Album Review: AARON TVEIT - THE RADIO IN MY HEAD (LIVE AT 54 BELOW)

Aaron Tveit is the Justin Bieber of Broadway, and I mean that in the best possible way.

To many, he's the heartthrob of the Great White Way, climbing to fame after he thrilled audiences in the emotionally exhausting rock musical Next to Normal... but he really became known when he appeared as Enjolras in the film adaptation of Les Miserables. With boyish good looks, a killer charm, and a tenor voice you could listen to endlessly, people love him... and it's not hard to see why.

This album, a record of Tveit's concert at Broadway's popular cabaret nightclub 54 Below, just happened to be released at the exact same time as Laura Benanti's 54 Below album, both produced by the wonderful Broadway Records ( I review Benanti's album here).  And with Ms. Benanti's stunning and brilliantly fun recording getting so much buzz, I truly hope Tveit's album gets just as much.

Album Review: LAURA BENANTI - IN CONSTANT SEARCH OF THE RIGHT KIND OF ATTENTION (LIVE AT 54 BELOW)

54 Below is a wonderful thing. This relatively new Broadway cabaret club has, in its short time of existence, attracted some of musical theatre's most exciting and biggest talents to perform small concert engagements. But don't go to these concerts expecting a full-on musical theatre show... often, 54 Below gives these stars the venue to perform music we'd otherwise never hear out of them, with perhaps a mere sprinkling of tunes out of the musical theatre cannon.

For those of us who live such a great distance away from New York City, the up-and-coming label Broadway Records has taken the liberty of immortalizing some of the best and most exciting of these concerts for the rest of the world to hear. Current recordings include concerts by Norbert Leo Butz, Patti LuPone, Christiane Noll, Aaron Tveit, and Andrea McArdle... but easily one of the most anticipated releases was of Laura Benanti's concert. It's here now. And to say it doesn't disappoint would be a severe understatement.

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?

Album Review: THE LIGHT IN THE PIAZZA

If you've read my review of the original cast recording for Floyd Collins, it'll come as no surprise to you that I'm a huge fan of Adam Guettel. I firmly believe he's one of the greatest post-Sondheim composers. But something else inspired me to write a review of The Light in the Piazza. I just came back from a production at the world famous Shaw Festival in Niagara on the Lake, Ontario and it simply left me speechless. Never has a musical moved me so deeply and purely. I've owned and listened to the cast album for a long time, but that was my first live encounter with the show. Hence why I feel compelled to review this recording.

Album Review: FEBRUARY HOUSE

What a pleasant surprise.

How do I find so many obscure musicals? I go to the iTunes Store and type in 'cast' to the search bar... 90% of the albums are musical cast recordings. I then browse through and pay attention to albums that catch my eye. That's how I discovered February House, a new musical with a score by Gabriel Kahane.

Who is Gabriel Kahane, you may ask? Don't worry, I had no idea either. It turns out that February House is one of Kahane's first forays into musical theatre. He's a young up and coming composer... further inspection found that much of his music is an appealing and quite beautiful combination of contemporary pop and classical sensibilities. You might almost classify his work as 'art songs'.

Album Review: PIPPIN

One of my earliest exposures to musical theatre was Pippin. When I was just a little kid, and my obsession with musicals was just beginning, I'd ransack my local library to find cast recordings of musicals I'd never heard of before. Some of them went over my head... such as Stephen Sondheim's Assassins and the original recording of Night of the Hunter. But one day, I discovered a VHS tape of the filmed production of Pippin starring William Katt, Chita Rivera, and the incomparable Ben Vereen (It also just so happened to be filmed in my hometown of Hamilton, at the theatre in which I now work). I watched it, and fell in love.