Jaded Mandarin
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Bad songs from good showsI started a thread on "Good Songs From Bad Shows", so I think it's only fair to balance it out by starting a thread on bad songs from good shows...
I know many will argue that "Les Miserables" is a bad musical, but as far as 80s mega musicals go, it is certainly one of the more mature and thoughtful ones.... but there are a few songs in it that I really don't like... "Castle On A Cloud" I find to be almost nauseating in it's sentimentality and I really REALLY dislike "Little People" - it's not very funny and it stops the story dead in it's tracks at a really dramatic moment... but I especially dislike the reprise of the song when Gavroche has just been shot, it always makes me feel like screaming out
"JUST ---- DIE ALREADY!!!!"
I mean, really, how many bullets does it take to shut that kid up????
Also, although they are not bad songs per se, I find it hard to take "I Dreamed A Dream" and "On My Own" seriously any more as they have been so overexposed outside the context of the show. Even when they are performed brilliantly, they kinda take me out of the story and remind me of all the many many many many bad cover versions and audition-renditions I've heard.
And although I know I'm going to get hammered for this, as criticising anything Stephen Sondheim has done is generally considered blasphemous, I was never really fond of "Gee Officer Krupkee" from "West Side Story"... it just never struck me as being particularly funny and I didn't really feel that I needed or wanted comic relief at that point in the story anyway.
Now, please feel free to list what you think are some examples of bad songs from good shows...
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UKDeer42
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I do have to agree with you in defining Les Miserables as a good musical just to begin with, and I do agree that there are some bad eggs from it (even though I absolutely adore the show), but I do have to disagree with you with some of your choices, mainly with "I Dreamed A Dream" and all of Gavroche's songs - I can understand what you mean by them detracting from the main plot but what they do do is create the apropriate atmosphere to tell the message of the story - "I Dreamed A Dream" tells us how life can ruin us when we feel it can't go wrong and is designed to make us feel that the poor are all decent people who've just been bullied by fate and evoke sympathy not only for Fantine but for the other poor people, so it doesn't tell the story directly but creates its atmosphere. And I think it is the same thing with "Little People" - not only does it lighten the audience's mood before it comes crashing down, a bit harder as well with the contrast, but is designed to create sympathy that the audience can reflect on the students with the idea of life being taken unjustly and too soon from those who haven't had the chance to live it yet. But that's just my opinion  the reprise of little people I found emotional but it's just me.
But I definitely think the worst song from that musical is "A Heart Full Of Love"... I just find it nausiatingly soppy and fustraiting and frankly pointless. I mean it's not as if we haven't had enough song time devoted to Marius, Eponine and Cossette's bloody love lives - why can't we have some more time devoted to developing the characters of the other students rather than just representing them as hopeful fools?
But anyway I haven't seen West Side Story so I can't really say much about that song but I can understand what you mean - it's annoying that shows try to cram in too much humor aproriately to appeal to the critics, rather than just tell a story in a serious but interesting way. And even though I do love Stephen Sondheim I see nothing wrong with criticising him. Writers are people, not gods, and all people make mistakes and produce bad things as well as good so we shouldn't feel afraid to say nay to something we don't like just because it had a big name next to it. However I can't really think of more songs that I don't like from good musicals at the moment. I might come up with a few more later on o.o
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SmallTownIngenue
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Okay, it's really not a "bad" song, but I got SO SICK of "It Takes Two" from Into the Woods when I was in the show. Mainly because at every promo event, our Baker and Baker's Wife sang that song. It's not terrible, but it's defintely one of the weaker songs in the show, IMO.
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High-baritonne
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| UKDeer42 wrote: | | But anyway I haven't seen West Side Story so I can't really say much about that song but I can understand what you mean - it's annoying that shows try to cram in too much humor aproriately to appeal to the critics, rather than just tell a story in a serious but interesting way. And even though I do love Stephen Sondheim I see nothing wrong with criticising him. Writers are people, not gods, and all people make mistakes and produce bad things as well as good so we shouldn't feel afraid to say nay to something we don't like just because it had a big name next to it. However I can't really think of more songs that I don't like from good musicals at the moment. I might come up with a few more later on o.o |
First of all, art can never be right, thus can it never be wrong. Secondly, Stephen Sondheim wrote all the lyrics to West Side Story as poetry, not as lyrics. He was strictly told by Bernstein how to write the lyrics, and Sondheim himself has stated that he is most unpleased with most of the lyrics in West Side Story because he and Bernstein had such different views about poetry. While Bernstein thought it to be dramatic metaphors and pictures, Sondheim thinks poetry to be the simple words, to say as much as you can with as little as possible.
This is mainly the reasons for some of the minor flaws with the score.
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SomeoneLikeYou
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Re: Bad songs from good shows | Jaded Mandarin wrote: | | "Gee Officer Krupkee" from "West Side Story"... it just never struck me as being particularly funny and I didn't really feel that I needed or wanted comic relief at that point in the story anyway. |
Actually, "Officer Krupke" is my favorite song in that show! Ah well. To each their own!
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Sphynx
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I don't know your definition of "good show", but as far as popularity goes, I can not STAND "Popular" from Wicked.
It's my least favorite song out of the entire musical. I literally cringe every time I hear it.
I have to agree with "A Heart Full of Love". Never cared for that song either, and I have a huge problem with one of the lyrics in "Drink With Me". Marius is whining about how he'll never survive without Cosette, and life without her is meaningless. Um . . didn't your best friend in the world, who you claimed to love like a sister, die in your arms like. . FIVE minutes ago? What a way to twist that knife a little deeper!
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Vichysois
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"Learn Your Lessons Well" from Godspell (cause I think it's a good show).
Schwartz admitted that he and Tebelak threw that song in because they felt like there was too much time in the show with no song in between, and because the original Gilmer didn't have a solo piece. The song has just seemed out of place and gratuitous in every production I've seen and been in. On the OOBC, it's just the singer and piano...and it just seems half-assed. The revival records tried to jazz it up, which was only momentarily amusing. But ultimately I feel it's a useless number, and the one that feels most like "Hey, let's sing and dance for no reason!". Yes, I know that's a theatre contrivance...but I feel that theatre is most effective when that contrivance is seamless.
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Salome
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Re: Bad songs from good shows | SomeoneLikeYou wrote: | | Jaded Mandarin wrote: | | "Gee Officer Krupkee" from "West Side Story"... it just never struck me as being particularly funny and I didn't really feel that I needed or wanted comic relief at that point in the story anyway. |
Actually, "Officer Krupke" is my favorite song in that show! Ah well. To each their own! |
its my favorite too. i personally think WSS is over rated as whole.
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Vanessa20
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| Sphynx wrote: | | I have to agree with "A Heart Full of Love". Never cared for that song either, and I have a huge problem with one of the lyrics in "Drink With Me". Marius is whining about how he'll never survive without Cosette, and life without her is meaningless. Um . . didn't your best friend in the world, who you claimed to love like a sister, die in your arms like. . FIVE minutes ago? What a way to twist that knife a little deeper! |
It's a good thing you didn't post this on the Les Mis board. Unless you're being sarcastic, you'd never hear the end of it. 
But I've always been bugged by those lines of Marius' too, not because of Eponine, but because it's inconsistent (nitpicky Asperger's moment here). In his letter to Cosette earlier, he wrote "I pray that God will bring me home to be with you," i.e. he's praying to survive so he can try to find her, but now he's suddenly all suicidal because he's lost her.
I don't remember if that inconsistency is in the novel or not (I do remember that the suicidal attitude is more true to his attitude in the book overall), but just on its own in the musical, I don't get it. I can only assume either that 1) he was lying to make Cosette feel better in his letter, he never really thought there was any hope of seeing her again, or 2) Eponine's death, the first battle, and now Grantaire's cynical rambling have made him depressed in general, and it's just bleeding over to the Cosette situation. Whichever is the case, I wish Schonberg and Kretzmer had made it clearer in the lyrics.
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Hans
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Re: Bad songs from good shows | UKDeer42 wrote: | | And even though I do love Stephen Sondheim I see nothing wrong with criticising him. Writers are people, not gods, and all people make mistakes and produce bad things as well as good so we shouldn't feel afraid to say nay to something we don't like just because it had a big name next to it. |
I completely agree. And criticising Sondheim is often more fun than citicising others, because his mistakes tend to be more interresting than those of others.
| Jaded Mandarin wrote: | | And although I know I'm going to get hammered for this, as criticising anything Stephen Sondheim has done is generally considered blasphemous |
So this has nothing to do with hammering pewople for blasphemy....
| Jaded Mandarin wrote: | | I was never really fond of "Gee Officer Krupkee" from "West Side Story"... it just never struck me as being particularly funny and I didn't really feel that I needed or wanted comic relief at that point in the story anyway. |
...but Krupke happens to be one of the best songs in the show, along with America 
Both songs masterly sums up the background for the aggression and nihilism that motivates the antagonism in the show. They turn social science into poetry, and WITTY poetry. Which is the best sort of poetry 
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Disney-Bway27
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I dislike "Something Just Broke" from Assassins immensely. Sorry, Steve.
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