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.
1822. ApologetiX '77 - ApologetiX
Released in mid-December 2024, the 77th ApologetiX LP featured parodies of a dozen hits from 1977, which is why we called it ApologetiX ‘77. That’s not some random thing ... just as 1974 was a very influential year in music for me, which is why we did ApologetiX ‘74, the same was true for 1977. Whereas '74 was when I started actively listening to what my sisters and others were playing on the radio, ’77 was when I realized I could turn it on for myself, tune it to stations I liked, and start buying my own records. Perhaps not coincidentally, I became a teenager in the middle of that year, unaware that God was guiding me toward my destiny just as Luke Skywalker was finding his on the big screen. I even purchased two Star Wars singles (by John Williams and Meco) that summer. Six months later, I got my first cassette recorder — in retrospect, the most significant item on my Christmas list. It arrived just in time for the year-end countdown of the Top 100 songs on my favorite radio station, 96 KX. All the songs we spoofed on this album were on that list, and I taped most of them. Half the songs covered on ApologetiX ‘77 were #1 singles; the rest made the Top 10. As was the case with ApologetiX ‘74, we presented them in chronological order of when the original reached its peak position on the chart. So, please join us as we travel back to a long time ago in a record store not so far away, taking another look at classics by Aerosmith, Manfred Mann's Earth Band, 10cc, Glen Campbell, Stevie Wonder, K.C. & The Sunshine Band, Alan O'Day, The Steve Miller Band, Barry Manilow, Peter Frampton, ELO, and The Brothers Johnson.
1823. Bonnie & Clyde - Original Broadway Cast Recording
Our youngest daughter, Natalie, discovered this album and shared it with me in early 2024. Years earlier, Lisa and I had already seen the 1967 cinematic classic Bonnie and Clyde starring Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway and the 2019 film The Highwaymen starring Kevin Costner and Woody Harrelson about the attempt to bring the infamous Depression-era outlaws to justice. The musical Bonnie & Clyde, which delves into the duo's romance and chronicles their criminal rise and fall, debuted in San Diego in 2009 and moved to Sarasota FL in 2010 before hitting Broadway in 2011. Featuring music by Frank Wildhorn and lyrics by Don Black, it received Tony Award nominations in 2012 for Best Original Score and Best Actress in a Musical. Laura Osnes and Jeremy Jordan starred as the titular characters, Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow. Released on April 24, 2012, the original cast recording contains 20 songs from the show, plus a bonus track, and none of them take any getting used to. My favorites are "You're Going Back to Jail," "God's Arms Are Always Open," and "Too Late to Turn Back Now," but it's hard to find fault with anything else. My next tier would probably include: "This World Will Remember Me," "Picture Show," "Dyin' Ain't so Bad," "This World Will Remember Us," "You Can Do Better Than Him," "When I Drive," and "You Love Who You Love."
1824. School of Rock: The Musical - Original Cast Recording
School of Rock dramatically exceeded my expectations ... twice ... first as a film and then as a musical. Lisa and I watched the 2003 movie soon after it came out on DVD in March 2004. Our third daughter, Kelly, was born on October 1, 2003, two days before School of Rock hit theaters, so we were a little preoccupied. We've seen it a few times since with our kids once they grew old enough to appreciate it. Our two youngest, Natalie and T.J., discovered the original-cast recording as teenagers and started playing it for me on our drives to their school in 2024. The album itself came out in December 2015. At first, I was shocked to learn the score was composed by Andrew Lloyd Webber. Obviously, I'm well aware of who he is, but I'd momentarily forgotten to take into account the fact that he was the music man behind the rock opera Jesus Christ Superstar (1970) before moving on to more traditional musicals like Evita (1976), Cats (1981), and The Phantom of the Opera(1986). Three of the songs in School of Rock: The Musical were in the original movie, but there are a dozen new ones. Glenn Slater supplied the lyrics, having previously done so for the Broadway versions of The Little Mermaid and Sister Act, plus the musical numbers for Tangled, my daughter Janna's favorite Disney film. School of Rock: The Musical was nominated for four Tony Awards (although it didn't win any): Best Musical, Best Book of a Musical, Best Original Score, and Best Actor in a Musical. Alex Brightman starred as Dewey Finn, the music teacher originally played by Jack Black in the film. He sounds so much like Black that there is no need for willing suspension of disbelief. Like the movie, kids made up the majority of the cast. One of my favorite songs, the hilarious "Give Up Your Dreams," was apparently cut from actual stage production before it debuted. What a shame. Thankfully, it's still on the soundtrack in the place where it would have appeared in the show. Other highlights for me were "You're in the Band," "Time to Play," "Faculty Quadrille," "If You Would Only Listen," "Stick It to the Man," "Where Did the Rock Go," "Here at Horace Green," and last, but definitely not least, the irresistible "School of Rock (Teacher's Pet)," which was the song the kids performed on stage at the end in the film's finale. That tune's hard to top. And, it's a long way to the top ... if you wanna rock 'n' roll." Incidental note: ApologetiX guitarist Wayne Bartley has been a professional guitar teacher since 1986. He says that after the movie School of Rock hit theaters, "it seemed to re-excite kids about guitar, and I noticed my schedule filling up after a bad slow period. A lot of my new students at that time mentioned it as an influential part of wanting to learn guitar."
1825. Something Rotten!
The musical comedy Something Rotten! takes place in 1595 in London, but it debuted 420 years later and an ocean away ... on Broadway in 2015. Featuring music and lyrics by brothers Karey and Wayne Kirkpatrick, the play tells the story of two other brothers, Nick and Nigel Bottom, who run a theatre troupe in the time and town of William Shakespeare. Nick is jealous of Shakespeare and goes to see a soothsayer — Thomas Nostradamus, nephew of the famous French mystic Nostradamus — in an effort to discover the next big thing and get an edge on his distinguished competition. Thomas tells Nick the future of stage shows rests in something called musicals. He also sees a vision of Shakespeare's masterpiece, Hamlet, but misinterprets it as Omelette. Hilarity ensues and soon Shakespeare himself gets involved. Something Rotten! was nominated for nine Tony Awards, including Best Musical and Best Original Score, although it only won for Best Featured Actor in a Musical (Christian Borle as William Shakespeare). Every single song is extraordinarily witty (there's even a rousing number about the Black Death), although they do get edgy sometimes. My favorite selections are "Welcome to the Renaissance," "A Musical" (which incorporates about 20 allusions to other Broadway classics) "Will Power" (Shakespeare "live" in rockstar mode before an adoring crowd of fans), "Bottom's Gonna Be on Top," "Hard to Be the Bard," "It's Eggs!," and "Something Rotten! / Make an Omelette."
1826. The SpongeBob Musical - Original Cast Recording
Lisa, three of our kids, my sister-in-law, her daughters, and I went to see The SpongeBob Musical at North Allegheny High School on March 4, 2023. That school has high-end talent and puts on quality productions. I must confess that I had limited knowledge of SpongeBob SquarePants beforehand and low expectations for the show, but I was very pleasantly surprised. Charmed, I'm sure. That's a good thing for me, because my two youngest kids still like to play selections from the soundtrack in the car on our morning rides to their school. The original musical debuted in Chicago in June 2016 and opened on Broadway in December 2017. It wound up nabbing 12 Tony Award nominations, including Best Musical and Best Original Score, but it only won one ... for Best Scenic Design of a Musical. Nevertheless, I'm sure SpongeBob himself would have found something positive to say about that. But here's something really cool about The SpongeBob Musical that I didn't know until after I saw the show: The songs were written by a wide variety of established music artists, including David Bowie & Brian Eno, Cyndi Lauper and Rob Hyman of The Hooters, Steven Tyler & Joe Perry of Aerosmith, John Legend, Lady Antebellum, Panic! At the Disco, Plain White T's, The Flaming Lips, They Might Be Giants, Yolanda Adams, Sara Bareilles, Alex Ebert, T.I., Jonathan Coulton, and Andy Paley & Tom Kenny (the voice of SpongeBob on the animated series). Somehow, it works ... quite fabulously, in fact. The original cast recording hit stores and streaming sites on September 22, 2017. Songs were sung by the actors in the musical, not the artists who wrote them nor the voice actors from the cartoon. They were performed with an 18-person orchestra, which also kept the sound consistent. My favorite numbers are "I'm Not a Loser" (written by They Might Be Giants and sung by Squidward), "Poor Pirates" (written by Sara Bareilles and sung by Patchy the Pirate), "Chop to the Top" (written by Lady Antebellum and sung by Sandy the Squirrel and SpongeBob), and "Bikini Bottom Day" (written by Jonathan Coulton and performed by SpongeBob, Patrick, Squidward, Sandy, Mr. Krabs, Plankton, and Karen). Others I really enjoyed include "Daddy Knows Best" (written by Alex Ebert and sung by Mr. Krabs and his daughter, Pearl), "Hero Is My Middle Name" (written by Cyndi Lauper & Rob Hyman and sung by SpongeBob, Patrick, and Sandy), "Just a Simple Sponge (written by Panic! At the Disco and sung primarily by SpongeBob), "Best Day Ever" (written by Andy Paley & Tom Kenny and sung by SpongeBob and the rest of the cast), and "BFF" (written by Plain White T's and performed by SpongeBob and Patrick).
1827. The Greatest Showman - Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
Not gonna lie ... when I first saw the preview for this movie in the winter of 2017-18 and they announced it was by the same people who did La La Land (which we'd seen in January 2017), I didn't expect much. In fact, I didn't expect to see it at all. Lisa and I had had high hopes for La La Land, but they kind of lost us halfway through the film. Nevertheless, she seemed eager to see The Greatest Showman. I know you're probably thinking that's because it starred Hugh Jackman and Zac Efron, but I honestly don't think so. My wife loves musicals, and we'd seen Jackman in Les Miserables (a musical we already adored) five years earlier, but she'd never expressed any desire to watch The X-Men or Wolverine films, and she wasn't riveted to the screen when our oldest girls were watching Efron in the High School Musical and its sequels, either. Besides, she only has eyes for me, and vice versa. For my part, I was at least interested in learning more about the life of P.T. Barnum, so off we went on February 17, 2018, and I ended up enjoyed it very much, as did she. The songs may have been calculated to move and inspire me, but they accomplished their goal. I can't remember if Lisa took some of the kids to see it or if we waited till it was streaming, but they saw it and liked it and played the songs from it over and over. My favorite numbers were "A Million Dreams," "Come Alive," "The Other Side," and "Rewrite the Stars," although I heard that last one so many times I started singing, "Why don't we write rewrite this song?" I certainly heard the others aplenty as well: "The Greatest Show," "Never Enough," "This Is Me," "From Now On," and "Tightrope.” Our youngest daughter, Natalie, sang "Tightope" at our church talent show in April 2018. She was 10 at the time. Before providing the lyrics for La La Land, the songwriting team of Pasek & Paul (Benj Pasek and Justin Paul) wrote the lyrics and music for another musical that eventually came to the big screen in 2021, Dear Evan Hansen.
1828. Beauty and the Beast - Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
Disney's live-action remake of Beauty and the Beast opened nationally in theatres on March 17, 2017, and at one point was the 10th highest-grossing film of all time. Our family did its part; Lisa went with some of our kids first and then insisted on taking me on May 1. The title roles were played by two actors with whom we were quite familiar — Emma Watson (Hermione Granger in the Harry Potter movies) and Dan Stevens (Matthew Crawley in the Downton Abbey television series). It wasn't the first time my wife had prevailed upon me to watch a Disney adaptation of the "tale as old as time." When she moved to Pennsylvania from Kentucky after we got married in 2000, she brought along her VHS edition of the company's 1991 animated film, which won the Oscar for Best Original Score and Best Original Song. It was even nominated for Best Picture ... not bad for a cartoon! The live-action remake was only nominated for Best Costume Design and Best Production Design and didn't win in either category. I enjoyed both movies ... good thing I'm a hopeless romantic. Each of them featured a soundtrack by Americans Alan Menken (music) and Howard Ashman (lyrics). Sadly, Ashman died in '91, but Menken collaborated with famous British lyricist Tim Rice on several new songs for the live-action remake: "Aria," "How Does a Moment Last Forever (Music Box)," "Days in the Sun," and "Evermore." Those last two numbers became big hits in the Jackson household. I can still hear our second-oldest daughter, Heather, belting them out in various places throughout our home. The '91 soundtrack LP peaked at #19 on the Billboard 200, selling three million copies in the United States, in no small part thanks to the inclusion of a hit version of the title song by Celine Dion and Peabo Bryson (#9 pop, #3 adult contemporary). The 2017 soundtrack LP rocketed up to #3 but only sold half a million copies in the United States (albums just don't sell as much as they used to). In addition to 16 songs from the cast, it contained additional renditions of "How Does a Moment Last Forever" by Celine Dion, "Beauty and the Beast" by Ariana Grade and John Legend, and "Evermore" by Josh Groban. Crazy word-pattern people like me appreciate the fact that the cast of the live-action remake not only features Emma Watson but also Emma Thompson, in the role of Mrs. Potts.
