Monday, July 25, 2011

Evita-The Complete Motion Picture Soundtrack

There was a time (1997 to 2002) when if you would have asked me what my favorite movie was, I would have told you it was Evita. Now that we're a  few years down the road, I don't even know if that was ever true. There was this girl that I liked and she liked Evita as much as I did. We watched it over and over again and sang along. Then, instead of dating me she dated my best friend. Then she broke his heart and dated half the guys in the known universe and lied to me about it. Needless to say, there are still some emotions linked to Evita for me that are hard to separate from the film and the music itself.

Ok then. Fact is: despite feeling like an idiot every time I like an Andrew Lloyd Weber creation, I really like the story and music of Evita. Eva Peron is still such an interesting figure that the story of her dubious rise to the top, her controversial actions while at the top, and her sad decline make her a great subject for a musical. If even half of the things depicted in the musical are based in fact, Eva Peron is still fascinating.

Madonna performs the role of Eva well enough. There are a few times when her voice seems a bit too thin to give the songs the to-the-rafters Broadway-esque treatment they deserve, but Madonna plays Eva in her declining years perfectly. Antonio Banderas is surprisingly good as Che, and Jonathan Pryce plays an able Juan Peron.

I can still sing about 85% of this musical from memory, which is nice. Instead of limiting this album to my headphones as I usually do, I patched this one into my new monitor system and played it for the whole house to hear. I was surprised at how much of the musical my wife knows from memory. Anyway, I still love every little bit of Evita. It's a great Broadway show that became a great movie with a great soundtrack. Watch the movie, buy the soundtrack.

No comments:

Post a Comment