Favorite Songs From Every Show Nominated for Best Musical Tony Award: Top 5 Songs From South Pacific

This is part of my series of posts about my favorite songs from Musicals that were nominated for the Best Musical Tony award and in this post South Pacific which won the award in 1950 while being the only musical that was nominated that year. South Pacific is a show that is much more book based than Kiss Me, Kate was which I think probably makes the show as a whole a lot stronger since there's so much more going on in this show. This show is one that has a lot going on with it being set in the South Pacific during World War II and dealing with matters of race rather directly. One thing I feel like I should note is that while I loved Mary Martin's voice who played Nellie I find that I didn't like Ezio Pinza's voice who played Emile which is something that is reflected in my song choices.


1. I'm Gonna Wash that Man Right Outa My Hair: This song about Nellie saying that she's going to end her relationship with Emile since she believes that he isn't as serious about their relationship as she is one that I find to be delightful both because of her beautiful voice and because it's actually quite good relationship advice to end a relationship if you believe that you and your man have different priorities and it also shows that ending a relationship can be viewed as a good thing.
 2. A Cockeyed Optimist: This is another song that shows off Mary Martin's beautiful voice and it establishes Nellie's character by her telling us that she's optimist which she doesn't view as a bad thing but pretty much everyone around her does. I especially love the line that she's Stuck like a dope with a thing called hope and I can't get it out of my heart, this song does a good job at making me like her character right away.
3. A Wonderful Guy: This song is a love song sang by Nellie shortly after she almost ended her relationship with Emile but have now instead decided to marry him. In this song Nellie addresses how it's a bit silly of her to be so in love and so sappy about it but she is both of those things and she wants to share that fact with everyone around her right now since she's just so in love and so happy about it which is just such a sweet song to listen to.
4. Younger Than Springtime: This song sang by Cable about how he is falling in love Liat a young local island girl is one that is incredibly sweet and is great song that shows they emotion of someone falling in love at first sight which is something I find very romantic in musicals.
5. You've Got to Be Carefully Taught: This song sang by Cable about how people are taught be to hate be taught to people for being different than you are and that these viewpoints are ones that often comes from ones parents makes this song one that shares the show's messages about race which was something that wasn't often talked about so directly like this at the time which I think makes this song an important one.

Favorite Songs From Every Show Nominated for Best Musical Tony Award: Top 5 Songs From Kiss Me, Kate

I have Wanted to listen to the cast recordings to all the Best Musical winners for along time now so I thought making a series of post listing my favorite songs from each show was a good way to go about doing this and I've decided to expand it to every nominated for Best Musical because a lot of the more recent show I love have been nominated but haven't won the award. While for this show I'm only doing my top five songs for other shows later on I will have a longer list both because the number of songs are larger for some shows and I tend to love the more recent musicals a lot more.

Kiss Me, Kate is a musical that I have never seen before but I did read the plot summary before listening to the original cast recording, so I have a somewhat limited knowledge on the plot and characters so I'm mostly judging this show on just the cast recording. This show won the Tony for Best Musical in 1949 and since no other musical was nominated that year I have assume that it winning was well deserved. Overall I found the recording enjoyable enough and I found a number of the songs to be quite catchy but it's still not a show that I'm dying to go out and see.

1. We Open in Venice: This song is what I believe is the opening of the show within the show which a musical version of Taming of the Shrew and this song is one that I enjoyed listening to right away and I found that the longer the song went on the more I enjoyed it. This song is super catchy and while it can be quite repetitive this was a trait that I found worked for this song because the repetitive lyrics just made me want to sing along with the song and I also liked that there were a few jokes mixed in with the song as well.
2. Another Op'nin, Another Show: This song was a really fun and catchy number to open up the show with and it gets you excited about seeing the show even though it really doesn't tell much of anything about the show that you're going to watching.
3. Too Darn Hot: This one of the three songs that I have heard of from this show before listening to the show and I can see why I have heard of it. This song is one that has a really good beat to it and it's one of the songs that feel like is suppose to be a dance number because listening to it makes me want to dance which I think is a good thing. This song is also one of the few songs in the show that I feel like the song is building up some kind of intensity as it goes on which is also a good thing to have happen while listening to songs from a musical.
4. Tom, Dick or Harry: This is another one of the few songs from the show that I have heard of before I listened to the show and I can understand why since it's one of the best of the show and super catchy. I found that the part with the girl playing Bianca in the play singing was a lot better than the parts where the male suitors were singing while they're parts weren't bad they weren't as good as hers and if it weren't for them this song would've been higher up on my list.
5. I Hate Men: While I overall really did enjoy this song and that the actress was a good singer I have to admit that one of the reasons this song made it on the list has to do with my hatred for the male characters in Taming of the Shrew and since this sang by Katherine in the show within the show it speaks to my hatred for those characters a bit. I also really enjoy the slyly calling men dogs by comparing them to Lassie.

 

Top 10 Songs I've Been Listening to Lately

1. I'm Going to Meet You by Deok Hwan(From Queen In-hyun's Man): I've recently been watching the Kdrama Queen In-hyun's Man and I absolutely love it and this song is one that plays during a lot of the romantic moments and I realized I liked it quite a bit then I listen to the full song and fell in love with it and then I found fan video to this song and got even more obsessed with it. This song is one that has a sweet gentle romantic feel to it but also somehow feels epic and it reminds of my favorite moments of Queen In-hyun's Man which was one of the best romances I have ever seen/read.
2. Wish I Were Here from Next to Normal: Next to Normal is my favorite musical and Wish I Were Here is one of my favorite songs from it. This song and many other songs from the musical are ones that I listen to from time to time and I still love it as much as I did the first time that I heard it.
3. Tonight At Eight from She Loves Me(2016's): I've never actually seen this musical but I've listen to most of the songs from it and I especially love this one because well I'm a big fan of Zachery Levi as an actor and a singer so I like to listen to this song because I feel like it shows off his voice.
4. Why Did You Come Now by Jung Yup(From I Hear Your Voice): Awhile ago I found this fan videos to songs from the Kdrama I Hear Your Voice and while watching the videos it made me remember all of the things that I loved about the show and made me want watch it again even though I just watched it for the first time a few months ago. I just really love I Hear Your Voice and this song is from that shows and reminds me of the lighter happier moments of the show.
5. Echo by Every Single Day(From I Hear Your Voice): This song is the one that was used as the theme song for I Hear Your Voice so whenever I hear it I think of the show and I really love the show so I really like listening to it. I also just like the song by itself to but mostly I love the memories of the show it brings, also I think you should watch I Hear Your Voice because it's a great show.
6. Non-Fiction by Every Single Day(From Pinocchio): This song is from another Kdrama I loved and since I love the song and the drama I tend to listen to it quite a bit.
7. Dead Girl Walking(Reprise)from Heathers: The Musical: This song is probably my favorite song from the musical that is full of songs that I love and I really love it because I can imagine the scene being played out and because this song is one that is at the climax of the show which makes it more exciting.
8. Freeze Your Brain from Heathers: The Musical: This song is another favorite because I realy love how this song tells us who JD is as a character and it also shows how a bit how he differs from movie JD it shows that he is more someone who as numbed himself rather than someone who doesn't feel. Also this song is one associate with Skye from Agents of Shield at least during season 2.
9. Out of My Head by Digital Daggers: This is just a song and artist I really like and I like the feeling that I get from the song and I feel like there's an interesting story that could be told to this song if you wanted to make one.
10. Hate Everyone by Say Anything: I both like the way that the music sounds and I really enjoy all the anger behind this song because the best songs are the ones that express the strongest emotions.

Movie Review: The Last Five Years

                                                      The Last Five Years Review

The Last Five Years is a musical about the relationship between a struggling actress Cathy(Anna Kendrick) and a not so struggling writer Jamie(Jeremy Jordan), the story of this musical is how they fell in love with each other and how their relationship failed in the long run. Through song Cathy tells us about their relationship from end to begin while Jamie tells us about their relationship from beginning to end. This film is almost entirely songs with pretty much no transition but a brief pause and change of scenery to tell you that the story is in a different time and place, it can be a bit jarring when the film starts off but as time goes on you get use to it and feels more natural.

I thought that both Jeremy Jordan and Anna Kendrick did a great job in this movie both singing and acting and I thought that the two of them had great chemistry together which is something that I think was needed for a movie like this. I found that I enjoyed the scenes where Cathy and Jamie were happy with each other more than the ones where they were fighting but I think that was largely because I did like both characters so seeing them suffer wasn't exactly fun for me.For me I thought that the film did a good job at conveying that both Cathy and Jamie contributed things to their marriage ending like it did although I did think that movie had a bit of a Cathy basis since in "If I Didn't Believe in You" the camera stayed focus on Cathy rather than Jamie even though it was Jamie's song and that kind of bothered me especially since Jeremy Jordan was giving such great performance and I think that when you listen to the soundtrack that is the song that is the most emotionally charged.

Overall I really enjoyed the film I thought the directing, writing and performances were all good and I would definitely recommend seeing this movie. Please tell me your thoughts on this film.

Top 8 Songs from Wicked

As I'm sure most people already know that Wicked is a musical that is a retelling of the Wizard of Oz with the wicked witch as a main character who went to school with Glinda. The musical was pretty good and has a lot of good songs and singing so I decided to make a list of my favorite songs.

1. No Good Deed: This song is one that comes when Elphaba has just lost Fiyero and in a bigger sense all hope and this makes her consider how trying to be good has never turned out well for her so what's the point of it. This is a song in which Elphaba is filled with desperation, pain and regret for all that has happened in her life. This song is one where Elphaba reflects upon how every time she tries to do good it back fires on her and her wondering both is it worth it or if her good deeds didn't turn out well because her intentions weren't pure enough. This song also marks the  pretty much the only time that Elphaba truly considers turning bad which really shows how powerful the emotions are in this song.
2. As Long As Your Mine: This is the one romantic duet that Elphaba and Fiyero have through out the whole play and this song is just really beautiful and romantic. This is one of the few moments when these two characters get to be together and it's one that shows their romance well. I also just really love Idina Menzel and Leo Norbert Butz voices and think their really what makes the song for me.
3. For Good: This song is one of the last ones of the show and it's Elphaba and Glinda parting ways for the last time and since the relationship between these two are the heart of the show it's pretty heartbreaking to see them part ways. This song is about how meeting each other has forever changed who both of them are as people and how their grateful they were a part of each other's lives. This is one that always tends to make me cry because I find them saying goodbye for the last time so sad but I also find this song beautiful as well as emotional.
4. Defying Gravity: This is one of the most popular songs of the show as well as one of my favorites and one the most important ones. This song is a real turning point in the show for Elphaba with her realizing that the wizard isn't the man she thought he was and that she doesn't want to work with him but instead by herself and by her own rules. This song is one that is very much about Elphaba finding her independence and embracing her own thoughts on what it means to do the right thing and being willing to risk being seen as the bad by the rest of society. It's also a song that shows how far Elphaba and Glinda's relationship has developed in the first act because they wish each other well before they go there separate ways. I also just really love all the high notes that Idina Menzel holds through out this song.
5. What is this Feeling?: This is a really fun song that is about when Elphaba and Glinda first have to deal with being room mates. This song in a lot of ways feels like something that belongs at the beginning of a romcom since they spend the whole song singing about how much they loath each other and how they had that feeling at first start, it's just kind of funny how it sounds a lot like a love song especially since they promise to loath each other forever.
6. March of the Witch Hunters: This song is unsurprisingly the angry mob song and for some reason these kind of songs are ones that I really enjoy probably because of how angry this song is the more emotion a song has in a musical the better the song, at least in my experience.
7. The Wizard and I: This is one of the first ones in the show and it's about Elphaba now feeling hopeful about life after hearing that she has a talent that makes the wizard interested in her. What I love about this song is how hopeful and fully of wonder Elphaba is during this song and I like her daydreaming about how a life working with the wizard would make everyone see her differently and accept her in a way that she never dared to hope they would. I also just really love Idina Menzel especially when she hits high notes which does once or twice in this song.
8. Popular: This is one of the most popular(fittingly) of the shows and if you only heard one song from the show it's this one. This song is about how Glinda gives Elphaba a make over that she doesn't really want so that she can be popular. This song is a lot of fun and it really gives Kristen Chenoweth a chance to shine.