I had no idea how MUCH Andrew Lloyd Weber SUCKED....

[expatriot]

I have been exposed to the edges of the "Andrew Lloyd Weber" subculture for decades. The girls in middle school with the Phantom of the Opera T-shirts, the Les Miserable posters, etc. but I had managed to avoid ever seeing anything Andrew Lloyd Weber production until my wife goes to the video store alone and for some god awful reason picks up Phantom of the Opera. She's never seen anything Andrew Lloyd Weber either. So she gets me to watch it after I went through convulsions when she brought it home. It is so painful to watch! My wife thinks it is awful also but she is never stops watching a movie. I love old musicals but this is just awful! How did this guy get so popular?

[hobbit709]

1. Hype

[SemiCharmedQuark]

2. Les Miserable is not Andrew Lloyd Weber.

[expatriot]

5. The broadway version isn't his? I know Victor Hugo wrote the novel.

nt

[expatriot]

They all blur in my mind.

Big Budget Broadway... it kind of gives me the shivers.

[Teaser]

11. Nah, it's 2 french dudes

IIRC. IT was translated into english.
I can tolerate Les Mis, because I think the music is OK. The translated lyrics are terrible, full of cliches that rhyme.

[Left Is Write]

14. Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schoenberg.

[Swede]

8. He gave us George Costanza's ear worm.

Master of the house, doling out the charm
Ready with a handshake and an open palm
Master of the house, quick to catch your eye
Never wants a passerby to pass him by
Servant to the poor, butler to the great
Comforter, Philosopher and life long mate

[Left Is Write]

3. Jesus Christ Superstar is pretty damn good.

[mitchum]

4. Kitsch

[Elidor]

6. To quote Roger Waters,

Who is quite passionate in his loathing of Andrew Lloyd-Webber:

We cower in our shelters
With our hands over our ears
Lloyd-Webber's awful stuff
Runs for years and years and years

An earthquake hits the theatre
But the operetta lingers
Then the piano lid comes down
And breaks his fucking fingers
It's a miracle...

Roger Waters, It's A Miracle, Amused To Death

[expatriot]

10. For some reason I can not seperate Andrew Lloyd Weber in my mind

from Michael Flatley, the "lord of the dance!"


I don't know why...

[LizW]

7. Hmm. I loved it.

:shrug:

[TheProphetess]

13. Me too

I can't not quote lines from Phantom. I think it's a beautiful and tragic love story but then again, I like sappy things. :)

[progressoid]

9. Yuck

My daughter put the soundtrack to Phantom in the car. Ugg - it was so sappy, I went into diabetic shock and passed out at the wheel.

[Teaser]

12. His earlier stuff was better

He's gotten worse as he's gotten richer. Catswas pretty good, but that's likely only because he had T.S. Eliot for the lyrics.

As a composer, his only really noteworthy piece was his Requiem. A lovely work to sing.

[FredStembottom]

15. The worst dreck of all time....in a context

A.L-W is the most gawd-awful junk I have ever heard. When he is not plagiarizing, he's lame. He's the Thomas Kincaide of music.

BUT....I just finished an enjoyable (if strangely jumbled) book called "Broadway Babies Say Goodnight - Broadway Musicals Then and Now" by Mark Steyn. A book that takes a look at American musicals from their nearly accidental birth to now. Steyn manages to find a place for L-W in a kind of cycle that plays out over the years - as opposed to being a kind of sudden and virulent pop illness as he seemed to me. ("seemed to me".....IMHO.....just how he affects me - and me only. Not anyone else, living or dead or at DU)

Apparently, he is a throwback to an earlier form that we are all too young to have seen the first time around; the big, splashy extravaganza with undistinguished music and story but lots of motion, glitter and sets, sets, sets!

This apparently was the norm about 100 years ago. So A.L-W is just a gilded-age form of entertainment to go with our return to gilded-age politics!:rant:

[Atlas Mugged]

18. Thank you

"He's the Thomas Kincaide of music" sums him up perfectly.

I particularly love the way AbFab tears into him.

[no_hypocrisy]

16. I went to see "Sunset Boulevard" and never laughed so much in my life.

After the opening number, with tears streaming down my face, I whispered to my friend, "What does the cover of your program say?" She answered, Sunset Boulevard. I replied, "That's strange, mine says Springtime for Hitler. The rest of the show did not disappoint as this was the single worst show I have ever had to endure but I loved it in a twisted way. To top it off, the folks in back of us were so incensed by our criticism that they actually jumped up in a standing ovation, yelling "Bravo!" I thought I wouldn't be able to catch my breath. A perfect night at the theatre.

[tjwmason]

17. He is also a conservative member of the House of Lords

Not that politics make bad music per se - though his music really is terrible.

[Catchawave]

19. I'm an ALW fan !

You need to see Jesus Christ Superstar !

[soothsayer]

20. Evita and Jesus Christ Superstar and Phantom and Chess!

[bbernardini]

21. "Chess" wasn't his. That was the guys from ABBA.