BROADWAY WEEK TOP 5 LIST: MOST OVERRATED SHOWS

Wednesday: Your Show Sucks

Note: As much as it might seems so from the title, I am not trying to antagonize anyone with my selections for Overrated Shows, I'm simply taking the time to groan over the many shows that I think get talked about a little too much. Just because the show is on here doesn't mean it's a bad show, in fact it probably means it's a good show, it just means that I think it gets more credit than it deserves. With that said, I'm going to give some true classics a royal bashing! Please feel free to leave a comment if you disagree!

Top 5 Most Overrated Songs:

5. Oklahoma - Oklahoma

Since when does anyone care about Oklahoma? Nothing ever happened there, nothing ever will. Just a bunch of Farmers and Cowmen being real friendly like. Yet somehow, Rodgers and Hammerstein wrote and song about it, and somehow, everyone except me liked it. Go Figure.

4. Maria - West Side Story

Maria, Maria, Maria, Maria. After hearing this song once in your life, you never again want to meet someone named Maria, I swear to god. If I have to hear that name one more time... Somebody gonna get a hurt real bad!

3. I Don't Know How to Love Him - Jesus Christ Superstar

Jesus Christ! This song is so overplayed! JCS is one of my favorite musicals of all time, with one of the best soundtracks out there, so explain to me how the most atrocious song on the album is the one that everybody knows? The only good thing that I Don't Know How To Love Him spawned was an absolutely heart rending reprise during "Judas' Death." The Song is still bad, but the due to the nature of the situation, the lyrics become that much more potent.

2. Tomorrow - Annie

There is no more oppressively redundant and obvious song in the world than "Tomorrow." Next time you sing along to this song, take a second to listen to the lyrics you are singing, "Tomorrow, Tomorrow, I love ya tomorrow, You're only a day away." Well thank you captain obvious. I would never have guessed it. The most creative moment in this song is when she sings, "Betcha bottom dollar that tomorrow, there'll be sun," because, you know, there might be fog, or even rain, and if you live in Minnesota, you might even see snow!

1. Memory - Cats

I swear to god, the next time I hear some woman made up in feline fashion start crooning "Memory..... all alone in the moon light..." I think I will punch a whole through the wall. I (I think along with the rest of the world) am 100% sick of this song. And There Is a perfectly good reason for that- IT'S TERRIBLE.

Top 5 Most Overrated Musicals

6. Oklahoma

Okay so I know it says a top 5 list, but I hate this musical so much that I thought I'd extend the list just to add it. It's really not a bad musical at all, I just happen to hate it. Whether its that Southerner twang and locale, or the fact that it gets drooled all over upon as one the best Rodger's and Hammersteinn Musicals when it shouldn't even been in the same category as The Sound of Music and The King and I, I just can't stand it.

5. The Phantom of the Opera

Let me let you in on a little secret. I love Andrew Lloyd Webber (probably not a secret seeing how much I drool all over Jesus Christ Superstar), and I love The Phantom of the Opera, but lets be frank, it is completely and utterly overrated. The music is pretty much just OK (although a lot of it is really beautiful), most of it is overly simplistic, and in the true Webber fashion, terribly derivative (don't believe me? take a look at this). It's also dreadfully corny and predictable.

4. Annie

I guess my real question with Annie is, who actually cares? It's a feel good story about some bratty Orphan getting really lucky. The music is cutesy and stupid, and it's corny enough to make me spit (which is saying a lot, I love corny). Also, as a friend of mine pointed out, what the fuck kind of name is Daddy Warbucks?

3. Spring Awakening

If you really want a sense for why I think Spring Awakening isn't very good, take a read of the review I just posted. A lot people are calling it my generation's "Rent," and while I really enjoyed the show when I went with my '08 Urinetown cast, its really not nearly as good as Rent. It keeps getting thrown up in the Upper Class of rock musicals, and it just doesn't deserve to be there. The music is a unfortunate mix of some really fun songs and a lot of really really terrible songs, and who's really going to get excited about a romance involving someone named Wendla?

2. Singing in The Rain

Oh, Oh no! I'm treading on treacherous ground here! Singing in the Rain is a widely appreciated fan favorite, and seriously, who doesn't dance around rain flooded streets swinging their umbrella around while shouting, "I'mm siiiiinging in the rain!"? But truthfully, I've never liked this musical. It boring, overly cheerful, and relatively uneventful. Call me a square, an emo child or a manic depressive, but Singing in the Rain is not the masterpiece it is often made out to be. (On a completely different note, I quite love the song "Moses Supposes")

1. Cats

I dearly hope that none of you are surprised by Cats' showing on this list. I think someone once said that there are very few things in the world that could turn men off more than the musical Cats. But Seriously, its not just men. I can't think of a single human being wanting to see a bunch of other human beings running around on a stage dressed up as CATS. CATS. Really now. This what children's animated movies are for. People are not cats, they never will be and they never should be. Not to mention the music is really really really really bad. Like colossally bad.