Cabaret - Original Soundtrack

Author's product rating:   

Originality	Definitely a cut above the rest
Lyrics	Thought-provoking
Quality and consistency of tracks	A couple of weak links
Value for Money

Advantages:	One of the best musical scores ever; Joel Grey
Disadvantages:	Not enough of the score .  .  .

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

There are at least six professional recordings of Cabaret available, this being the recording from the 1972 film version featuring Joel Grey and Liza Minelli. It isn’t the best of the recordings available – that is a toss-up between the original Broadway album and the studio recording featuring Maria Friedman and Jonathan Pryce among others; nor is it the cheapest – the London revival cast recording with Wayne Sleep is a snip at five pounds. But it is probably the most readily available, and it is difficult to go too far wrong with Kander and Ebb’s fantastic score.

The renditions of the songs here is absolutely fine, with authentic-sounding arrangements, which thankfully haven’t been beefed up due to Hollywood budgets. In the main, only the numbers sung on stage at the eponymous cabaret are included, and these are all accompanied by the small band one would expect to find in such an establishment. This does mean that the album is fairly short, only twelve tracks long, and that some of Cabaret’s best numbers are not included. This makes it an appalling choice if you want to buy something to remind you of the stage show, but it is a fine record of the film score and is an easier listen than any of the stage versions, which are actually quite hard to take, particularly during the second act, where things get very dark and uncomfortable indeed. As it’s so short, I’ll describe each of the tracks, but first a couple of quick comments. Joel Grey is a jewel, his every moment to be treasured. Minelli I’m less keen on, but she is vocally perfect for the role of Sally Bowles – loud and unrefined in just the right ways. I would give a far more detailed analysis of the score, but a) it could well bore you stupid, as I could go on for several thousand words and b) there is little point in doing so without the full stage score, as there is so much interplay between the ‘cabaret’ and ‘real world’ segments of the score.

The tracks:

Willkommen, the three-language opening song sung by the Emcee (Joel Grey) and the cabaret girls is a wonderful evocation of 1930s Berlin and a classic. No-one has ever bettered Joel Grey at this song, but the arrangement is slightly less engaging than that in his version on the Broadway cast album.

Mein Herr is another classic, which loses some of its impact without the famous chair-dancing routine that accompanies it in the film. Minelli’s voice on this track oozes sultriness and this is another track setting up the carefree, hedonistic atmosphere of the place and time. Building slowly, the track climaxes as Minelli is joined by the other girls, who sing various snappy German phrases under her powerhouse voice.

Two Ladies is the most entertaining track on the album, as the Emcee sings of his menage a trois. The false innocence in the ladies’ voices is wonderful, particularly juxtaposed as it is with Joel Grey’s obvious delight at his situation. Listen out for some fantastic sound effects!

Maybe This Time is a torch song in the old tradition, with Minelli wringing every ounce of emotion from the words. For me, the song has always rung false from the character, but that doesn’t matter on disc as you’ve just got the music and none of the complications that a plot produces.

Sitting Pretty is an instrumental version of one of the songs from the stage show, which is replaced in the film by Money, Money. It’s a surprisingly good track to listen to, but could come from almost any album really. Shorn of its international arrangements (and more importantly its lyrics) Sitting Pretty is somewhat nondescript.

Tiller Girls is another instrumental track, again of general cabaret music, but with occasional voice-overs from the Emcee and dancing girls who sound like they’re enjoying themselves! At least at first, as the track soon metamorphoses into a military beat, the first hint of the Nazi menace that creeps into the club acts.

Money, Money is a wonderful track. Minelli and Grey combine perfectly in this hymn to greed and affluence. Their orgasmic cries of ‘money, money, money’ have to be heard to be believed, and their interplay on the verse on poverty is sublime. They sing this as a sort of round before having a sung conversation in which they display total indifference to the plight of the poor. Some wonderful sound effects again.

Heiraten (Married) is on of the most unusual tracks. In the show, Married is a delightful duet for the two old lovers (Jew and Gentile, a doomed affair). Here it is a song on the radio for a German diseuse. And it’s quite lovely. Very soothing. It is in German, which might be off-putting, but the meaning of the song is quite clear nonetheless.

If You Could See Her really suffers from the lack of visuals. For those who don’t know, here Joel Grey passionately defends his lady love – a gorilla, saying that if we could see her as he does, we’d love her too. He then turns the number on its head, by declaring that when he looks at her, she really doesn’t seem Jewish at all. Remember GCSE history with those Nazi propaganda pictures?
On disc, you lose this and get a slightly odd sounding love song (unless you have seen the show or film, in which case it brings a smile to the face). His passionate speech in the middle of the track is just so bizarre on disc.

Tomorrow Belongs To Me also seems like a lovely song at first, at least on disc, a young man singing of sun on the meadow and beautiful forest scenery. The harmonies are lovely in the third voice, too, and then you have the third verse, where more and more voices join in with the words ‘oh, fatherland, fatherland, show us the sign…’ It makes me feel sick to the stomach every time. You can imagine the writers’ horror when they discovered that an American neo-Nazi group appropriated the song. Although this is ultimately a horrible track to listen to, I force myself never to skip it.

Cabaret is the most recognisable track and on disc it loses all ironic impact whatsoever and just becomes a great song. There’s nothing wrong with that of course, but just try listening to it remembering that the singer’s world is actually dissolving around them. Life is most definitely NOT a cabaret. This is, however, still a triumphant performance from Minelli.

And finally, the Finale, which begins with an instrumental, segueing into the Emcee declaring that life is wonderful, just as he did in the opening. This is belied by the out-of-tune music that follows, and the fact that his farewell starts strongly, but is not really finished. We are left hanging with ‘Auf weidersehen, a bientot…’

The score for Cabaret is one of the most powerful in musical theatre, and works incredibly well in the very different setting of Bob Fosse’s film. Sadly, on disc it loses some of its impact in this version, as it has neither the visuals, nor the numbers sung out in the real world to help it. Minelli and Grey both give fine performances, but the disc ultimately lacks that special something which makes most other recordings of the score worth at least five stars.