Boots and Sabers - The blogging will continue until morale improves...

No recording of Les Miserables is complete without Colm Wilkinson singing as Jean Valjean. This recording is the 10th Anniversary recording as featured in PBS’ Great Performances. It leaves out a couple of minor parts, but each song is sung by the absolute best actor to play the character. At the end, there is a multilingual version of Do You Hear The People Sing with Jean Valjean’s from all over the world each singing a line in their own languages.

If you’re looking for a good Jekyll & Hyde recording, get this one:

This is a concept album that was produced before the play went into production. It includes some songs that were not included in the final stage production that give a more full bodied rendition of the story. Also, Anthony Warlow sings the part of Jekyll and Hyde. He is an Australian singer who refused to leave his home country to perform this musical on Broadway. His voice is absolutely incredible. I have never heard such a clear, powerful voice. Furthermore, his transitions back and forth between Jekyll and Hyde are flawless.

Don’t buy the recordings from the actual stage production - buy this one.

Now… where were those testes of mine…

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Posted by Owen at 1504 hrs
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Friday, December 31, 2004

Garden State Soundtrack

I picked up the Garden State soundtrack the other day, and even though it’s not the type of music I normally listen to, I’m really enjoying this CD. All the songs have an indie/folksy sound to them, and they make excellent chill-out tunes. I especially like the songs by The Shins, Cary Brothers, and Simon and Garfunkel. I give it two snaps in a circle!

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Posted by Jed at 1126 hrs
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Saturday, December 25, 2004

How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb

My beautiful wife got me U2’s new album for Christmas and I love it. You can get it here:

For those of you who may not know, I am a HUGE U2 fan. I have all of their albums, including many limited editions, movie soundtracks, singles, and other recordings. Interestingly enough, or perhaps not, my first experience with them was when I went to see the movie, Rattle & Hum. I got bored and left the movie in the middle. It’s the only movie that I’ve ever walked out of.

In High School, I went to see them in concert with some friends. It was their Achtung Baby tour and I LOVED the concert. It may have been the fact that I was in the upper deck of Reunion Arena and the smoke, of various substances, was getting to me, but I LOVED the concert.

Since that concert (yes, I still have a concert shirt from it), I have collected quite a U2 collection and they remain my favorite band to this day. I have over 16 hours of U2 music on my hard drive, including the Passengers CD and my favorite version of One off of the first Together for the Children of Bosnia CD. My favorite song is Bad, but that song has very few peers.

That being said, I love their new album. It continues the trend away from the overly-synthesized Pop and Zooropa and returns to the cleaner Rock-n-Roll of War and Under a Blood Red Sky.

The version of the album that my darling Wendy got me includes a DVD with a short “Making of” and some videos and studio shots. In one of the interviews, Bono remarked that this album is really their first album and that Vertigo is really the first song off of their first album. I really do get that feeling from this album. I get the sense that many of the songs were deep inside of them, but it took 20 years of maturity before they could put words and music to them.

Another thing that strikes me about this album is the return to the heavy religious themes of Boy and October (one of my favorites). Bono has always vented his religious conflictions in his songs (he is the son of a Catholic and Protestant in Northern Ireland), but this album is remarkable in its strength, maturity, and clarity of expression. All Because of You and One Step Closer are fantastic examples.

My favorite song on the album is Sometimes You Can’t Make It On Your Own. It’s a song that was written by Bono for his father before his father died of cancer. Having lost my own father, and lost a dear friend to cancer this year, this song struck my heart with a heavy thud.

I’m only on my second or third listening of the album, but it has grabbed me like Achtung Baby or Joshua Tree or War or Wide Wake In America or Boy or Under a Blood Red Sky did many years ago. All That You Can’t Leave Behind was merely a prologue to this masterful album.

Buy it.

Listen to it.

Enjoy it.

I sure did.

Thanks, Darlin’, for the gift.

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Posted by Owen at 1546 hrs
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Sunday, June 06, 2004

A Momentary Lapse of Reason

Artist: Pink Floyd

Last of the Pink Floyd entries…for now.

From 1987, the first of the post-Roger Waters albums, A Momentary Lapse of Reason. This album features two of the more popular Floyd songs, Learning to Fly and On the Turning Away. The album begins to show the band’s shift away from concept pieces to more radio-friendly tracks, due to David Gilmour’s different style of songwriting.

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Posted by Jed at 1614 hrs
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Wish You Were Here

Artist: Pink Floyd

Are you noticing a trend in my favorite albums yet?

Next in the Pink Floyd playlist, Wish You Were Here. Originally released in 1975, Wish You Were Here features only 5 songs, though two are multi-part songs (Shine on You Crazy Diamond 1-5 and Shine on You Crazy Diamond 6-9). The real meat of the album is the three songs in between the Shine On… bookmarks - Welcome to the Machine, Have a Cigar, and Wish You Were Here. This one’s my third favorite Floyd album.

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Posted by Jed at 1605 hrs
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The Dark Side of the Moon

Artist: Pink Floyd

As Owen mentioned in his The Piper at the Gates of Dawn post, Syd Barrett was originally the creative force behind Pink Floyd. After his breakdown, Roger Waters became the driving force, and the band released several less-than-successful albums. But then, in 1973, came the band’s breakthrough album, Dark Side of the Moon. Dark Side of the Moon is Roger Waters’ “tribute” to Syd Barrett, and it is one of the greatest albums of all time. Since its release it has been on the Billboard charts for over 1,300 weeks, a record more than twice as long as the album with the second longest run.

Much like The Wall, Dark Side of the Moon is a concept album wthout any true “singles,” and is best listed to from start to finish rather than by individual tracks.

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Posted by Jed at 1548 hrs
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The Wall

Artist: Pink Floyd

It’s only fitting that the first entry in my favorite music category be my favorite album. This is one of only two albums that never leaves the CD changer in my car.

Pink Floyd’s The Wall is the band’s opus. Dark Side of the Moon has always been more popular, but I think The Wall is, taken as a whole, a better piece of work. It’s one of those rare albums that cannot be fully appreciated by listening to the individual tracks. To fully experience the album, you have to listen to it from start to finish, so you get the full effect of the tracks flowing gracefully into one another. It also features my favorite song of all time - Comfortably Numb.

The album is better than the movie. The movie is downright bizarre.

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Posted by Jed at 1523 hrs
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