ShyViolet wrote:OK, but other than the awesome songs in Ragtime (which were quite a number of years ago) what was the last love song that Randy Newman wrote? And not "love-between-a boy-and his doll" or "love between little girl and monster from another dimension" or "love of a town." I'm talking romantic, full-on love.
What has Newman ever written that proves he could do something like that?
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Umm Newman wrote the movie score for Ragtime in the early 80s but it had no songs--that I remember.
the *GORGEOUS* musical theatre stage score for Ragtime was by Lynn Ahrens (who did lyrics with Alan Menken for Christmas Carol) and Stephen Flaherty who are one of my current fave stage teams. Ragtimne is one of the best stage experiences I've ever had.
Ahrens/Flaherty were actually shortlisted by Disney for a while-_Disney was interested in adapting their hit offBroadway musical Once on this Island (a Carribean take on Little Mermaid sorta) and was working with them for a while. Around the time of ragtime they of course wrote the largely really great score for Bluth's Anastasia (I believe they even did the score for the video spin off Bartok but I haven't been able to find that) and have since then have had some more adventurous OffBroadway works like the great intimate Man of No Importance and Dessa Rosa.
While my Broadway tastes often lean more towards the post Sondheim crew of songwriters--I love Michael John LaChiusa's challenging scores, Flaherty/Ahrens are a great bridge between more traiditonal "Broadway" showtunes and more adventurous writing.
As for Newman I'll give him the benefit--I don't really care for his Pixar scores but I assume he's versatile (I haven't heard his score for his musical Faust which never opened on Broadway but would be curious to hear what he can do). I was no big fan of Elton John's score for Lion King (I prefer the extra stage songs by others) but I do largely love his Aida and *love* both Lestat and Billy Eliot. But I too am disappointed Menken isn't doing this.
As for Menken's past scores--I admit I still haevn't seen or heard Hone on the Range--shoudl I bother? I knwo the lyricist from it is doing he new Mermaid songs--the demo for Mermaid has leaked and some of the new songs are great, some kinda meh.
Speaking of leaked demos I too am a huge fan of Stephen Schwartz and don't think he should be judged just on his lyrics with Menken (although I prefer that team than Menken and Rice). Prince of Egypt is awesome-- Wicked is overate dbut still a very good Broadway score and I have a huge softspot for his 1972 hit Pippin even if that was more a Bob Fosse show than a Schwartz one. Plus his flop Baker's Wife is perhaps one of the loveliest Broadway scores of the past 30 years (Meadowlark from ti has become a bit of a classic). I have a demo he did when he was meant to write Mulan, back when it was Fa Mulan called Written in Stone sung by Lea Salonga and it's a GORGEOUS song that makes me sad he never wrote the full score apparantly Disney fired him cuz he was working at Dreamworks...)
Sorry for budding into this thread--I'm a big animation fan (though lately more of anime than N AMerican works) and big musical theatre freak and came upont his great forum by google...
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Is that too much to ask???
its not really against the 'rules' to post in old threads, heck a lot of us do it all the time. But, I know the feeling of being new and not knowing the rules. Once you get familar with the forum, you'll see it is great!