Just as the title stays. In this thread we discuss and recommend our favorite musical productions. Be they theatre, movie, or album. Recommend to us your absolute favorite pieces of musical accomplishment.

For me? It is without a doubt the 10th Anniversary version of Les Miserables. The level of intensity, of trueness to character, of vocal accomplishment is unmatched. I have never heard a compilation of soaring voices so resplendent as this. The depth of emotion and expression is beyond compare, no production has ever matched it, in my personal experience. I recommend it to every true music lover.

But be prepared for a journey. Sit down to listen only with an open mind and a mind/soul ready to feel all across the full range of human emotion.

I'm (more than) a bit drunk, or I'd go into greater depth.

As it is, I sit here consumed by the peerless, full, and inescapable expressed depth of musical joy while listening to a playlist on youtube. Only having to change from part-to-part manually.

(Due to youtube restrictions, you have to navigate manually in 'standalone player' options. But you can just press the back button at the end of a video to show the list of the next video. )

 

Dr Horrible's sing-along blog.

 

Dislike Les Mis quite a bit. The music just doesn't interest me at all. It's just... bad.

Now, Phantom of the Opera? There's a musical. Every single song is memorable, capable of getting stuck in your head, and very sing-along-able.

Obviously all your Disney classics.

 

25th Anniversary Phantom was amazing. Ramin and Sierra were brilliant

 

Into the Woods

Pirates of Penzance

Stomp Out Loud

Moulin Rouge

 

I've never really liked musicals. I can recognize some of the names, but I don't know most of them. That said, I've always been a huge fan of Chicago.

 

Moulin Rouge, Oliver! and The Producers (stage; the film of the musical wasn't bad, but lacked a certain something somehow).

 

Off the top of my head and not including animated movies because that would be troublesome for various reasons:

Jesus Christ Superstar
The Blues Brothers
The Wizard of Oz
Mary Poppins
Singin' in the Rain

probably in that order.

 

So much this. There are like three memorable songs in the entire musical. Also, it's dissonant as hell and displeasing to the ear.

My all-time favs:

For theater in order of descending awesome: Spring Awakening, Wicked, Chicago, Phantom, and the Producers. Maybe throw Rent in there somewhere if you take out all the AIDS wangst.

For opera in ascending awesome: Carmen, Don Giovanni, and to my great shame, Pirates of Penzance.

For movies in descending awesome: Aladdin, Mulan, Peter Pan, Lion King, and anything with Muppets. Fucking love me some Muppets.

 

I don't watch many musicals, but I have a fondness for these ones:

On the Town
The Little Shop of Horrors
Wicked (actually never seen it, just have the soundtrack, as well as read the books. I love the music though)
Moulin Rouge
Across the Universe
The various Disney cartoons, since we seem to be counting them

 

Pretty much the only one I've seen is Phantom of the Opera, and it was brilliant.

 

Les parapluies de Cherbourg. It's a film entirely sung but it's bizarre in that none of it really rhymes. Basically it's a love story between a middle class woman and a mechanic suddenly interrupted by the mechanic being drafted into the army to have to fight in Algeria. Beautiful music though.

 

Best one I have seen is the 1969 movie version of "Camelot" with Richard Harris, Vanessa Redgrave and Fanco Nero. Brilliant piece of cinema and music.

 

I think it needs to be mentioned
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLC76BE906C9D83A3A

 

The original Sweeney Todd on stage was awesome. The Johny Depp version...was not.

 

I find myself agreeing with the OP, Les Mis contains some of the greatest music of modern musicals with some absolutely amazing choruses and an amazing duet between Javert and Jean Valjean. What was the Movie version like? Still haven't gotten around to watching it.

I also have a great fondest for Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat and JC Superstar two musicals that I always remember listening on car trip as a child. There is something great about Lloyd Webber's musicals that nearly any one can sing the tune and remember it for days afterward.

Did anyone see the Lion King show? I heard it was a fantastic adaptation and have wanted to see for a while now.

 

Rocky Horror anybody? I guess nobody would call it 'great' per se...

 

No, it's funny if you have the right sense of humour, but it's not actually good. I'm going to be using this thread to find more stuff to watch.

How good is Into The Woods? my girlfriend has chosen it for our next movie night <_<

 

Guys, what're you doing! Why isn't Book of Mormon already mentioned in this thread!!
Besides that, I love Les Mis and Phantom. I'm performing in Beauty and Beast for school this month so that has to be mentioned and my all time favorite Disney movie is Aladdin!

 

I, personally, have always had a soft spot for The Secret Garden.

My brother and I generally had three choices of music when we played Mario Kart at 4am: Megadeth - Countdown to Extinction, Stone Temple Pilots - Core, and Highlights from Miss Saigon... Nothing like a rousing round of Bui Doi when you're tearing down Rainbow Road.

Yeah, we got a bit punchy by 4am.

Les Mis is good, of course. Phantom is decent. Sondheim's Assassins isn't bad.

I like 17 out of 19 songs on the Wicked soundtrack. I believe there's a song in the musical that isn't on the CD, because it's considered a spoiler... which rankles, since I'm probably not going to be lucky enough to go see it.

I read the book, so I kind of have to tell myself that the musical version of Wicked is fan fiction, in order to reconcile the changes between the two. I kind of regret mentioning Wicked and fan fic in the same sentence, though, because I haven't seen an ounce of it that doesn't suck.

I haven't seen any of the Disney musicals.

Of course, Rocky Horror is great, but I tend not to think of it in quite the same vein as the above.

I liked Rent, but it isn't aging as gracefully as other popular musicals. This is particularly true whenever they rant about AIDS awareness: In this day and age, we're aware; there are medication regimens, understanding... AIDS is still a problem, sure, but it's just a different world than it was then.

We understand the landscape of Les Mis and its revolution, we get the historical angle. You watch Rent and it suffers from being so modern, that the lack of AIDS awareness it portrays seems like it's some kind of alternate reality.

The way they talk about virtual reality and media is also guilty of dating it.

I like a lot of the songs, but I can only listen to the original Broadway cast. Anything else annoys the shit out of me.

Muppet Christmas Carol was awesome. Can you picture that?

Hehehe, it's not bad. It's definitely my number one musical that features a big, swinging, wolf dick. Apparently there's talk about making a movie version and they want Johnny Depp for the part of the wolf.