J. Jackson, lead singer and lyricist for ApologetiX here again.
Here are the latest entries in the "albums that influenced me" series I started writing in May 2020.
Note: Just because an album appears on this list doesn't mean I give it a blanket endorsement. Many of the secular albums on this list are mainly there because they wound up being spoofed by ApologetiX.
1829. The Premiere Collection: The Best Of Andrew Lloyd Webber - Various Artists
My wife and I bonded over a myriad of things when we met, and one of them was musicals. Lisa contributed this CD to our family music library once we got married. "It got played a lot in the band room in high school," she says. "I liked the songs, so I bought my own copy." As of 2025, Andrew Lloyd Webber had composed 21 musicals, and 11 of those were already in existence by the time this album came out. I was familiar with several of them, thanks to my mother and my sister Kris. Released in 1988, The Premiere Collection: The Best Of Andrew Lloyd Webber included selections from seven shows. Leading the charge, were three from his latest at the time, The Phantom of the Opera (1986): "Phantom of the Opera" (Steve Harley & Sarah Brightman), "Music of the Night" (Michael Crawford), and "All I Ask of You" (Cliff Richard & Sarah Brightman). There also were two each from Cats (1981): "Memory" (Elaine Paige) and "Magical Mr. Mistoffelees" (Paul Nicholas); Evita (1976): "Don't Cry for Me Argentina" (Julie Covington) and "Another Suitcase" (Barbara Dickson); Tell Me On A Sunday (1979): "Take That Look Off Your Face" (Marti Webb) and "Tell Me on a Sunday" (Marti Webb); and Jesus Christ Superstar: "Superstar" (Murray Head) and "I Don't Know How to Love Him" (Yvonne Elliman). Rounding out the rest of the record were "Starlight Express" (Ray Shell) from Starlight Express (1984), "Variations 1-4" (Julian Lloyd Webber) from Song & Dance (1982), and "Pie Jesu" (Sarah Brightman & Paul Miles Kingston) from the classical choral work Requiem (1985). Julian Lloyd Weber, who plays the cello as featured artist on the instrumental "Variations 1-4," is Andrew's younger brother. He is also a conductor. I knew many of the songs on The Premiere Collection: The Best Of Andrew Lloyd Webber already, even "Pie Jesu," but my favorite new discoveries were "Take That Look Off Your Face" and "Magical Mr. Mistoffelees."
1830. Under the Red Sky - Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan's 27th studio LP came out a mere 363 days after his best-reviewed album in years, Oh Mercy. Unfortunately, the good vibes were short lived ... at least for the critics. The music itself is actually pretty jaunty. Released on September 10, 1990, Under the Red Sky featured 10 tracks, and I daresay some of them might have been much better received if they'd appeared on Traveling Wilburys Vol. 3, which hit the stores a mere month and a half later. The music and instrumentation is excellent — and it should be, with people like Elton John and Bruce Hornsby on piano and Al Kooper on Hammond organ and keyboards — but it might have benefited with some George Harrison, Tom Petty, and Jeff Lynne backing vocals sprinkled in for fun. Harrison actually does play slide guitar on the album's title track, while Stevie Ray Vaughan and Slash guest star on "10,000 Men" and "Wiggle Wiggle," respectively. Lyrically, Under the Red Sky may not be as potent as Oh Mercy, and there's probably nothing on it I like as much as "Political World," "Everything Is Broken," and "Ring Them Bells," but I think it's a more pleasant listening experience overall, provided you're O.K. with Bob's voice at this stage in his career. My favorites are "Cat's in the Well," "God Knows," "Unbelievable," "2 X 2," "Born in Time," "10,000 Men," and "T.V. Talkin' Song," but I also like "Wiggle Wiggle," "Handy Dandy," and the title track. In fact, there's not a song I don't like. Produced by Dylan (under the pseudonym "Jack Frost") along with Don Was and David Was of Was (Not Was) — yeah, the guys who'd brought you "Walk the Dinosaur" (#7 pop, #30 alternative) in '88 — Under the Red Sky went to #16 on the Billboard 200.
1831. Titanic - Music From the Motion Picture
Like countless other people, I was always fascinated by the famous 1912 sinking of the British ocean liner Titanic ... however, I never saw the 1997 movie (written, directed, and co-produced by James Cameron) until after I married my wife, Lisa, in 2000. She had a bit of a head start on me, having seen it nine times on the big screen when it first came out. We watched it on DVD together as newlyweds, and we've both seen it numerous times since, but I personally know somebody we'll probably never catch up with: Fred Behanna, who was the drummer for ApologetiX from 1999-2001, estimates that he saw it 60-75 times in the theater! Titanic opened in the United States on December 19, 1997, and became the first film to make over a billion dollars (good job, Lisa and Fred) and the highest-grossing film of all time until Avatar (also written, directed, and co-produced by James Cameron) took the title in 2010. Nominated for 14 Academy Awards, Titanic won 11 of them (tied for the most all time with Ben-Hur), including Best Picture and Best Director. The soundtrack album did all right for itself, too. Released on November 18, 1997, Titanic: Music From the Motion Picture remained at #1 on the Billboard 200 for 16 straight weeks, selling over 30 million worldwide, including over 11 million in the United States. All but one of the 15 tracks were instrumental, but the one that wasn't became a phenomenon of its own — "My Heart Will Go On (Love Theme From Titanic)" by Celine Dion (#1 U.S., #1 U.K., #1 Canada, of course) sold over 18 million copies worldwide as a single. I love that song, and the rest of the music — all composed and performed by James Horner with an orchestra. If you were moved by the movie, the album will bring it all right back to you. But it's a wonderful music even without any cinematic synergy. Lisa owned the CD and the follow-up, Back to Titanic (released on August 25, 1998), which peaked at #2 on the Billboard 200 and sold over a million copies in the States, so they became part of our collective library. In 2001, she and I went to a Titanic dinner event at a local hotel where they attempted to recreate the fabulous gourmet menu and the luxurious interior atmosphere of the big boat (before it sank, of course). It was the first and only time either of us ever ate caviar, and once was more than enough. In 2018, we went to see Titanic: The Musical at the Benedum Center in Pittsburgh. I also took Natalie to see it at Carnegie Mellon University in 2025. Although the play and the film were both based on the same historical event (duh) and premiered the same year, they had nothing to with each other from a production standpoint. In fact, Titanic: The Musical debuted on Broadway on April 23, 1997, almost eight months before the movie opened in U.S. theaters. It won five Tony Awards, including Best Musical. How ironic is it that one of the greatest disasters of the early 20th century inspired some of the greatest successes (in stage, screen, and popular music) of the late 20th century?
1832. Frozen - An Original Walt Disney Records Soundtrack
The soundtrack LP for Frozen came out on November 25, 2013, the same week as the film. Lisa took our daughters to see it, and still remembers the experience: "Natalie (our youngest, who was a few months short of her sixth birthday at the time) spent the first hour stressed." Anyway, we bought the DVD in March 2014, that's when I finally saw it. By then, I had already become familiar with several of the songs, thanks to the girls in our house. The album occupied the top spot on the Billboard 200 for 13 non-consecutive weeks, selling over four million copies in the United States and 10 million worldwide. It included 32 tracks, although the final 22 were instrumentals by Canadian composer/conductor Christophe Beck. Six of the 10 with vocals charted: "Let It Go" by Idina Menzel (#5 pop), "Let It Go (End Credit Version)" by Demi Lovato (#38 pop), "Love Is an Open Door" by Kristen Bell and Santino Fontana (#49 pop), "Do You Want to Build a Snowman?" by Kristen Bell, Agatha Lee Monn, and Katie Lopez (#51 pop), "For the First Time in Forever" by Kristen Bell and Idina Menzel (#57 pop), and "In Summer" by Josh Gad (#104 pop). Our daughters sang "Do You Want to Build a Snowman" and "Love Is an Open Door" a ton, and "Let It Go" was inescapable, of course. I especially like "In Summer," and can we get some love for "Reindeer(s) Are Better Than People" and "Fixer Upper"? All 10 were composed by the husband and wife team of Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez. I later purchased the FrozenSing-Along Edition DVD for Janna, I think. By the time Frozen 2 rolled around for the holiday season in 2019, I was on board to see it with my wife and kids. It was all right but didn't exactly take our family by storm.
1833. Shrek the Musical - Original Broadway Cast Recording
Our oldest daughter, Janna, discovered Shrek: The Musical (music by Jeanine Tesori and lyrics by David Lindsay-Abaire) on Netflix with one of her friends in 2015 or 2016. They both loved the Shrek movies (the first two, at least), but the best they dared hope for the stage show was probably "so bad it's good." Shockingly (Shrekingly?), they stumbled upon something so good it's too bad more people don't know about it. Janna introduced it to Lisa, me, and some of her siblings, and we all agreed with her assessment. But we weren't the only ones. Shrek: The Musical opened on Broadway in 2008 and received eight Tony Award nominations, including Best Musical and Best Original Score, although it only won for Best Costume Design. Brian d'Arcy James and Daniel Breaker were superb as Shrek and Donkey, but Sutton Foster stole the show as Princess Fiona. In 2016, Janna and our second daughter, Heather, went to see it onstage in Pittsburgh at the Benedum Center. In 2017, Janna, Heather, and Natalie performed "I Know It's Today" at our church talent show. The songs features three verses, with Fiona as a child, an adolescent, and a young lady. It perfectly paralleled the ages of Natalie, Heather, and Janna at the time. In 2018, Janna and Heather returned to the talent show and did "The Travel Song" as Shrek and Donkey, respectively. We still have videos from both performances. When my wife posted "The Travel Song" on Facebook, she jokingly wrote the following about Janna and Heather, who shared the same bedroom growing up: "They didn't have to act; this is their exact relationship." Incidentally, that worked out well. By the spring of 2025, each of them was happily married, and the two couples were living in a big house together ... although not in a swamp. Released on March 24, 2009, the original Broadway cast recording entered and peaked at #88 on the Billboard 200. I loved the soundtrack from the original Shrek film, but this is all different stuff with the exception of the song Shrek and Donkey hear when they first reach Lord Farquaad's kingdom, which is incorporated into the opening section of the song "What's Up, Duloc?" Well, "I'm a Believer" wasn't in the original production but was later added into the show in October 2009 and is now part of the digital version. Of course, I'm partial to the two songs our girls covered, but there really aren't any lemons in this cornucopia of goodies. If I had to pick additional favorites, I'd probably choose "Don't Let Me Go" (sung by Donkey), "The Ballad of Farquaad" (sung by Lord Farquaad), and I Think I Got You Beat (sung by Fiona and Shrek). Lisa also really likes "Who'd I Be" (sung by Shrek).
1834. The Phantom of the Opera - Original London Cast
And now we come to the longest-running Broadway show of all time and the first to ever reach 10,000 performances. Across the pond, it's the second-longest running West End musical, after Les Misérables. The Phantom of the Opera and I go way back. When I was a kid, my cousin Mark Jackson liked old-time monster movies, and I remember visiting him in the '70s and looking at one of his horror magazines, which had an advertisement featuring scary masks you could order. The second one on the page was a photo of Lon Chaney as the Phantom of the Opera from the famous unmasking scene in the 1925 silent film. It terrified me, and I couldn't get that image out of my mind. In fact, I still remember it half a century a later, although I've learned to cope. While writing this entry, the humor of it all hit me: The ad featured a mask made to look like a guy who'd just been unmasked! Anyway, that was all I associated with the Phantom of the Opera until 1987, when my mother discovered Andrew Lloyd Webber's 1986 smash musical, The Phantom of the Opera. It seemed like strange subject matter, but I knew that two of Webber's most recent theatrical sensations had involved performers impersonating cats and people in roller skates acting like trains, so maybe this one wasn't so weird after all. It got nominated for 10 Tony Awards and won eight of them, including Best Musical and Best Actor in a Musical (Michael Crawford as the Phantom). I think Mom had the album and the sheet music for it ... or at least for "All I Ask of You," probably the most famous song from the show, along with "The Music of the Night," and the title song. Mom played the piano and would get me to sing along on certain songs, and I think I remember having to do "All I Ask of You" for her on occasion. That song was released as a single in '86 with Webber's wife at the time, Sarah Brightman, reprising her role as the show's female lead, Christine, and legendary British pop singer Cliff Richard singing the part of Raoul (played by Steve Barton in the musical). It became a huge U.K. hit (#3) and reached #1 in Ireland and South Africa. Two years later, Barbra Streisand covered "All I Ask of You" and had a Top 20 U.S. adult contemporary hit (#18). Released in 1987, the original London cast recording for Phantom of the Opera sold almost a million in the U.K. (that's a lot for there) and over four million in the United States, where it reached #33 on the Billboard 200. It spent 255 weeks on that chart. A second volume, Highlights From The Phantom of the Opera, followed in 1990 and sold another four million in the States, only reaching #46 but charting for 331 weeks. The Phantom of the Opera is tied with Les Misérables at the top of the list of my wife's favorite musicals. "It usually depends on whichever I've seen more recently," she says. She'd already seen The Phantom of the Opera onstage three times before we met. We watched the 2004 movie adaptation of the musical on DVD sometime in 2005 and then saw the actual musical at the Benedum Center in Pittsburgh in January 2006. She has since seen it onstage two more times — once with our second-oldest daughter, Heather, and once with Heather and our fourth daughter, Natalie, together. It's at or near the top of the list of favorite musicals for both of those girls, too. Lisa and I watched Andrew Lloyd Webber's 2010 sequel, Love Never Dies, when it first came on Netflix, and then she showed it to the girls. Lisa and Heather saw it onstage sometime in 2018. My wife and daughters all seem to share the assessment that Love Never Dies is good as a standalone musical but not as a sequel to The Phantom of the Opera. Before Lisa started having children, she had polished off her old trombone (from being in marching band in high school and college) and was getting involved in a local community symphony. I could hear her upstairs playing "The Music of the Night" on trombone. "It was one of the few songs in that music book that wasn’t too high for my limited range," she says now. That tune sounds lot less elegant on solo trombone (not Lisa's fault, mind you). It reminds me of Larry the Cucumber's tuba part at the opening of the VeggieTalestheme song — and I still crack up thinking about it. "The Music of the Night" has one of the easiest melodies and rhythms in the world to make up spontaneous lyrics for. I'm not talking about parodies that have to rhyme with the original; I just mean singing whatever words come into your head. Try it with me: "Just - start - sing - ing — any words you think of — you - will - see - that - what I said is true." OR "Yes - I - wrote - that — without any forethought — it's - a - pic - nic — singing to this tune."
1835. EPIC: The Musical
Although it has yet to hit the grand stage, EPIC: The Musical is a series of concept albums based on Homer's The Odyssey. That's fitting, because I primarily heard it played by my kids and wife in our 2015 Honda Odyssey minivan. Our second-oldest daughter, Heather, introduced it to our family after first playing me a song or two on one of my trips taking her to college at Indiana University of Pennsylvania (IUP). Soon after, our youngest two kids, Natalie and T.J., took the ball and ran with it ... especially T.J., who is fascinated with Greek mythology. EPIC: The Musical is divided into two acts, comprising nine parts: The Troy Saga, The Cyclops Saga, The Ocean Saga, The Circe Saga, The Underworld Saga, The Thunder Saga, The Wisdom Saga, The Vengeance Saga, and The Ithaca Saga. Although the individual sagas were released one at time, periodically between December 25, 2022 and December 25, 2024, snippets first started appearing on the internet in 2021. The whole experience lasts a little less than two and a half hours and features music and lyrics by Jorge Rivera-Herrans, who voices the main character, Odysseus, and a few others. Believe it or not, he chose most of the rest of the cast through auditions on TikTok, but everything sounds top-notch. It's pretty amazing. My favorite part was probably The Cyclops Saga. While writing this entry, I asked T.J. for his favorites, and he said, "Probably The Thunder Saga and The Cyclops Saga." There are many fan-made videos for all the sagas and songs on the Internet. T.J. told me he has a playlist that includes his favorite video for each song.
1836. Hadestown - Original Broadway Cast Recording
The first time I ever heard of Hadestown was while watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade at my sister's house. I remember thinking, "What's this world coming to? What the heck is that about?" Actually, it's another musical based on ancient Greek mythology, which is why it caught the interest of our son, T.J., who had been so captivated by EPIC, my previous entry. Hadestown retells the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, narrated by Hermes, with additional feature roles for Hades, the king of the underworld, and his wife, Persephone. Admittedly, it doesn't necessarily sound like something with broad appeal to 21st-century audiences, but the story is modernized with extraordinary music and lyrics by Anaïs Mitchell. The original musical was first performed in Vermont in 2006 then turned into a concept album in 2010. A reworked version premiered off-Broadway in 2016 and finally made it to the Great White Way in 2019. Nominated for 14 Tony Awards, Hadestown won eight, including Best Musical and Best Original Score. The original Broadway cast recording came out on July 26, 2019, and reached #49 on the Billboard 200. There are 40 tracks in all — just over two hours of music, but it doesn't seem overlong. The main actors/singers — Reeve Carney (Orpheus), Eva Noblezada (Eurydice), André De Shields (Hermes) Patrick Page (Hades), Amber Gray (Persephone), and the Fates (Lulu Fall, Jessie Shelton, and Shaina Taub) — do a fabulous job. My favorite numbers are "Wait for Me," "The Road to Hell," and "Wedding Song." Other memorable selections include "Any Way the Wind Blows," "Come Home With Me," "Way Down Hadestown," "Chant," "Come Home With Me (Reprise)," "Epic III," "Epic III Instrumental (Intro) ("They Danced...")," "Wait for Me (Reprise)," and "Road to Hell (Reprise)." While listening to the mythical musicals Hadestown and EPIC, it drives the point home to me that man makes gods in his own image — fallible and flawed. It makes me appreciate all the more the one true God, who is all-knowing and all-powerful, always just and always merciful, whether we understand His plans in the moment or not.
NOTE: The final album in this series will appear in next week’s newsletter. It’ll be the 78th ApologetiX CD, which we plan to unveil at the end of this weekend.
