All the "proper" musicals that peeps rave about share one problem: crap songs. The acting, dialogue, story in something like - say - Phantom are all crap, so they NEED good songs to have any appeal at all.
<Spots can of worms about to be opened>
Many would argue that the music in Phantom is pretty dire. It's largely classical music rip offs, and the music gets reused constantly. It was the precusor to terrible shows like Aspects of Love and Woman in White where the audience is repeatedly beaten over the head with the same tune.
There are only a handful of decent ones ever made:
- Rocky Horror
- Blues Brothers
- Grease
- Sound of Music
- Jungle Book
So I think we have established that perhaps you are not really a fan of proper musical theatre :-)
Blues Brothers and Jungle Book are not theatre musicals, they are film musicals or films with music in, and in the case of Blues Brothers it's a juke box film - albeit a great film. I love the music in both but I wouldn't class them as musicals. Grease is overrated - very little depth to the music. The Sound of Music I like, but I am not a huge Rodgers and Hammerstein fan. I quite like their Cinderella but I find Carousel and Show Boat a little turgid. They are showing their age a little.
For a proper musical the show does not make sense without the songs. The music drives the film and brings you closer to the characters and their thoughts.
My list of truly great musicals includes things like:
- Sweeney Todd (Sondheim)
- Into the Woods (Sondheim)
- Sunday in the Park with George (Sondheim)
- City of Angels (Cy Coleman)
- Mack and Mabel (Jerry Herman)
- Taboo (Boy George)
- Mathilda (Tim Minchin)
- Gypsy (Sondheim)
- Cabaret (Kander and Ebb)
- Kiss of the Spiderwoman (Kander and Ebb)
- Hamilton (Lin Manuel Miranda)
That said there are good juke box type musicals:
- Our House
- The Commitments
- Mama Mia
- Bat out of Hell
And bad:
- Rock of Ages
- We will Rock You
Mama Mia does work better as a stage show than as a film.