Judging A Show By Its Cast Album : School Of Rock

It feels like yesterday when I saw the movie " School Of Rock" starring Jack Black, I remember the film fondly, but when the musical adaptation was announced and being done by Andrew Loyd Weber I was intrigued. Time to give this a show a look, and see if I would see it based on the Broadway cast recording. 

The plot follows washed up wannabe rock star Dewey, posing as his friend Ned Sheebly at a very pretentious school, when he sees the kids playing music well, he tries to get them to cut loose, break from their norms, and compete in a battle of the bands. 

As you can tell this by the title most of the tracks are rock, but there are some breaks from the guitar strumming and head banging. The chorus and songs are mostly performed by Dewey and the kid, If you like shows that have big child casts such as " Annie" or " Matilda" I will Say the kids on this album did very good.

As the title also indicates the choice of instrumentation used, if you watched the film, the few songs that are played in the movie make a return among the original pieces. I found myself enjoying the show more in the second half, so much so that I found myself playing the second half on repeat, the soundtrack is mostly upbeat, but there re a few slow songs that are a refreshing change of pace. I am interested to see how some of the scenes play out, I do not know if I would see a Broadway tour right out the gate, I have seen many high schools and civic theaters putting this show on, so I may want to test the grounds there and see how the story plays out, if the dialogue is fun and fits the lighthearted nature well. But if you enjoy rock, then you may find yourself rocking along to the soundtrack.  Here are the tracks I enjoyed

Here At Horace Green

If Only You Would Listen

Faculty Quadrille 

Stick It To The Man (L)

Time To Play

Where Did The Rock Go?

Act 2 Scene 8 : Dewey's Bedroom

School Of Rock ( Teacher's Pet) (L)

If you are unsure about seeing a show, listening to the cast album is an easy way to test the waters before buying a ticket, until next time I hope your day is a showstopper.

Sources: 

School Of Rock The Musical Original Broadway Cast Recording 

Google Image Search: School Of Rock The Musical