My Changing Musical Taste

Hi, I am The Rhythm Thief, and this will be my blog. No introductions, just straight in to it.


For the past couple of months, my music taste has been changing considerably. Well, I wouldn't say it's been changing, exactly, but the type of music I have been seeking has increased dramatically. Gone are the days where I refused to listen to anything but folk-rock, pop-rock, operatic-symphonic-goth-metal and girls or boys playing acoustic guitars or pianos, perhaps accompanied by a small string section.
No, those days are long gone. Today I can be found basking in the glory that is musical theatre. (A large and disturbing leap, I know...)
I used to listen to some showtunes and show recordings back in the day, but I have to admit that what I heard back then was very limited. I do not come from a family where people listened to a great variety of music (my brother stuck to blink-182, Jon Bon Jovi and Pearly Jam, while my mother and father played Crowded House, Cyndi Lauper and other 80s music that was prevelant on the radio). So coming from a family where people are not inclined to delve into music other than what they already know, the broadway type music available to me was Andrew Lloyd Webber, and basically nothing but. (Plenty of Phantom Of The Opera, let me tell you...)

But not anymore. These days, I can be found couped up in my room cruising with Wicked, The Apple Tree, A New Brain, Spring Awakening, Steep Pier, Rent, See What I Wanna See, The Wild Party, You're A Good Man Charlie Brown, Candide, Aida, Epic Proportions, Avenue Q and Spamalot, to name just a few.
Now, if you have picked up the trend the (the trend being that every one of those shows starred either Idina Menzel or Kristin Chenoweth - with the exception of Spamalot) then you are my new BFF. (And I'm not a person who actually uses that turn of phrase in real life, never fear.)

My love of Idina and Cheno (not to mention my favourite musical of all time, WICKED) lead me to my London adventure, where I spent more time sitting in a seat at the Apollo Victoria Theatre watching a green girl and a pink girl sing and dance their way around the stage than I would have thought humanly possible. (17 and a half hours, to be precise). Not to mention queuing time, the amount of money spent on tickets (only the best seats for this musical snob!) and the merchandise I just had to have.
Furthermore, unlike my Phantom Of The Opera obsession of 2005, my Wicked love has encouraged me to seek out all musicals in general, my Andrew Lloyd Webber crazes have never inspired me to that extent.

Anyway, the point of my rambling is that Kristin Chenoweth and Idina Menzel have opened up a whole new world to me that I always knew existed, but was too scared to venture to even briefly, perhaps knowing that it would turn out as it has, and my vacation would become a relocation of the permanent variety. So I am stuck, in the land of musical theatre, helpless, lost, overwhelmed (not to mention overjoyed) and loving every minute of it.