Customer Reviews

Legally Blonde (2007 Original Broadway Cast)

5 star:		(43)
4 star:		(14)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

This 2007 musical version of the Reese Witherspoon film is energetic, light-hearted & fun.

While I enjoyed seeing the production (starring the terrific Laura Bell Bundy), the score seemed somewhat unmemorable - until I got the cd. Some of the songs work better on stage (ie. "Bend and Snap"), but after a few listens, several of the songs emerged as favorites:

Omigod You Guys
Ireland
So Much Better
Legally Blonde
Legally Blonde Remix

This is not meant to be a thought-provoking show - just one to smile.

The cast recording of "Legally Blonde" more or less matches the light and amiable tone of the Reese Witherspoon movie about a perky sorority girl's success at Harvard Law School. Nobody will mistake this for great art, but the score by Laurence O'Keefe ("Bat Boy," "La Cava") and Nell Benjamin gets the job done. What's questionable is whether the job needed to be done. The movie was enjoyable, but slight and predictable; the musical doesn't aspire to much more. Still, there are a few surprises in the score that keep it interesting. First, there are really no extractable "songs" here-- most of the numbers are structured as scenes, containing a mix of music and dialogue, often while juggling location changes and multiple characters. This works pretty well-- I could easily imagine a "Legally Blonde" musical that is just a slog of pop songs; there is some clever, even ambitious, writing here. Take for instance the best track, "What You Want," which details protagonist Elle Woods's entrance into Harvard. Skillfully paced over 8 minutes, the music is stylistically all over the place-- moving from pop to disco to reggae to marching band to power balladry, all while moving the action forward and managing to be funny. It's well done. And there are other numbers like it, and even a welcome foray into the bizarre by way of an unlikely homage to all things Irish ("Ireland"). All in all, this is an entertaining enough score, given the source material. Still: enough with stage adaptations of popular movies! The trend is getting old.

After seeing "Legally Blonde, the musical" during its run in San Francisco, I could not wait for the CD release. I'm happy to say that it did not disappoint! This CD did not leave my car stereo for 3 weeks! And it left only to be put into my boyfriend's car so we could listen to it on a road trip! I bought the soundtrack for a friend's birthday, and she became just as addicted to it as me...and every other friend I've shared the soundtrack with has loved it, as well! Fun, upbeat, great interpretation of the movie! Highly, highly recommend!!!

The bwy show was much better than expected. Bundy was super. Dancing was extraordinary. The CD captures the music, and is certainly lively, but it misses an integral part of the show, the frenetic staging.

I didn't have high expectations for this album, if I'm being completely honest. I thought the movie, while fun, was a little unoriginal, and add that to a relatively inexperienced cast and my expectations were low. The album jumped way past my expectations to one that has had a spot in my CD rotation for over a week now.

When I first listened to it, two shows came to mind, Wicked and The Wedding Singer. This soundtrack is a combination of those two shows, almost exactly, in my mind. The marketing and target demographics are similar to Wicked, so there should be no doubt there. It took a very similar path as The Wedding Singer, even hiring the same "bad guy" with Richard H. Blake playing that role well in both productions, although drastically overshadowed in both.

For the role of Elle Woods, they went to Wicked and took Laura Bell Bundy, who was the understudy to Kristin Chenoweth in the role of Glinda. Seeing as how it is easily believable that Glinda could have been a Delta Nu, they also dipped back into the Wicked pool and hired Annaleigh Ashford to play Margot. They played the Delta Nu sisters in throughout the show, making them, on the whole, basically an additional character in the cast.

The CD isn't perfect. Some of the songs are a little tedious. I could have done without Ireland (let alone a reprise of it), or Whipped Into Shape. However, the pluses far outweigh the negatives on this album. The very first number is an engaging, almost obnoxiously upbeat song entitled "Omigod You Guys" and it plays perfectly to set the tone. Christian Borle provides a nice steadying influence in the musical, making sure that it doesn't get too far out of hand and the chemistry between the two sounds excellent on songs like "Chip On Her Shoulder", "Take It Like A Man", and "Legally Blonde" which is a particularly emotional number in the production.

This show is more than just the light fluff of The Wedding Singer, without quite reaching the meaning or appeal of Wicked, but still entirely worth the buy and without a doubt worth listening to.

It's fun - my oldest wanted this after we watched the MTV premier of the musical. Nothing here will be a classic in 100 years, but if you want a song that will make you chuckle, or pause, then this is an album with a few of those.

This is the anit-Les Miserables musical. It is a lot of fun, and it does not even try to be serious. As a result, the songs are catchy. It knows it is campy, so instead of playing down the silliness, it plays it up.

The songs will get stuck in your head, and your toe will be tapping. I can't wait for it to start touring.

Great musical adaptation of the hit fillum. Go to NY to check it out, or wait for the national touring company. I saw it three times in San Francisco during it's out-of-town try-out. A sheer joy from beginning to end.
Give 'em Elle, Elle!

I'll just start this review by saying that I have never seen this show. I'll then proceed to say that based on this album, I would actually prefer to see this over this season's slightly over-hyped multiple Tony winner Spring Awakening. The score is unabashedly pop, and the show doesn't pretend that it isn't just a whole lot of fun, while still managing to deliver a wonderful message about staying true to yourself.

Unlike last year's big pop musical, The Wedding Singer, the score is uniformly excellent. From the high energy opening, "Omigod You Guys" to the great closer "Find My Way/Finale", the score is peppy, catchy, and as optimistic as sunny day in spring. Some of the standout tunes inclued "Ireland", a wistful song of longing, "Much Better", the explosive Act I finale, "Blood in the Water" a dark, jazzy number extolling Callahan's moral views (or lack thereof), and "What You Want" Elle's Harvard preparation montage. Of special note is the title song, "Legally Blond", which defied all of my expectations. I was expecting something of a big showstopping number broadly defining the moral of the show. What we get is a hearbreaking ballad from Elle, and what is arguably one of the most beatiful numbers from the show. Then the remix/reprise of the title number delivers the expected goods in a finger snapping, toe tapping, smile inducing showstopper worthy of some of Herman's biggest crowd rousers.

The cast is equally as great as the score, and they are all so equally good that even Laura Bell Bundy has problems standing out, but stand out she does, displaying an impressive set of pipes while belting her heart out. Orfeh shows an equally amazing voice as hairdresser Paulette, and Christian Borle makes for a very sweet, caring Emmett.Michael Rupert even has a deliciously amoral turn as Professor Callahan. The ensemble is strong, and blends well with each other, and also gets to act as a Greek Chorus of voices in Elle's head at times.

According to some sources, the book for this show is a tad weak, and considering the source material it isn't too surprising, but it would have to be weak beyond reason to bring down the sheer energy that the musical numbers exude. The music and lyrics are deep enough to get the message across, without sounding stilted or out of place within the music, and they don't come across as trying too hard to sound poetic (I'm talking to you Spring Awakening...). All in all,it is definetely one "Elle" of a show.

I saw this musical when it aired on MTV and thought it was funnier and better than expected. When I heard the CD came out I couldn't find the full tracks so I asked the local library to order it so I could hear it before I bought it. The CD turned out to be horrible and bland. It's like they're just singing the songs. You hear the character's voices, but you don't hear the character. You don't get chills, a rush, or anything from this. All you get is angry that you wasted nearly an hour that you'll never have again listening to the CD. While most of the songs in the MTV special sounded good the only song I can kinda stomach from this CD is "Chip on My Shoulder". "Find My Way" brought an already low energy CD even lower. :-\

Save your money and avoid this CD. You'll be way better off finding the clips from the MTV show online and making audio files out of them and calling THAT your OBC recording of "Legally Blonde: The Musical". I'm glad I avoided buying the CD...but it sucks for the library, though. Lol!