I've always been wary of musicals that take historical subject matter and set it to anachronistic modern music. Some musicals do it well, such as Pasek and Paul's Dogfight which had a contemporary pop score that still paid homage to the 1960s era of the story. Lizzie, conversely, makes no effort to harken back musically to the 1800s, but rather presents us with a full-on heavy rock-and-roll score by Steven Cheslik-DeMeyer, Tim Maner, and Alan Stevens. And it commits so fully to this that it really, really works. I went into this album with trepidation, but emerged with a huge grin on my face. Lizzie is campy, creepy, fun, and thunderously rockin'.
