\u201cIt was simply, as I tell everybody, the best piece of art in any form that I have ever seen in my life,\u201d said Michelle Obama. \u201cEasily the best show I have ever seen,\u201d said Conan O\u2019Brien. \u201cWhat a thrilling experience to be in the presence of such genius! Brilliance!\u201d said Oprah Winfrey. <\/p>\n
By now you\u2019ve heard all the praise for Hamilton: An American Musical<\/i>, from actors, politicians, critics, and anyone else lucky enough to score a ticket. From Barack Obama to Dick Cheney, Rick Rubin to Reese Witherspoon, the charm, brilliance, and power of Lin-Manuel Miranda\u2019s opus seems to have captivated every corner of our divided nation. By setting American history to hip-hop, Miranda brought the earliest days of the American experiment into the 21st<\/sup> century and revolutionized the idea of what a Broadway musical could be.<\/p>\n So when presented as a soundtrack\u2014no costumes, no choreography, no staging \u2013 does Hamilton<\/i> still work? Um, did the British wear red?<\/p>\n The opener \u201cAlexander Hamilton,\u201d a rough draft of which Miranda famously performed at the White House in 2009, establishes what you\u2019re about to listen to: a masterclass in wordplay, history, and musical dexterity. \u201cHow does a bastard, orphan, son of a whore\u00a0and a Scotsman, dropped in the middle of a forgotten spot in the Caribbean by providence impoverished, in squalor, grow up to be a hero and a scholar?\u201d asks narrator Aaron Burr, played by jazz sensation Leslie Odom Jr., in the opening lines. The remainder of the musical answers that question, brilliantly weaving together musical and lyrical themes about ambition, legacy, love, and freedom.<\/p>\n Stretching from Alexander Hamilton\u2019s days as an immigrant soldier looking to make a name for himself to his death at the hands of rival (and Vice President) Aaron Burr in a duel, Hamilton <\/i>is a biographical musical that never loses track of its main character or the supporting figures who walked the stage of American history alongside him. With the first act covering Hamilton\u2019s role in the Revolutionary War and the second act dwelling on his time as Treasury Secretary, the musical manages to find drama not only on the battlefield, but also in the \u201croom where it happens,\u201d the archetypal smoke-filled room where our laws and our history are often really made. It is a tribute to Miranda\u2019s genius that even a subject as dry as America\u2019s national debt is somehow not only explained but made entertaining in \u201cCabinet Battle #2,\u201d a cabinet meeting turned rap battle. That\u2019s Hamilton<\/i> in a nutshell \u2013 educational, clever, and powerful.<\/p>\n Hip-hop fans will get the most out of the soundtrack, which pays homage to the genre with the occasional lyrical or musical sample, most notably in \u201cTen Duel Commandments,\u201d which owes a debt to the Notorious B.I.G. But fans of other genres are far from left out. Jazz gets its moment when Daveed Diggs as Thomas Jefferson opens the second act with \u201cWhat\u2019d I Miss,\u201d and even British pop is brilliantly adopted for three appearances by Jonathan Groff\u2019s King George III in \u201cYou\u2019ll Be Back,\u201d \u201cWhat Comes Next,\u201d and \u201cI Know Him.\u201d Make no mistake, hip-hop is at the forefront of this musical, but this soundtrack is far from just a collection of raps \u2013 Hamilton <\/i>does it all.<\/p>\n The voice talent of the original Broadway cast is already legendary and too numerous to list, so let me just give special attention to Christopher Jackson, who soars as George Washington, especially in \u201cOne Last Time,\u201d and Ren\u00e9e Elise Goldsberry, who nearly steals an already stunning show as Angelica Schuyler in \u201cSatisfied.\u201d With all of the original cast having moved on to other projects, the soundtrack is now your only way to return to the days when all this talent strode the same stage night after night.<\/p>\n And if that\u2019s what you\u2019re wanting \u2013 to get as close as you can to hearing Miranda as Hamilton and Jackson as Washington one last time \u2013 then you can do no better than listen to this cast album. Since Hamilton<\/i> is a sung-through musical, when you listen to the soundtrack you are listening to every line in the show. There are no gaps that need to be filled in, no story happening between songs. If you can imagine in your mind\u2019s eye what you\u2019re hearing, the soundtrack is the best way to \u2018see\u2019 Hamilton<\/i> for that part of the nation that can\u2019t make it to Broadway.<\/p>\n All things considered, this is the easiest grade I\u2019ve ever assigned to a music review. Even if you\u2019re not usually a fan of hip-hop, or musicals, or history, it doesn\u2019t matter. You will find something \u2013 if not everything \u2013 to love in Hamilton<\/i>. I know there\u2019s a lot of hype, but yes, it really is that good.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":64,"featured_media":33560,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[7274],"rating":[5646],"class_list":["post-45381","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-original-broadway-cast-recording","rating-rating-a"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/45381","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/64"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45381"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/45381\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45381"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45381"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=45381"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=45381"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}