Friday, December 11, 2009

(un)cool cats

What is Cats about really? It requires a lot of suspension of disbelief and marveling at people dressed in feline costumes. It is indeed even more bizarre that its basis is T.S. Eliot. The song "Memory" has become standard for covering all the thematic bases of Broadway: lost hopes and dreams of performing, and aging.

I used to really love the Cats soundtrack as a child (listened to over and over on cassette). I would dance around my room to "Jellicle Cats" and "Mr. Mistoffelees." Little did I know I would grow to learn that this is considered the nadir of popular musicals.

Years later when I saw a production of it at the Roanoke Civic Center, it seemed to have lost a lot of the luster I remembered it for. It was actually kind of irritating.
But secretly I still like some of the songs.

Are there any guilty pleasure musicals you can think of?


16 comments:

  1. I'm glad I read this post because I never thought too much about Cats. But I looked it up and discovered it's based on poems by TS Eliot, and Judi Dench was in the show's first run. Interesting.

    Personal musical guilty pleasure: Moulin Rouge!


    suckmysavvy.com

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  2. super cliche but phantom of the opera! when the movie came out i was beside myself with excitement - gerard butler, singing?? need i say more.

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  3. Me too!!!(about the Cats on cassette tape and dancing thing) I remember one year my mom and grandmother went and i cried soooo hard because they would not take me. The following year they did (I think i was 5 at the time) and i stayed completely silent and watched the entire show mesmerized. Cats is the best!

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  4. when i was a little girl "the best of andrew lloyd webber" was our family road trip tape! (sometimes my dad & i still jam out to it)

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  5. Cats was my first real musical theater experience. I was in 10th grade. My friends and I carried around a handheld tape recorder the day of the show and captured the entire buildup -- we still have that tape, of us interviewing the school librarian, and singing Rum Tum Tugger in the bathroom. I wasn't very popular in 10th grade.

    I should really convert that tape to an MP3 and post it. Holiday project!

    It's kinda embarassing when I drive around Iowa City listening to Grand Hotel. That's basically a throw-away musical.

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  6. Grand Hotel? Like the film? There was a musical?

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  7. I haven't see the movie but here's a clip of the musical. This is the catchiest song. I like to put it on before I go out drinking.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPl5ePNppNY

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  8. I've never seen any production of Cats, but I did always the music from it.

    Have a great weekend. Cheers!

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  9. I'm seeing Cats for the second time in January. I just love musicals...both on film and on stage. I don't think I have any guilty pleasures at all...but if I did they would be 'Grease 2' and 'Shock Treatment' because they're both rather shoddy sequels to fantastic films...yet I still enjoy them. Haha.
    -Andi x

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  10. Um, is this weird? "Little Abner." That's a musical, right? It's really stupid. It's also I think supposed to be a satire, like, of communism or something. But the songs are HILARIOUS. My husband and I sing "Jubilation T. Corpone" at least once a day....

    xx

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  11. We'll always have Grease! And Bye Bye Birdie.

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  12. Thanks so much for stopping by and commenting on my blog. I really appreciate it. Hope you're having a great weekend. Cheers!

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  13. I saw Cats at the Wintergarden here in NY when I was a kid...
    I don't really have any "guilty pleasure" musicals...but I remember that feeling of seeing them when I was a kid...Cats and Chorus Line stick out most in my mind. I was mesmerized by the costumes and the choreography...the singing! everything.

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