard of rock/techno before, but I bet this would be it.

I have no idea what the lyrics mean. And THAT means, while I can't say they mesh with my soul, I can't say they do the opposite of meshing with my soul. Actually, a word or two may almost certainly not mesh with my soul. Did I say the word "mesh" yet? I hope it means what I think it means.

Anyway, to be honest, I just found this song yesterday, but still.

There's a song I listened to while studying.

Here is a song I listened to while...happily bobbing my head. (It contains a swear word, but I couldn't find a version without it, so just ignore it.)




Here is a song I listened to while psyching myself up to write a terrifyingly long paper last year.



This song actually makes me feel like I can fly. It's the combination of the loud Broadway-style singing, the beautiful high notes, the uplifting and determined lyrics, the euphoric melody, and the instruments in the background. It makes me feel like I can take over the world! "I'm through accepting limits 'cause someone says they're so! . . . To those who ground me, take a message back from me! Tell them how I'm defying gravity! . . . And nobody in all of Oz, no wizard that there is or was, is ever gonna bring me down!" All the sentences earn their exclamation marks. Do any among you love this song as much as I do?

Here's the song set to some neat storyboard sketches at this blog: http://heidigilbert.blogspot.com/2010/09/dear-stephen-schwartz.html


Here's a song that makes my heart burst in the gentlest way.



It is just so, so, so PRETTY. I'd heard Vivaldi's Rain before this of course, but I'd never heard it with words, and the vocals just heaven-ize it.

Here's another pretty song, but one much sadder.




Well, I want to do another post soon. I'll see if I get to it today...But I probably won't.