Time Turns Elastic – Acoustic Version

Jun 25, 2009 by Dan Taylor    28 Comments    Posted under: Music, Video

I’ll admit, I’m not the biggest fan of the first single released off Phish’s upcoming album, Joy.  At least I wasn’t until I heard this gorgious acoustic version Trey’s people posted over at Vimeo 20 days ago.

Time Turns Elastic – Acoustic Barn Demo from Trey Anastasio on Vimeo.

This is, in a word, beautiful.  It gives me a new found respect for this work, and makes me want to listen again and again, not just to the words, but perhaps on an even geekier note, what tuning is he using?  Sounds like DADGAD, but I could be way off.

I’m not sure what is is about the amplified version that bugs me, but there’s something.  Maybe it seems almost a bit ‘overdone’?  Perhaps there’s just a bit too much going on.  I’m not 100% sure.  I’ve listened to both the upcoming studio version as well as the 4 other appearances the song made on the recent early summer tour, and I have to say, this acoustic version beats them all.  Hands down.

If you’re so inclined, as a point of comparison, here’s the studio version:

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Phish – my 20-year love affair with four guys from Vermont

May 30, 2009 by Dan Taylor    4 Comments    Posted under: Music

It recently occurred to me that 2009 marks the 20th anniversary of my love affair with four guys from Vermont otherwise known as Phish.  I’d like to cover two topics in one piece here: how I was introduced to the band, and my experiences with them, and a primer on what to listen for when listening to Phish.

The Introduction:

I can remember it almost like it was yesterday, my next-door neighbor, Bob talking my mother into letting me head up to Burlington with him and his friend Casey to go to a concert.  Needless to say, Bob failed to mention that this concert was going to take place in a tiny little bar that went (and still goes by to this day) by the name of Nectar’s.  Now I’m not entirely certain if Bob didn’t know someone at the door, bribed someone to get me in, or if things were just a bit looser in Burlington in those days, but I do remember being the youngest person there.  The way Phish had been explained to me was as a Grateful Dead cover band.  I’d started toying with the dead at around age 12, with Bob giving me a couple of great tapes (back in the days of tapers trading tapes by mail), one from Buffalo, the other from the Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco.  I guess Bob and Casey thought it was time for their young protégé to experience something close to the Dead live and in person, specifically by these up and comers hailing from Vermont.  I can’t even tell you what originals they played that night, but that was the first time I’d heard “Fire on the Mountain” performed live, as well as Jimi Hendrix’s seminal classic “Fire”.  I can remember that these four guys didn’t look particularly ‘star-like’, nor could they really sing all that well, but man o’ man, when it came time for the solos or pure instrumentals, these guys were truly dialed in.

The Past:

Some 20 years later I still listen to Cactus (Gordon – Bass), Leo (McConnell – Keyboards), Henrietta (Fishman – Percussion) and Wilson (Anastasio – Guitar) on a regular basis.  I normally set iTunes to shuffle while I’m working, and given my massive collection of their live works, it’s guaranteed that I’ll hear at least a song or four of theirs per day.  These guys have been with me through some of the most major parts of my life, Chalk Dust Torture highlighting my high school graduation day, Down With Disease summing up most of my college experience, and so on.  Halloween 1994 will always be remembered as one of the greatest nights of my life, when Phish played their annual Halloween show in my home town, and my friend Carl and I managed to get a giant spider that we’d brought with us up on stage after the first set, with Jon Fishman placing it on top of his bass drum for the rest of the entire show, and yes…that was the classic White Album show.

The Experience:

So when I was recently asked to pick two phish songs to demonstrate the band as a whole, you can imagine what a challenge this was.  I’ll fully admit, I cannot do it.  To me, Phish is not just about the music, but it was/is the entire experience.  The packing it up in the car on Friday afternoon after class, and truckin’ all night to make it to the next gig, the meeting up with other road mates in the ‘lot and catching up, meeting new friends, making new experiences, etc.  If you weren’t lucky enough to have a ticket – sometimes that didn’t really matter, as the parking lot experience could be an entire experience unto itself.  And then there was that amazing individual that had your ‘miracle’.  Stemming from the Grateful Dead song “I need a miracle”, a miracle came from that person that had purchased an extra ticket to give to someone who didn’t have one at the show.  I’ve been miracled about 12-15 times, and when I had some extra cash, or had pre-ordered tickets, I’d do my best to miracle a brother or sister in need of a good show.  Inside the venue, once the lights went down, for the next 2+ hours, you can be sure of only one thing: anything goes.  I’ve been witness to watching the band arrive onstage via a giant hotdog that flew over the crowd.  I’ve watched Jon Fishman dressed as baby new year, about 30 feet off the stage on a fly in, tossing glitter and confetti on the crowd.  And let me just say, in my humble opinion, Phish has some of the best sound and lighting setups of any live touring band I’ve ever seen.

The Music:

So if I choose to solely look at this challenge from just an aural point of view, 2 songs still remains an impossible feat.  Instead, I’ve decided to break it down into 5 parts: Fast, Medium, and Slow and Live and Studio.  The choices in tempos should be self evident, but the decision to give live and studio examples is something that’s very near and dear to me.  I really feel like there are two very distinct ways of listening to Phish: what the record company wants the band to record in order to sell albums, and what the band wants to play in order to bring the audience along for the ride.

Fast – Chalk Dust Torture

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As mentioned above, this song has a particularly strong place in my heart, simply for the lyric, “Can’t I live while I’m young?”  Chalk Dust is a prime example of what Phish does like no other band: take a relatively simple chord progression and twist it into something truly remarkable.  The studio version, featured on 1992’s “A Picture of Nectar” (and yes, the Nectar does refer to Nectar’s bar) clocks in a 4:32, and features a relatively slow ‘fast’ tempo, with only a minor guitar solo.  To me, it also sounds like the Elektra records producers put some type of effect, or even slowed the tape down on Trey’s vocals, making him sound like he’s singing in slow motion.  Again, remember, this was my first introduction to this song and I really dug it.

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Now let’s fast forward a few years to 1994’s live (and summer tour ending) version played on July 16th, at the Sugarbush Summerstage, in the band’s home state of Vermont.  The tempo differences between the studio version and live version are instantly apparent, and to me, this one just ‘drives’ a whole lot better.  It doesn’t sound as though the increased tempo is giving the band any problems at all, and as a matter of fact, both Trey’s solo, and mike funky bass line sound even better at this more appropriate tempo.  You’ll also note that this version now clocks in at 9:28, a marked difference from the studio version.  While 1994 is 10 full years into Phish’ career together, Trey’s guitar solo, particularly around the 4:24 mark indicate a technique that he’ll be developing over the next few years, using a boomerang unit to set up loops and accompany himself.  But again, that’s still a few years down the road.  This version also features something about the band that I’ve always liked, they don’t try to hide or mask their involvement with each other.  If you listen closely here, you can hear Trey giving direction to the band, and calling out changes; “Hup…yeah” and “one more round” are often things he’d say very close to the microphones, almost letting us the listeners in on what’s going on between the players on stage.

Medium – You Enjoy Myself

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You Enjoy Myself, or YEM as it’s sometimes known, is one of Phish’s most musically intricate pieces.  Starting off in Bb major, this piece weaves it’s way through various both key and metric changes.  Coming from their first professional studio recording, and third official album, You Enjoy Myself features just 4 comprehensible words, “Boy”, “Man”, “God”, and “Shit”.  The ‘other’ lyrics in the song were a subject of debate for many years, until it was finally revealed in a Guitar World issue that the actual lyrics were “Wash Uffizi, drive me to Firenze.”  YEM currently holds the record of the most frequently played song by the band, being performed at 39% of their 1,183 shows (not including the most recent Hampton Shows, and this evenings Spring Tour opener in Boston, MA).  Keyboardist Page McConnell admitted to Ted Koppel on an installment of Nightline that You Enjoy Myself is his favorite Phish song.  As with Chalk Dust Torture, the studio version is markedly slower that most, if not all live versions.  Note that even in the studio recording, Trey misses a few notes here and there, but in true Phish style, no apologies are made, as if these missed notes are actually meant to be part of the style.

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Given the vast amounts of versions of this song I have, it truly was a challenge to nail down a live example.  I chose the Madison Square Garden New Years Eve 1995 show (yes, I was there), as it’s a prime example of how the band is able to expand a 9:50 album version into a massive 25:37 live version.  YEM also features a staple of Phish’s performances, employing both guitarist and lead singer Trey Anastasio and Bassist Mike Gordon jumping on trampolines in sync together.  While this was not the first version of YEM that I’d ever heard live, at around the 2-minute mark, you can only imagine what the lighting director Chris Kuroda was doing with this spacey, nirvana-esque sequence.  Now try to picture that in Madison Square Garden on New Years Eve.  Right.  Truly mind-boggling.  At around 4:12, we receive the first introduction to the metric changes that happen throughout the song.  I only wish my skills were strong enough to figure these out, but I believe there’s a 4/4 to 6/8 to 5/4 to 6/8 something something happening there (any theory geeks want to help me out here?).  Either way, not something you see any other band do every day, and live on stage in front of some 20,000+ people.

Slow – Wading in the Velvet Sea

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Wading in the Velvet Sea comes from 1998’s “Story of the Ghost” album, and is traditionally performed live at or about the same tempo as the album version.  To me, this also signifies an earmark of the band’s development and maturity.  In other words, while the record company wants short songs that can sell records, by this point they’ve been able to slim down live versions, and capture most, if not all of the essential parts and fit them into a 4:29 release.  On the studio version, you’ll hear part of Trey’s technique that I mentioned earlier, the looping covering the beginning of the song, a carry over from the previous track, “Roggae”.  Featuring a simple, beautiful and even hunting piano intro, this is one of Phish’s truly gorgeous, melodic, and moving songs.  The meaning can be left open to interpretation, but to me, it’s all about loss. Wading in the Velvet Sea also holds the distinction of getting Page McConnell so choked up at the band’s fair well show in 2004 (Coventry), that Trey had to step in and mention just how emotional this show was for all of them.  Again, by 1998, the band had really gotten to the point of nailing studio versions down so there’s not really much to say here.

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Now the reason that I chose to highlight Wading in the Velvet Sea as a great ‘slow’ Phish tune centers around this live version.  Recorded September 4th 1999 show in Boise, Idaho (sadly, I was not there, but Elisa was, and she tells me that yes…it really was that good).  To me, Trey’s guitar solo on this version is simply gorgeous.  Melodic, lyrical, sustained, complex, and simple at the same time; its all there.  While Page and Mike carry on with the repetition of “I’ve been Wading in the Velvet Sea” Trey starts noodeling a simple melody that comes to fruition when the lyrics drop out.  Just listen to those beautiful sustained notes around the 3:45 mark.  Mike on Bass and Jon on drums are perfectly locked in sync here, with Page doing a simple accompaniment.  To me…this is one of the finest examples of the band’s unity.

And there we have it.  Please keep in mind that these three songs should not be taken as ‘THE’ definitive Phish works, but rather, a short sampling of the range that this quartet have produced over the years, a beginners primer, if you will.

Welcome Home:

I was certainly sad to see the curtain fall in 2004, but overjoyed at the fact that they’ve had enough time off from each other, and have decided to give the grueling road tour circuit another go.  If not for their enjoyment, but for the thousands upon thousands of phans who call our boys from Vermont the only ones for us.  Mike, Page, Trey, and Jon, Good luck and Godspeed.  We’ve been listening, and waiting.  Welcome home.

Can’t Touch This:MCHammer Reality Show

Feb 18, 2009 by Dan Taylor    2 Comments    Posted under: Music

Apparently television audiences haven’t quite had enough of celebrity (current or past) reality shows, as A&E has recently given the green light to the J.D. Roth produced reality series “Hammertime” which will follow the life of once upon a time chart topper MC Hammer.

A&E has commissioned 11 half hour episodes, which are currently in production, and will appear on the cable network later this year.

“Hammertime” is produced for A&E by 3 Ball Productions with Roth, Todd Nelson and Stanley Burrell (aka ‘MC Hammer’) serving as executive producers.

While Roth has a decent track record, producing “Biggest Loser”, and  “Beauty and the Geek”, personally, I’m not quite ready to put stock in “Hammertime” being a runaway hit.  Granted, yes, I too had a pair of ‘hammer pants’ back in the day (right next to my pair of z cavaricci’s –who, incidentally, are also making a comeback), but we’re talking 12-15 years ago.  I’m pretty sure we’re all aware of Hammer’s previous money troubles – where was the camera then?

But then again – I could be completely wrong.  Hammer’s got a massive 84k+ followers on twitter that are sure to tune in to the series, whether just for a laugh, or out of serious interest in Hammer’s life.

I can’t wait to see this marathon back to back with Flavor of Love.

Related articles

• Vanilla Ice, MC Hammer Join Forces for One-Night “Hammer Pants and Ice” Show (rollingstone.com)

Passionato – iTunes for classical lovers

Sep 11, 2008 by Dan Taylor    18 Comments    Posted under: Music

Former Baltimore Symphony Orchestra president and music industry veteran James Glicker has recently launched his newest project: Passionato.  The online retailer will be first launched in the UK, with a potential rollout into US markets at a later date.  Why the favoritism for old world residents?

James Glicker – Founder and CEO of Passionato

“First, the UK and Europe have an incredibly vibrant classical music scene in terms of concert attendance, record labels and journalism – though of course the US is the biggest single country in terms of actual classical music sales,” he said.

“Second, the UK has several innovative entities that sponsor creative projects, including the Creative Capital Fund, which invested in Passionato. So another reason for setting up Passionato in the UK is to take advantage of the financial support that was being offered to us.”

Passionato features the world’s largest collection of high quality classical downloads, with more than 18,000 recordings available on the launch date.  But what makes passionate different from say…hmmm…iTunes?  Glicker and co. tackled this problem by first investigating what was prohibiting listeners from heading to the world leader in digital music downloads first.

Quality.  Passionato offers single track, work, or full album downloads at a high-quality 320kps MP3 or (for the slightly more technical) lossless FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec) files.  Glicker describes classical music aficionados as “a fastidious lot” which have been slow to adapt the digital revolution, often complaining of the poor audio quality of compressed files.

“Online music stores have typically offered MP3s at 128kbps, i.e. very compressed files, which is fine for pop music but it’s not exactly high-fidelity,” he said.

“There are a handful of online stores currently offering small catalogues of classical music at 320kbps. This is high quality audio and our research tells us people can’t readily distinguish between 320kbps MP3s and CD quality wavs. We are offering 320kpbs and also lossless FLAC.”

Glicker isn’t about to bury his head in the sand.  He realizes that the classical music arena is a difficult one, especially in a format connoisseurs have traditionally shied away from.

“This is a major motivation for us,” he said.

“It’s ironic that while classical music concert attendance is on the rise, labels are reducing their recordings and physical retailers are shutting down like there is no tomorrow.

“So the future of classical music distribution is online. The only thing that has stopped this inevitable shift from happening to date has been audio quality, plus the DRM issue.”

Speaking to the DRM (Digital Rights Management), Passionato tracks are free of DRM, therefore allowing purchasers to transfer the songs to another computer or portable music player (iPod).  A wise move as while the ‘industry’ tends to love DRM, consumers have often felt cheated as their ‘purchase’ has certain limitations after they’ve plunked down the cash.

Passionato’s online store features 60 second samples of all works, allowing users to give a listen before deciding to complete a transaction.  A free music player and organizer are also available, although I’m going to bet the farm that 90% of users will stand by the industry standard: iTunes.

As a special ‘Welcome to Passionato, how can I help you?’ launch promotion, anyone registering at passionato.com can download 10 free pre-selected tracks including a 30 minute work.

My $.02 – while Passionato currently features major label artists, what about hand selecting independent classical artists on a weekly basis and featuring them as an either free or minimal cost download?  It might be a great launching platform for a number of artists in a highly competitive industry, and provide Passionato a wealth of free press and all-important traffic.

Photos from Talespin

Jul 2, 2008 by Dan Taylor    No Comments    Posted under: Music, Photography

What a strange and winding road life can be sometimes.  It sometimes brings people back into your life that you’d otherwise consider long lost and forgotten.  So you can imagine my surprise when I joined the Austria Facebook network and discovered that a fellow student from my time at Eastman was living in Austria.  Living in Vienna as a matter of fact (are there other cities in Austria?).

Chanda Vanderhart is a fantastic pianist that achieved her undergraduate degree from the Eastman School of Music, studied opera coaching in Milan, and then moved to Vienna where she collected two more graduate degrees in vocal accomaniment and chamber music.

She’s also a co founder of a musical production company by the name of Talespin.  Talespin is an endevor which seeks to combine elements of story telling, music, graphic design, and multi-media.  Together with her partner Anna Lea Stefansdottir, the duo commissions original works from various composers to set relatively unknown fairy tales from around the world to music.  Performances are conducted either in English or German, depending on the dates and schedules.

It was my great pleasure to photography one of these performances about a week ago.  Not only is Chanda a seasoned pianist, but I recently learned that she modeled for Kodak while in Rochester.  Needless to say, she does very well in front of a camera.  The entire performance was very well done.  Obviously focusing on a childrens market, the Talespin crew packed 3 fairy tales (none of which I knew of prior to this session) in an enjoyable hour.  When dealing with children, it must be mighty difficult to engange, retain and entertain them, so the hour long program was perfect.

Anna Lea and Chanda share a remarkable connection while on stage together, and there simply wasn’t a ‘missed note’ anywhere to be found.  Both cue off each other brilliantly and I sometimes wondered if they even needed to look at each other at all.  The music and visuals fit very well together, along with a variety of various percussion and wind instruments that are handled by the narrator.

All in all, I was quite honored to do the shoot and have been asked back to take some more performance photos along with some new headshots.  Thanks Chanda and Anna Lea!

To view the entire series, visit the Photo page.

Audio section added

Jun 19, 2008 by Dan Taylor    2 Comments    Posted under: Music

Prompted by a new friend from New York, I decided to split out my DJ recordings and make them a seperate page, accessible via the top nav bar. Right now, the two classics, Mostly Naked and Fabrik are sitting in there waiting for your listening pleasure, with some one ones to arrive shortly…

As always, if you’re interested in speaking with my about music, Djing, or just about anything else….hit me up on the contact page!

Richie Hawtin at Pyramide, Vösendorf, Austria

May 19, 2008 by Dan Taylor    3 Comments    Posted under: Music

The short version: This party sucked. It was ruined by bad people, a bad vibe, a production company that clearly has no idea how to run timings, and a bad location. FU Pyramide, FU Hypnotic, but I still love you Richie.

I don’t even really know how to talk about this party. Maybe the best place to start is in the beginning.

When I was in university in Rochester, NY, I spent many weekends making the ritual drive around the lake, and heading up to Toronto to hear some world class DJ’s and experience some excellent clubs. Amongst some of these best DJ’s, one of the best parties I’ve ever been to had Richie Hawtin as the headliner. I’m dating myself here, but this was sometime around 1997-98. Richie had already achieved a star status, but was still playing for a 400-500 person crowd. Big, but not too big, small enough, but not too small, just all in all, incredible music, good people, a good vibe, and an all around awesome party.

Richie played Saturday night at the Pyramide in Vösendorf, a suburb of Vienna. At least, I think he played. I didn’t make it that far. There are so many things that went wrong with this party it’s hard to even list them. This might possibly have been the worst party I’ve ever been too, which is really saying something, as I thought I’d been to some pretty crappy parties before. To be fair, the Pyramide soundsystem was outstanding, but that’s about the only thing that impressed me.

Within about an hour it became all too apparent what I’d just stepped into: a pure commercial event. I don’t blame Richie. He’s truly obtained superstar status. In order for a production company to book Richie, they MUST book a massive venue, as I’m sure Mr. Hawtin took home anywhere between 10 and 15k for playing for 2 hours. Don’t take this as gospel, as I truly have no idea, but I do know that Parov Stelar, who has a fairly decent name commands around 5k to play an evening, Richie’s rate must be financially reflected by his popularity and world known name.

While I am a fan of the music, I’m also a fan of an ‘experience’. I am a DJ, and therefor for me, the music has to be good, but let’s face it, the music is only one of the possible senses that can be addressed in an evening. One of my most impressed memories about the Toronto party scene is/was the attitude…the atmosphere. Call me old school (’cause I am an OG now), but I still believe in PLUR. I know it’s a term that’s been played out, and plenty of party scene folks become jaded and disinterested over time, I still believe in the spirit of the term. There was simply no PLUR present in Vösendorf on Saturday night. It was cold. It was bare, it was commercial, and it had absolutely no vibe whatsoever.

Another big factor for me is attention to details. There are a few clubs/events that really stick out in my mind as having a pure “WOW!” factor. Lighting can make a huge difference in setting overall mood. One that sticks out to me was a club slightly outside of Toronto. In hindsight, there’s nothing incredibly special about this, but it simply set the mood. You walked in the entrance, all walls are painted black with dark carpeting. The tickets are on the right, and the coat room on the left. The entrance way is bathed in a soft red light, and the top of the first staircase is illuminated with one red spotlight. You walked up that staircase into this red light, turned the corner, and walked up another set of stairs blanketed in aqua light. One more turn, and the stairs are washed with blacklights. All the while the volume of the dancefloor above you increases at each turn. Dramatic. Tension building. Until you finally arrive at the main entrance to the dancefloor with it’s massive light show whirling above your head.

Sounds like a great entrance eh? Let’s fast forward to Saturday night. We entered through 2 glass doors, into a lobby brightly lit with fluorescent lights blasted from above. Let me say that again, ALL THE LIGHTS WERE ON. As if we were there for a business convention (which, incidentally, the Pyramide is normally used for).

To top it all off, we didn’t even make it to see Richie perform. We were all simply exhausted. I don’t know if it was Hypnotic (the production company) or Richie’s personal choice, but he didn’t come on until at least 5am. We bagged it and called it a night around 4:30. Richie was floating around the DJ booth, indicating that he was getting ready, but really: 5am? That’s simply ridiculous. Let’s face it, but 5am, the people that are there and are drinking are way to drunk to know what’s going on. The people that are there that are on pills are completely f(*&ed out of their mind, and would think that my dog was the best DJ they’d ever heard. And the people that are there that are relatively (I had 4 beers, i think) sober, and have been there most of the evening are simply exhausted. I have absolutely no problem with staying out until 6 in the morning dancing my ass off, but that means I have to be entertained between 2-4/5 am. To bring the headliner on at 5am is simply ridiculous.

So sadly, while I dropped a decent amount of coinage (25 Euro) on this party out in the middle of nowhere, and was surrounded by cold, party posers, and didn’t even get to hear Richie, I did learn a lot. I learned how NOT to throw a party. I learned HOW to be prepared for a party. I learned NOT to ever expect much from Hypnotic’s parties. I learned that it will take AN ACT OF GOD to get me out to the Pyramide again. And all in all, I learned WHAT a commercial party is, and will NEVER throw one myself. If our parties get beyond an underground feeling (as I still believe a big party CAN still have PLUR present), that’s the day I throw in the towel and start something new.

If you’ve made it this far in the post, thanks for reading. I’m not mad. I’m not sad. It might even been my own damn fault, as I had such high expectations for this world class DJ, and it was just simply ruined by a bad location, a bad crowd, and a bad production company.

Vienna, I’m disappointed. Show me you can do better than this.

At last my arm is complete again!

Mar 28, 2008 by Dan Taylor    No Comments    Posted under: Music

I don’t remember exactly the first time I ever saw the Stephen Sondheim’s musical adaptation of ‘Sweeney Todd‘, but the effect was so profound that it quickly became my favorite musical of all time. I had the pleasure of viewing the 1982 broadcast version starting George Hearn and Angela Lansbury (it’s also saved to my wish list, so feel free). So with slight hesitation I viewed Tim Burton‘s theatrical version last evening.

While I was quite happy to see some of my old friends again, and hear that striking overture of dark and foreboding tones, the film left me with a bit of an empty feeling, whereas the stage production inspired and excited me. It’s not that Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter didn’t deliver superior dramatic performances, it was the music that left me a bit hollow. And while I tried my best to give the film a chance to stand on it’s own legs, it was hard NOT to watch the performance and think; Burton didn’t do a whole lot of work. Hal Prince has been, and will continue to be a genius of the stage, so really, how can one improve upon his original staging? Not that Burton ripped it off completely, but again, once it’s been done by a master, why mess with it?

Sweeney Todd is about as close to a full blown opera as a Broadway stage production gets. To me, the music is almost, perhaps even more important that the acting. Lord knows there are enough dramatic elements written into the story alone that the acting could almost fall by the wayside provided the actors are magnificent singers. That being said, Mr. Depp, while I respect you highly, you sir….are no singer. The diction and pronunciation of some of the phrases and passages are exactly what makes Sweeney Todd an absolute joy to behold. These nuances were severely missing in the Burton production.

One of my favorite scenes in the stage production is ‘The Contest’ following ‘Pirelli’s Miracle Elixir’. This song is written for a countertenor, and if you’ve never heard a countertenor sing, it can be quite a thrilling experience. In Burton’s version, Pirelli is played by Sacha Baron Cohen, of Ali G fame, and again, while his performance was quite good and believable, upon launching into The contest, it became quite apparent that the original song had not only been dropped an octave, but also transposed down a 3rd or 5th to accommodate Cohen. Again, not that this is necessarily bad, as the words and meaning of the song come across clearly, it wasn’t quite as thrilling as Sal Mistretta‘s 1982 performance. Heck, even in the 2005 revival, Pirelli is played by Donna Lynne Champlin but one would think that with the budget afforded Burton, they would have been able to find a countertenor.

As a whole that would be my argument with Tim Burton’s production. Casting. On one hand I can certainly understand that big budget Hollywood films need to recoup their investment (and hopefully make a profit), and therefor casting names like Depp, Bonham Carter, and Cohen equals ticket/DVD sales, but on the other hand, couldn\’t we have made sure that lesser rolls were excellent singers? Burton and crew even manage to pack Professor Severus Snape (aka Alan Rickman) in as Judge Turpin, and again, while a superb actor, not so much on the singing front. Which is quite a shame, as the duet \’Pretty Women\’ between the Judge and Todd is breathtaking in the 1982 production between Hearn and Lyndeck.

All in all, I’m happy that Warner Brothers and Burton have (re)introduced Sweeney Todd to an entire new generation, but to those that are enamored with the film, I urge you, do yourself a favor, and have a view of the 1982 Hearn/Lansbury production along with listening to the original 1979 soundtrack, there are quite a few gems in there that you were robbed of in the film version.