Rent (1996 Original Broadway Cast)

Binding: Audio CD
EAN: 0600445000322
Format: Cast Recording
Label: Dreamworks
Manufacturer: Dreamworks
Number Of Discs: 2
Publisher: Dreamworks
Release Date: 1996-08-27
Studio: Dreamworks

Editorial Review:

Amazon.comInto Broadway's creative vacuum of revivals, movie adaptations, and Hollywood star vehicles comes Rent, the story of squatters, junkies, performance artists, struggling musicians, drag queens, aspiring filmmakers, and HIV-positives (and you thought Miss Saigon's helicopter landing was cool). Undoubtedly among the defining pop cultural events of 1996, Rent has already won four Tony awards and a Pulitzer Prize for Drama. More importantly, it threatens to bring substance back to the Great White Way.

Transposing Puccini's 100-year-old opera La Bohème into modern day Bohemia (19th-century Paris's Left Bank becomes late-20th-century New York's East Village where the scourge of tuberculosis becomes the plague of AIDS) Rent celebrates life among the young, sick, and unconventional. While Broadway shows are hardly the place for authentic portrayals of the latest marginalized hipsters, composer Jonathan Larson (who died at age 36, days before his musical opened) managed to sculpt vivid characters and scenes that bring Avenue A as close as it will ever come to 42nd Street. And by telling a socially relevant story of living without the guarantee of a future (renting, that is), Larson does his own little bit to define an X'ed generation. At worst, Rent is the Hair of the '90s.

For the majority of us who won't be seeing Rent anytime soon, the Original Cast Recording is more than just an after-show souvenir. Well-packaged with a complete libretto, the two-CD set is a worthwhile album separate of live performance. Full of songs that are funny and catchy, inspiring and touching, smart and hip and not overly sentimental, Rent mixes showtune pop with elements of rock, R&B, dance, gospel, and tango to make one of the best albums of the year--certainly the best rock opera in decades. La vie bohème, indeed. --Roni Sarig

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Customer Reviews

Average Rating: out of 5 stars

Rating:

- please
It is in my personal opinion that those who blasepheme this incredible work are simply not into moderne music and would prefer to listen to screeching sopranos and tenors verbrato their way through an opera in any language other than enligsh. But for my generation, this rock opera (if you didn't catch that before buying this fabulus cd, don't blame the fans) got us involved in theatre once again. Its powerful message called one us as a population to not ignore the AIDs epidemic any more. Jonathon Larson used his favorite medium, the stage, as a platform for his stance. If one believes that Broadway is the place for happy endings and large, meaningless outbursts of songs, stay away. But if you believe in a better tomorrow and that we can't ignore this anymore, cough up the money and buy the recording of the best artists singing amazing songs written by a musical genius.

Rating:

- Love it!
Absolutely fantastic. I have the Movie Soundtrack as well but it doesn't even come close. Every song from the play is in here.
I love listening to my favorite songs which are not on the movie CD Rent (2005 Movie Soundtrack) like Christmas Bells, and Happy New Year.
These are most of the same people from the movie Rent (Widescreen Two-Disc Special Edition) just at a different point in there life.
This is a MUST have!

Rating:

- Relive the show
This is a must if you liked the Broadway show. Fans who have seen only the movie are missing out on some great songs and arrangements. The instrumentation from the movie is more polished, as are some of the voices. Jesse Martin's voice has really improved with age. However the movie is missing the great transitions and blending between pieces of music.

Rating:

- Rent - a Celebration of Financial, Hygenic and Moral Degeneracy Masquerading as Moving Drama
When I first received my copy of Rent's soundtrack, one of my friends had the good manners to warn me that I would "hate the message." I am not surprised at this assessment, but what is more unfortunate is that the production as a whole does not make up for that objectionable message enough to make this a worthwhile purchase for anyone uninterested in a mindless affirmation of the self-destructive "bohemian" lifestyle. The lyrics alternate between vapid pseudo-philosophical platitudes ("Measure in love, seasons of love") and ugly overtones of Marxist class envy ("Yuppie scum"). The voices of the singers are disputable in quality - the most impressive being Idina Menzel's boisterous, full-bodied rock vocals and Jesse L. Martin's poignant soul-inspired voice and the worst being Daphne Rubin Vega's rasping excuse for a voice, whose every note invokes simultaneous feelings of pity and revulsion. As for the music, while certain tunes hold a certain decadent charm, the overall style soon becomes repetitive and tiresome, with guitars assailing the ears almost as frequently as paeans to drug use, socialism and "loooooove". How this mediocre blasphemy against Puccini could possibly have won a Tony is beyond my understanding, and how anyone could bring themselves to spend more than a dime upon such a second-rate soundtrack should be equally beyond your belief. Avoid this record.

Rating:

- I'm Hooked!
I am a Renthead/Junkie for many years now. The cast recording has been with me for years due to a recommendation from a college friend. I have been playing this CD and know the words by heart.

I was the first in line when the movie came out and had a heartfelt emotional experience. And now it has finally happened...

I just saw the show for the first time on April 28th, 2007 and may I say GO SEE IT! The songs have not lost any relevance in the last 11 years. The cast of the tour is great and I hope one day to see the original cast perform.

Thank you Jonathan Larson! God speed and I love you :-)

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Rent (1996 Original Broadway Cast)

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