SOUND OFF: BLOODY, BLOODY Brilliant

Conceive Yourselves Quite Lucky

Today we are listening to the Original Off-Broadway Cast Recording of The Public Theater's Broadway-bound punk rock musical BLOODY, BLOODY ANDREW JACKSON which is, without question, the very best Broadway score to blaze upon the boards in years. It's bloody, bloody brilliant. It's everything SPRING AWAKENING tried to be (and sporadically succeeded in showing, but not singing) but it effortless evokes the passion, fire, drive and earthy bite of the early eighteenth century combined with the apathetic overtures masking a cowering fear which defines the plight of the twenty-first century generation, Gen Y. A meta-musical and a concept musical but an effective and engaging one. This musical is x to the nth degree. It's everything every Broadway show should be: innovative, provocative, exciting, original and featuring a score with not one weak link! Conceive yourselves quite lucky and Say, "Yea! Yea!"

BLOODY, BLOODY ANDREW JACKSON - Original Off-Broadway Cast Recording

SCORE: 9/10

Who Am I? Andrew F***ing Jackson

A history lesson. A punk floor show. A brave and daring new musical. All together? You bet. And a s***load more, to boot. What we have all been waiting for has finally arrived: a new, completely contemporary score on a Broadway stage with a compelling, curious story, a totally unique and oh-so-apropos take on history - as well as performances conveying two eras at once, nineteenth century Populism and twenty-first century Punk-dom - which is certainly no small feat by any measure whatsoever. Harder still to pull off. Yet, on any scale this score would rate a ten. The only thing holding back this reviewer from a perfect score is the extreme brevity of the music in this musical (about a half-hour) so as an homage this review will be succint as possible as if to mirror the way the songs work in the context of the score on stage as a means to echo that experience to the audience out there in the dark who may not have seen the show onstage quite yet - or don‘t have the opportunity - once we get to the hearty musical meat on these strong story bones.

While the score is short, that is not to say that every single syllable isn't elementary to the excellence of the entire score as it stands on the cast recording. It rocks - Green who? American what? - I just wish there was some more, but perhaps the soundbyte nature - with most songs averaging less than three minutes - is entirely justified given the meta-milieu of the musical on stage: 21st century performers enacting an eighteenth century historical-based story, with an entirely modern sound and style. It may seem like over-praise to be so emotional and effusive about the content of this show and the originality and excitement generated by this score, but after the anemic and dire seasons we have recently had on Broadway as far as new scores go, this is a mirage. It's been almost impossible to even try to have any hope for new Broadway scores with cultural - or even pop culture - relevance given everything on Broadway right now, and then this show comes along. It's America then, America now and hopefully what the future will hold for American musical theatre scores. It is a score as revolutionary as the title character. Maybe more.

"Populism, Yea Yea" blasts forth like from out of a canon. Velocity, violence, volume - and such veracity, to emotions ancient and just bubbling up like a baby brook of the waters of the soul. So does this score reveal itself like an opening tulip, a ripe and ready rose. A bouquet of them. A garden of them. Then comes "I'm Not That Guy" - the best rock and roll musical theatre "I Want" song since "One Song Glory in RENT fifteen years ago - and it is in that moment that a star is born. His name is Andrew Jackson. No, wait, his name is Benjamin Walker. It's impossible to tell them apart. Walker just embodies the spirit of what we can imagine Jackson (or this liberty-taking, in both senses, version of the 7th president of the United States) possessed as the fiery leader emerging like a political, Populist - or should I say Democratic, since he founded the party as we know it - phoenix from humble, almost cowering, roots. And that gritty tinge to his voice on the "Life Sucks!" sections of the score are some of the most arresting vocal ticks I have ever heard in a rock musical this side of Adam Pascal. The rest of the cast - which features Maria Elena Ramirez, Jeff Hiller, Justin Levine, Emily Young and Lucas Near-Vanbrugh - do extremely well with their material, as well, but Walker walks away with the show. On that note, special mention must be made of "Second Nature" which is one of the most sweetly unassuming and tenderly touching war anthems - America is at war right now, remember, just as we have been for the better part of our history as a country and, especially, as a culture - and Levine is lovely. By the end of the first three Walker-dominated tracks we experience Andrew Jackson - to use a birth-of-America analogy - as he discovers, decimates, devours, digests and dominates the show and the score on disc - and, as Jackson, America itself. Bloody and bruised Broadway has a bright new star to breathe some new life into her atrophied lungs. Celebrate him - it doesn't happen very often anymore, and celebrate this score because something this brilliant never makes it to Broadway anymore. Just look. Truly, nothing could be farther from the truth than, "Jackson Is A Loser"!

"Rock Star" is just as riveting as "I'm Not That Guy" and in many ways this score is sort of the male punk rock GYPSY in the many sides it allows the central performer at the show's core to show - and how it allows him to show off his skills. Sure, it's a show-off show, but aren't all great Broadway shows and scores? Isn't GYPSY? If you want restrained, look elsewhere. This is all-out, grunge rock for the most part. Then again, there are some spectacularly striking ballads as well, and some bizarre songs that could only come from a musical this singular. "The Great Compromise" is one such example, and Ramirez manages to be touching, hilarious and sexy all at once. The song has a White Stripes-esque sound and the background harmonies give it so many layers of content - lyrically, musically, dramatically, emotionally, sonically - that listening to it ten times still reveals more just underneath the sonic surface. Such is the case with every single one of these songs. These are French desserts, to be savored and viewed from every angle and adored before they are consumed. But, boy, do they go down smooth. Walker gets his big ballad with "Public Life" and proves why not only he simply is Andrew Jackson, but why he is the next big Broadway star. See, the thing is, this whole property could have so easily imploded and come off as pretentious and affected; or, worse, exploded and come off as arch and amateur. There is not a whiff of any of these things in any of it. The drama is easy to invest in, the comedy is microscopically and surgically precise and the performances are all multi-dimensional and make you really feel like this is the best possible version of what you would imagine the Pilgrims putting on a production of RENT, TOMMY or AMERICAN IDIOT would be. That is, if they were played by the coolest cast on Broadway. In just about thirty minutes, this score rocks harder, the melodies soar higher, the pathos hits deeper and - most of all - the vigorous and vivacious energy of naked, raw activism that fuels the engine of the show engulfs and enlivens the listener by sheer force of nature, or will, invigorating us and provoking us. The score has it all - even a rockabilly finale, "The Hunters of Kentucky"!

Who knows what the future holds for this anomaly of an original musical. Will the critics remain kind? Will audiences warm to it? Will the edgy, provocative score be embraced? Is it simply too downtown and hip for modern Broadway and all the jukebox and juvenilia? Michael Friedman and Alex Timbers are due much praise for this masterpiece, but that doesn't mean they will get it. I can't wait to hear what Friedman comes up with next. And as far as the fate of this daring new musical is concerned, one thing is for sure: no matter what happens between now and Monday, BLOODY, BLOODY ANDREW JACKSON will start previews at the Bernard B. Jacobs Theater on Broadway! Buy the album, you won't regret it, it is availible next week. Don't forget to check out the truly awesome - and Boss, in both the tenses of the word - commercial on BWW TV. Also, you can catch a preview performance of the Broadway cast on LATE NIGHT WITH Jimmy Fallon tonight on NBC as the final entry in his fabulous celebratory Broadway Week! Be sure to listen, watch and enjoy - or die! For your country, of course. Of BLOODY, BLOODY ANDREW JACKSON we sing.