Album Review: HANDS ON A HARDBODY

This ain't your typical musical theatre score. Hands on a Hardbody, the short-lived Broadway musical by Phish band member Trey Anastasio and lyricist Amanda Green, has been beautifully immortalized on a terrific recording by Sh-K-Boom Records that will make you wonder why this heartfelt, bare-bones little show didn't last longer on the Great White Way.

Perhaps Broadway isn't as welcoming of something different as it should be. There's no glitz of flash in this show, nor any in the score. The music, a tough-as-nails blues, folk, country, and rock score, sounds more like a playlist for a road trip through the American South than anything you'd ever hear on a Broadway stage... though, I have no doubt that was what Anastasio and Green were going for. It gets the head nodding and the toes tapping, that's for sure.

List: My Top 10 Contemporary Musical Theatre Cast Albums

Ladies and gentlemen, I have a lot of cast albums. Like, a lot. Some of them haven't been listened to more than once or twice, or at all in fact... but they're part of the collection, so I keep them around. However, there are a number of cast recordings I revisit quite frequently. I'll be scanning my iPod, have an "Oh yeah! That one!" moment, and give it another listen. Based on the suggestion of a reader, I took some time to sit down and narrow down/order up a list of my Top 10 favourites. Realize that, as new cast albums emerge and my taste potentially changes (you never know!) this list may change. All I know now is that it hasn't changed for a very long while, and so I feel comfortable presenting you now with my Top 10 Contemporary Musical Theatre Albums. Let's start at 10 and work our way up to 1, shall we?