RENT Cost me Only $29.99 This Month!

So I figure that everyone knows what I’ve been doing for the last few days.  It wasn’t laundry or dishes or anything constructive.  It was… “Listening to the Rent soundtrack.”  Yeah.  You know.

Let me back it up and tell you about my Tuesday.  It was pretty much one of my greatest days in recent memory.  I got up at about eight because I just couldn’t sleep anymore.  I was that excited.  It was like the day before Christmas fifteen years ago.  I started calling all the stores in town that sold CD’s and-gasp- Wal-Mart and K-Mart weren’t selling the Rent soundtrack!  Undeterred, I called the (more expensive) music stores in the malls and got two yeses.  Joy!  I got right in my car (I did put on clothes and deodorant first) and drove right to the music store in the mall where I work, because the man who answered the phone told me he would give me a 5% mall employee discount.  When I got there, the man working the counter (I think he was the manager) was waiting for me with the CD out and the discount sheet already on the counter.  I thanked him profusely and ran out of the store without waiting for him to put it in a bag.  I then proceeded to rip the plastic off the package before I even unlocked my car.  I called my roommate, Danielle and screamed, “I got it!” at her into the phone.  She said (far more calmly than I had) for me to come to visit her at work, which I did.  I looked at all the pictures in the CD book before I started my car (I would have done it while driving, but that borders on psychotic.)  Danielle and I listened to the first half of the soundtrack in her office (she’s the boss, she has her own office) and then I went to do some of my other errands.  I had to pay some bills and go to the bank and I was supposed to take a movie back to the video store (Fever Pitch, very cute) but I had forgotten it in my Rent-induced frenzy.  It’s still sitting on our living room floor, two days later.

Wow.  I’m working on my seventh time listening to the CD in the last two days.  That means that I have basically been listening to it nonstop since I got it.  I literally haven’t listened to anything else.  I normally do listen to other music in addition to Rent, so I’m not quite as big of a freak as I must sometimes sound.  
     
The CD is great, if you haven’t gleaned that from my effusions.  The arrangements of the songs rock.  I mean, they literally rock.  The music is so much fuller and fleshed out from the original Broadway cast recording from nearly ten years ago.  It adds so much.  And the new performances are spot-on.  They are different, especially Adam Pascal’s Roger (he’s my favorite,) but they work.  Adam’s performance is so much more emotional and gut-wrenching.  Don’t get me wrong, he was great before, but now I can really feel where his character is coming from emotionally.  Songs that I skipped over on the other soundtrack I now listen to in full.  The new cast members (Rosario Dawson as Mimi and Tracie Thoms as Joanne) have fantastic voices and should finally put speculations about their fitting in with the original cast to rest.  I especially love how Rosario has embraced her role and made it her own.  Her performance is nothing like Daphne Rubin-Vega’s (the woman who originated the role on Broadway) and I like it that way.  She’s a totally different actress with a much different voice.  Rosario brings out a gentler side of Mimi, and I think that works great, especially on a song like “Another Day.”  (In that song, Mimi has just come up to Roger and Mark’s loft to ask Roger to take her out.  He gets mad, yells at her, and throws her out.  It also cuts to the Life Support group singing their credo about how you should live each ay like it’s your last.)  Roger’s part is harsh and angry, and Adam plays it like Roger’s just coming unhinged.  Mimi’s response is far more melodic, and she introduces the “there is no future… there is no past” theme that is repeated elsewhere in the show.  Rosario’s gentler voice makes this almost sound like a lullaby, like she sees how broken Roger is and is trying to comfort him.  On the OBC recording, the Life Support group sang with Mimi while Roger tried to justify his treatment of her, but in the movie version, it’s Mark, Angel, and Collins singing with Mimi.  All the people who love Roger are singing to him, “give in to love or live in fear,” and it’s like they’re begging with him to finally give in and start healing (remember, Roger has stayed in his apartment for a year, ever since his girlfriend committed suicide and he found out he had AIDS.)  It makes the song much more meaningful to me.  Maybe I’m just reading too much into it, but it makes me love it even more than I already did (one of my favorites out of the show.)

I also love, love, what they have done with “Goodbye Love.”  This takes place right after Angel’s funeral- the group of friends has fallen apart (Joanne and Maureen broke up; Mimi and Roger broke up; Angel died; Roger’s heading for Santa Fe) and they’re all yelling at each other.  It moves to Mark and Roger alone (I think they’re back at the loft, but I’m not sure) and Mark is trying to persuade Roger to stay in New York.  It sounds much more believable now, it sounds like they have been crying for three days and they’re both so upset and emotionally drained that they’re finally saying all the things to each other they have always thought, but have never wanted to hurt the other with.  A huge performance from Adam Pascal and Anthony Rapp (he plays Mark, and his voice has just gotten leaps and bounds better than it used to be.  Now he’s a real singer, instead of an actor who could also sing.  It’s great.)

Okay.  I know that this is the longest post in the history of the internet, but you know… passionate about the Rent.  I could go on so much longer and analyze the whole freaking CD song by song, but I won’t.  Run, do not walk to the nearest place that sells this CD and buy it!  Please, for your own musical development.  Thanks for enduring,

Brianne <><