without me his worrrrld will go on turrrning
I saw Les Miserables recently for the third time. I love the music, but I have to admit the Rs were a little too prominent for me to maintain the illusion that the characters weren't American (especially when the workers still seemed to be trying to sound cockney-ish) so I borrowed the London cast recording from the library. Unfortunately, it's the original 1980s version and while the accents are fine, the music sounds all synthesiser-y and Andrew Lloyd Webber-y... Ick. Is it not ALW's fault all his music sounds like that, after all? Why couldn't they use real instruments? Did they really think it sounded better that way?
Oh, actually it's not so bad in some songs, thank goodness. But that just makes it stranger that they thought bringing in a synthesiser on top of the real orchestra was a good idea.
Apparently, they thought it made for more dramatic moments, since those are the only songs that sound really bad. Pity it just makes them sound more tinny and ridiculous...
posted by Lucy @ 3:36 PM
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6 Comments:
I love ALW's musicals even though I know music snobs turn up their noses. Les Mis is my favorite of his I think. I sang "On My Own" in seventh grade for a musical revue.
Not sure I've ever heard the London recording. Synthesizers=ew. As an American, the bad accents obviously didn't bother me much.
But honeybee - Les Mis isn't ALW.
I'm not really a snob. I like Phantom of the Opera, too. It's just that all the music I've heard of his (probably all 80s recordings) sound like someone was having way too much fun with the different instrument settings on an electric keyboard.
I'm sure Commonwealthlandian accents would be just as distracting to non-C'landians, too.
I didn't think Les Mis was one of Andrew Lloyd Webber's, but I might be wrong (it sounds a lot like his music, anyway). I thought it was a couple of French guys who wrote it originally: Jean-Claude someone and some other guy (sorry for the vagueness of that comment!)
If the accents are making you edgy, try listening to the French version, if you can get your hands on it.
I used to spend hours puzzling my way through the lyrics of that version at high school, which meant my high school French ended up with a very strange vocabulary full of phrases like "to arms, comrades!" and "stand up against oppression on the barricades", not to mention various euphemistic ways of insinuating that someone was a prostitute.
oh, yeah, it's by Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schonberg, same people as Miss Saigon. I was just comparing it unfavourably with ALW. I haven't heard much of the french version ever. English accents are good enough for me to pretend the characters are European at least :) It would be good to hear the original lyrics, though.
actually, now the english accents are slightly annoying me, too. Is there a french equivalent to the cockney accent or is that just a british addition?
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