I could be wrong, but I can only think of one album I own that was part of a musical or in any theater production.
For the most part, I dislike musical soundtracks.
There are rare exceptions and probably a few I like that I didn’t know were in musicals. I liked the song “Oklahoma” but don’t own it. I liked a few songs from “South Pacific” but again don’t own them. I saw those two musicals as performed by colleges I attended and actually enjoyed them, but that was probably more due to I saw them with a pretty date on my arm…pretty sure that influenced my opinion of the play.
The only musical soundtrack that I can think of that I own is Pink Floyd The Wall, and if I’m not mistaken the album came out before the musical.
Which I think gets to the root of the problem…it’s the same reason for the most part I dislike Christian music: the song is there to support something else, it was written like a commercial ad jingle. It’s purpose is to support a point of view. Granted there are exceptions, I’m speaking in generalities here.
True there are other songs written intentionally to be hits so they too are written for a specific purpose – but I think they have more leeway than a song written to support a religion or an actress/actor’s character in a play. Those are boxed in from the get-go…and probably under more time constraints which leads to a poorer quality song.
On a side note, we had a 10-15 year tradition to see plays performed by local folks on our anniversary. We saw them often in Coronado and the La Jolla Playhouse. I enjoyed the comedies a bit, but not too much the others. A couple of years ago, my wife asked to end that tradition. She gave it a go for many years, but was not enjoying the experience.
We’ve probably attended our last broadway play and local play. We tried.
