[radiotone]

from music critic Francis Davis (husband of Terry Gross, btw), writing on Bacharach in the Atlantic iMonthly in June, 1997:

'A breakthrough show in its own time, for merging traditional Broadway song forms with contemporary pop rhythms, Promises, Promises has always seemed to me to have been the secret inspiration for Sondheim's Company."

I'd agree with Davis, even if the influence on Sondheim was subconscious. Sondheim's Company score does have some dissonances and tricky bits used in the context of accessible music, which reminds me of Bacharach mixing it up in the same way. And both feature very adult / cynical views of relations between men and women.