No! It’s NOT “time for a reappraisal” that’s not the energy of this thread, man. And you can relax – I’m not going to get all “surprisingly eclectic” on yo arses. However, given the sheer volume of songs and pop chart action that he has been responsible for, Lloyd-Webber is rarely mentioned here and if he is, it’s at the same low level of respect as perhaps a Rupert Murdoch or a disgraced figure like J**m* S****e. Is this entirely fair? Has everything musical coming from his pen been consistently terrible? Really?
I put it to you that “Memory” from Cats is a very good song indeed. Do I willingly play it? God, no. But I can accept that in the context of a musical – spotlight on singer, it’s a perfect emotional lip-trembler and a challenging song to sing well. So stand up Elaine Paige! (Oh…she IS standing up).
My mother bought Pie Jesu when it was released as a single and played it a great deal. I don’t hate it. I like really quiet orchestral murmurings and all the voices on here are present an correct. Yes, it’s ALW and the ILMHTASTH Sarah Brightman so “boo” and indeed “hiss”…but I like it.
I’m not a fan of his musicals (but then again, I’ve never really listened or watched any of them) but I do have, and still occasionally play, his “Variations” album (aka South Bank Show Theme) from the seventies…
It’s classical, it’s rock, it’s got Gary Moore on guitar……
That’s his brother, isn’t it?
It was an Andrew Lloyd Webber album, but featured his brother Julian playing Cello.
Everyone on the AW is now doing a bad adenoidal Melvyn Bragg impression.
To answer the question in the OP……no.
Funniest thing ever in the NME was when they gave Steven Wells an ALW compo to review, presumably before standing well back, getting a huge bucket of popcorn and saying “Ho ho, this will be good”.
He listened to the record, liked it, gave it 9 out of 10.
Can’t stick ALW meself. Tory-supporting plagiarist.
Whether he’s a Tory supporter and even whether he’s a plagiarist are not necessarily things to denigrate his music about. There are plenty of musicians whose politics I completely disagree with but whose music I like. Not everything I enjoy listening to is completely original and distinctive either. A certain amount of plagiarism can be found in the best of music catalogues.
The fact that I find Lloyd Webber’s music uninteresting is the important factor for me.
He was on R4 last week, in a compendium of interviews he gave to David Frost over the years. As odious and oleaginous as I remember. Both of ‘em. Best thing was to learn Frost got in before Boris, in trying to revive Wilfred as a name pour nos jours.
DOI: I heard bits of the Elton John the week before. Both times accidental, it coinciding with home visit time on that day. Shirley Bassey next week. Probably.
Well we can all be smug and dismissive of him as a person or a musician or writer or whatever but Don’t Cry for me Argentina is a fantastic song with a great melody. He is responsible for at least half of that Cats also had some great songs.
Hmm. I’ll stick with being smug and dismissive, thanks.
I’m with Slug. Argentina is well gloopy.
AW t-shirt right there @slug
Can’t stand ALW, but this is the perfect opportunity for me to reveal that there’s a French pro racing cyclist named Évita Muzic, a fact which I find endlessly amusing.
When I was about fifteen I loved Jesus Christ Superstar, and had the original album, featuring Ian Gillan as Christ, Yvonne Elliman as Mary Magdalene, and Murray Head as Judas, with a supporting cast including the likes of Mike D’Abo, PP Arnold, Madeline Bell, and, er, Gary Glitter (under his earlier nom de plume Paul Raven). Haven’t listened to it in years.
I’ve seen productions of Evita, which I enjoyed, and Phantom of the Opera which I absolutely hated. I’d put Lloyd Webber in the category of ‘very good at what he does, but not for me”’.
Agree with you @Blue-Boy Evita is excellent and Phantom appalling.
I won’t hear a bad word about JCS. I thoroughly enjoyed Stefano Bollani’s solo piano variations and NBC’s special from four years ago.
In the interest of balance, I won’t, nay, can’t find a good word.
I don’t know how to love him. Not ALW, the song. Yes a tiny part of the complete works but a tune. A very fine one. I cannot lie.
As a fan of musicals, but a non-fan of ALW, my biggest beef isn’t that I dislike his musicals, it’s that their success have inspired other writers of musicals to copy their style and sound, so that most modern musicals are equally unlistenable.
Also, didn’t he start this dreadful business of demanding that every theatre must stage the shows exactly the same everywhere? I’m sure they would call it “quality control”, but it’s probably more for financial gain of the rights holders, and it takes away opportunities for skilful people to come up with their own creative solutions and it makes already dull musicals even more cookie-cutter dull. IMO.
@Locust I know exactly where you are coming from. I recently saw Les Miserables for the second time and this latest visit was much better than the previous. The production added some humour missing in the first time I saw it. It made all the difference.
DCFMA is a great song, best sung by Julie Covington, of course. I had the single with her singing Rainbow High from Evita on the b-side, which I also rate.
Not my cup of lapsang. He may have written myriad tuneful songs but the ones I’ve heard seem layered in cheese.
Jesus Christ Superstar did inspire a playground chant from my short-trousered youth.
(singing) ‘Georgie Best, superstar! Wears frilly knickers and a playtex bra’.
I’m just about to disappear under a pair of headphones for some critical listening of the magical oeuvre of Andy Lloyds Webbedtoes…I don’t bloody think so.
Strictly a Sound of Music kinda guy me.
You touch on a key issue, Pencil. Soundtracks to musicals were big, big sellers in the sixties. I’m almost certain deramdaze enjoys a fair few of them. Lloyd-Webber Rice kept the industry going through the seventies and beyond. They churned out product, the public lapped it up and many thousands of people made a decent living. Fair dos, eh? We are fortunate we don’t live in a household with an enthusiast. I know someone who does and it sounds like hell.
Tru dat. Showtunes do seem to be part of my earliest memories unfortunately. Our family home was a mid terraced two up, two down until we moved to a detached house in 1963. Back in the old terraced house we had a neighbour called Tom he was a friend of my Dad who had developed an unfortunate passion for Showboat, The King and I and The Flower Drum Song amongst others. My Dad seriously loathed them all and so the gauntlet having been thrown down our localised version of the loudness wars would commence on most Sundays. Tom would turn his showtunes up only to be countered by my Dad cranking Duke Ellington up to eleven. Sanity and relative peace would only return when my Mum and Tom’s wife Libby would intervene and insist that they play nicely and would they both please TURN IT DOWN FOR GOD’S SAKE. The older I get the more I resemble my Dad. I have an almost atavistic reaction to showtunes. Any showtunes, all showtunes so whilst I agree that it is indeed a good thing that musical theatre has provided employment for so many I have absolutely zero desire to witness on even a cursory level any of those fine folk going about their employment. It’s like beastiality or Nadine Dorries indulging in her sex life, I know it goes on but I don’t want to watch.
I saw a production of Showboat in the West End in the late 80s that was magnificent. I’d always been fairly dismissive of Ol Man River but heard live and in context it made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. ‘I gets weary and sick of trying; I’m tired of living and scared of dying…’
I’m going to out myself here as a somewhat cautious Lloyd Weber fan. I think he’s all right. Jesus Christ Superstar was good (worth it for I Don’t Know How To Love Him alone) , and I enjoyed Phantom of the Opera. And I think otherwise he has written a decent amount of good tunes:
– Don’t Cry For Me Argentina
– Pie Jesu
– Memory
– Take That Look Off Your Face
– (I’m sure there are more but can’t think of them )
Benny Green joked that you came out of a LW show “whistling Tchaikovsky” & LW settled out of court with the Puccini estate for a theme in Phantom which was still in copyright.
This covers some of his “borrowings”
He is the Jimmy Page of the Amontillado set.
I was going to say I love One Night in Bangkok, but then I realised that’s Tim Rice and Benny from ABBA.
Thanks!
You saved me from saying the exact same thing. It is a corker.
“Interestingly…” Sarah Brightman’s I Lost My Heart to a Starship Trooper is a very similar tune to One Night in Bangkok – written by completely different people.
Also David Essex. His Oh What a Circus is the same tune as Don’t Cry for me Argentina but it’s OK because it’s from the same show with the same writers, so it sort of makes sense.
I was going to say exactly the same thing, BC. I am very dull, though – is it infectious? Is there a doctor in the house?
I’m not sure I can top you in the dullness stakes but most days I give it a bloody good go.
I think “I Know him so well” a number one hit from same musical, could have been an Agnetha/Frida duet instead of Dickson/Paige
Not for me.
I hate musicals.
I used to quite enjoy the occasional musical although I’ve never seen an ALW one but the last one I enjoyed was The Kinks’ Sunny Afternoon. Since then, I think I’ve seen Kinky Boots, Jersey Boys and the Carole King one, the latter being the only one I wanted to see rather than seeing a show as part of a day out and I didn’t enjoy any of them that much so musicals are now off my list.
“Hate” is such a strong word, don’t you think?
The Jesus Christ Superstar album was half-speed mastered at Abbey Road a year or two back. I picked up a cheap copy later on. I’ll let you know how it is when I’ve run out of other records to play first.
I wouldn’t bother anyway. I’d wait until they finish the other half.
This is a great joke.
Wee Andy Webber is quite the talent. If only he stuck with the Scottish Country Dance music…
Ha! I was going to post precisely the same thing.
‘Oh Jesus Christ! Superstar!’