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Hi, I'm Ariana Grande. Hi, I'm Cynthia Erivo and you're listening to the Broadway Podcast Network. Visit BPM FM to discover more. Now that I'm technically speaking an adult, I understand more and more the importance of nutrition. Not to mention the joy of a well prepared meal. That said, do I always have the time to make a well prepared meal chock full of ingredients that are super good? For me, that would be a no. That's why I rely on factor. With over 40 meal options each week, I've enjoyed tasty, super nutritious meals that I'll be honest, I could not make for myself. I've been on a little bit of a fitness journey and Factor has given me some amazing dinners that stay within my calorie budget and also have no dairy since I am lactose sensitive and I am particularly a fan of the ginger teriyaki salmon dish. Listen, if they can do that for me, they can do it for you. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, grab and go. Snacks, smoothies. Factor's got it all. 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Check them out in the Dreamlit collection by going to Vuori.com William that's V U O R I V.com William where new customers can receive 20% off their first order. Plus enjoy free shipping in the US on orders over $75 and free returns. Exclusions apply. Visit the website for full terms and conditions. Thank you very much. That's all. But we have a great dramatic finish. Oh, I'm sure you do. But Mr. Greg, hit it. Broadway. Broadway. We've missed it. So we're leaving soon and taking June to star her in a show. Bright lights, rhythm and romance. The train is late so while we wait, we're gonna do a little dance. Hello, all you theater lovers, both out and proud and on the DL. And welcome back to Broadway Breakdown, a podcast discussing the history und legacy of American theater's exclusive address Broadway. I'm your host, Matt Koplik, the least famous and most opinionated of all the Broadway podcast hosts. And today we're doing something a little different. It's not a deep dive into a specific show necessarily. It's not a recap of the Broadway season or a review of any particular show. It is not Tony Award predictions or getting a landscape of the Tony awards season. It's not, not a retrospective necessarily on past Tony winners. This is about an experiment that I did regarding the Tony Awards on my Instagram recently for about, I guess we would say, 3ish weeks, something like that. I took to Instagram and went on my story, and I wanted to consider what the legacy of a Tony winner actually was. And it was apropos because this was all happening sort of like in the middle of Oscar season and people talking about, what's the best of the year, Will we look back and still think that was the right choice? How often do we look back and feel like it was the right choice? And I always wondered with the Tony Awards, really, what is the lasting impression? What is the legacy of quality that we consider a Tony winner? Because so many things win and are and seem so undeniable at the moment. And it doesn't take long for us to look back and go, was that really the one we should have done? And many things come into consideration when we look at Tony winners, right, and we figure out what it is that got someone to win. Sometimes it's a narrative. Sometimes there's just so much buzz around them or the show. Sometimes they've been in the community a very long time and this just sort of feels like their moment. Sometimes it really is just doing the most or having the most. And we, you know, we can always look back, we can always sort of dissect and you can't really. You can't. You can't really define perfectly in retrospect what got something to win. We can sort of sift through the clues and figure it out, which is what I hope to do today, as well as sift through the clues of how we view those wins today. This is to say, I wanted to do a ranking of Tony winners of the last 44 years, something like that. That ended up being 54 years, but I'll get to that in a second. And I Wanted to do something in regards to craft. I didn't want to pick rankings of performances. A. A lot of people wouldn't have seen those performances. They can only, you know, hear them on a cast album or maybe somewhat in a bootleg, if we're lucky. And also just a little too personal. I found I didn't want to do something like Best Play or Best Musical that seemed a little too broad and maybe like a little too not controversial. But we could get a little too in the weeds with that because there's so many elements that come into play with a production. Sometimes it's the presentation of the show that wins, if not necessarily the material itself, which is sort of what the conversation was last season with, you know, outsiders winning Musical, but Suff's winning Score and Book, or Fairly Modern Millie winning Best Musical, but you're in town winning Score and Book. So I decided to do a ranking. I went to the Discord Channel and I asked, you know, of these four options, what would we want to do? And the one that won was Best Score, the winner for best Score. And so I took to Instagram, and every day we added a new show to the ranking or a new score to the ranking, I should say. And people voted on where they thought it should go. And as the rankings continued, I don't know if you've ever done a. I don't know if any of you have ever done a poll on Instagram before, but you only get a maximum of four voting options. So, of course, as the rankings list gets longer, you can't do a poll for each specific number. You have to break it down. So what I would do was we started with bookends, as I said, we started from 1980 to 2024. And so that was Evita and Suss. Those were the two best score Tony winners. And I wanted to do a bookend because I didn't want to do in chronological order. I wanted to make it difficult for people to really figure out where bias lay. If it was recency bias, if it was classic biased, if it was songwriter bias, if people were willing to look at what a score does for its show as well as how it stands up on its own. The historical impact of said score, the objective quality of said score. My personal belief was the scores that hold up the best are the ones where you can listen to them on their own, and they are fantastic separate from the show, but then you put them in context within the show and they just take off even further. I think that's the mark of a Truly wonderful score. Not just how many bangers are in it, not just how many classics are in it, or your own personal love for the show. It really was trying to be a test of. First it started off as how beloved are these wins? And then it became, are people able to actually differentiate between what they like, don't like and what is good and not good? And that's a hard quality to have. So we started with 1980 and 2024, bookending that. And we went further inwards. So it was, you know, Evita versus Suffs. And then we added Woman of the Year, then we added Kimberly Akimbo, and then we added nine and. And then we added six, and so on and so forth. Moving inwards, the only score we didn't include was Nightingale's A Christmas Carol during the COVID Tonys. That was a score that I knew just no one had heard. And if you had heard it, wouldn't remember it, and it would get dinged for being a score for a play. But it was only plays that were nominated because the only three musical nominees in that Covid Tonys were jukebox musicals. So I just felt. Felt for the sake of fairness to take that one out. But we kept moving in and in, and it kept having a lot of traction. And then eventually people wanted to include more years. And so I did another poll as we continued moving inwards from 1980 to 2024, and I asked, do we include the 70s? Do we include further. And it was decided upon that we would. Once we finished this book ending of 1980-2024, we would then include the 70s Tony wins, and then call it a day at that, because the list got very long, over 50 scores. So what we would do was we would do the rankings. We would do, you know, Evita or Sefs, which one is number one, which one is number two? And then we would move on from there. And then once it started to get longer, the list got longer. You know, let's say 10 scores were now ranked. The next score that we would put in, it would be voted on in sections. So the first poll was, what section of this 10 does it go in? Does it go in the top three, the middle three, the bottom four. And then once that was voted on, I would do another poll to narrow it down. And as that continued, the sections got bigger. So once we got to, you know, 40 scores and we were adding one, the first round was, okay, first option, is it 1 through 10? Is it 11 through 20, 21 through 30 and so on. And so forth. And then once that was dec. The next round was narrowing down of that. So I would make it a point with each round. I did not move on to the next section of voting until the round we were voting on. Got at least 200 votes or three to four hours had passed, whichever one came first. Am I making sense so far? We had to accrue 200 votes on a first round of voting, or three to four hours would have to pass. Once that was achieved, we would then move on to the second section. So let's give an example. A score that. Okay, so a score that was pretty spread out across the board was City of Angels Cy Coleman and David Zippel score for the Tony winning musical of 1990. That one. You know, it was. As I said, it was pretty spread out across the board. There was no majority vote on anything. And I consider a majority vote really to be 50% or more of the vote. So let's say with City of Angels, that was, I guess, like, there's like, 18 scores in there so far. So that was most likely 1 through 5, 6 through 10, 11 through 15, and then 16 to 18. And if all four sections, if it was like, you know, 20% said 1 through 5, 20% said 6 through 10, 20% said. Or 25% said 11 through 15, and then 35% said 16 to 18, I would not then make the second round. 16, 17, 18. On the placement rankings for City of Angels, 35% is not a majority of the vote. It's not even close to a majority. It is the most votes of all those sections, but that's not a majority, because you could argue 65% of the voters think it should be ranked 15 or higher. I want to make sure I'm making sense because it makes sense to me. And I would talk to people about it, and when we would converse about it, they're like, yes, this is making sense, but I need to sort of think it through for a little bit. I would consult with math friends of mine to determine averages of where a majority vote would lay. So for City of Angels, ultimately, it wasn't ranked. It wasn't voted high enough to be in the top five. It was in the first round. It was pretty much an even split of 27% and 27%, equaling out to 54% of. Of like, I think ranking it 7 through 10 or 11 through 13, something. Something along those lines. And so what I did for the second round, Once we hit 200 votes or four hours had passed, the second round was narrowing down those options. So it became, okay, is option one, is it seven to nine? Is it 10 to 12? Is it 13 to 16? Is it 17 to 19? Something like that. And once again, once the averages came in, I would find the common where the majority lay for that second round of voting. And once we had had 200 votes or three to four hours had passed, then we would do the final round of voting. And that final round would be the longest round of voting because that became four specific numbers in the ranking that a score could go into. So once we did that, you know, City of Angels would be determined. Is it spot number nine, number 10, number 11, number 12 again, because you can only have four options in polling for Instagram. This all sounds complicated, and it kind of probably is, but I wanted to be as nuanced with the results as possible. I didn't want to just, you know, go with the easy route. I really wanted to see where tastes lay with these scores. And some scores had massive majority votes, and it was very easy to figure out where they went in the rankings. Some scores, it was a lot more spread out, so we had to really figure out where the majority lay. If it was just, you know, 25%, 25%, 25%, 25%, 25%, it's like, well, what the hell do we do now, Right? Luckily, there was never that even of a split, but there were a couple of scores where it wasn't any specific section that won. I had to sort of split a difference between sections to go on to the next round of voting. I learned a lot from this. I learned both a lot about the legacy of Tony scores, of how a public generally thinks of these scores that I thought were undeniable, that we all considered to be fantastic. Some scores that I thought we all considered to be kind of mediocre or not quite as good. Fascinating to see how they all stacked up. It also was an interesting lesson in voting culture, and I'll talk about that more in just a second. So this is to say something else that we did with the voting. As things were adding up in the rankings, people would respond to me with frustration or not quite regret, but I guess we would call it buyer's remorse of voting something the way that they had, or voting a score in a specific spot only for that score to stay higher than they intended, because later scores being added to the ranking kept going below it or ranking at a specific spot, and then it getting lower as other scores after the fact got put above it. And so about every 10 or so entries to the Ranking. I would then do an open forum where people could write in which score they thought needed to move, whether it was higher or lower. And I did this about three or four times throughout the ranking. Every again, every 10 or so entries, we would do a shakeup. And I would say, okay, one score gets to move up. So pick the one score that you think desperately needs to be higher in the ranking. One score has to move down a little bit. Which score do you think desperately needs to be moved down in the ranking? And then the final one, because there would be a couple of ties or things would get a little close in the final results. The very final shakeup I did, I said, okay, we're not gonna move anything down anymore, but. But what's gonna happen is we're gonna vote again on the scores we think should move up. And the top three scores that are, that are submitted will move up the number one spot. The number one winner will move up three spots, the number two winner will move up two spots, and the number three winner will move up one spot. And there were certain interesting trends whenever I would do this now, I have been thinking about how I want to express the results of said ranking. And if you've made it this far after my talking about how I tabulated all of these rankings, power to you. I'm sure a lot of people turned it off when I was talking about averages and percentages and all that stuff. Lord knows it doesn't make as much sense to me, which is why I sought outside help to help me with these numbers. What I decided I was going to do was I was going to maybe take us all on a journey as I go through these rankings and go from the bottom to the top and explain a little bit about each score, what its journey in the rankings as well as, you know, it's where it was in its percentages, the numbers it accrued, and just a little bit of its history and sort of what got it to win and why. Maybe it's where it's at in the ranking, if that sounds good. And we'll take little breaks here and there because I'm not sure how long this is going to go, but I'm going to do my best to keep it, you know, moving along. As we know, I do love to speak. So without further ado, let's get into this ranking going on Instagram and asking everyone to rank the Tony winning scores ultimately from 1971 to 2024. And as we go into these results, I want to let you know sort of the Voting pool we're talking about here now, it would fluctuate in terms of who was voting. Some people really like to just sort of watch the results. Other people voted every time. Some people were voting every time and then got very frustrated with where the results were at. But it was a very widespread array of voters. We had lots of Broadway fans of various ages, anywhere from, you know, 14 to 70. I had Broadway actors voting, won't say who. I had a couple of Broadway music directors and Broadway directors voting. We had a couple of Tony nominees voting in these polls. Again, not every single time, but frequently. A couple of writers and journalists. It was an. It was a very. I thought. I thought it was a very diverse and very serious group of people that were voting. And the pool, I would say, on average was about 3 to 300 to 350 voters. First for the scores, as I said, the first two rounds, I wouldn't move on until we hit 200 votes. But the final round for each score, when it was going into the rankings, and I was like, okay, is Hamilton going to be number four, five or six in the current rankings or seven in the current rankings in those rounds, that was when we were averaging 300 to 350. The most votes a score got in its final round was 435. And I'll say which score that was later on. The runner up got 423. Those are the two highest votes that scores got. That doesn't mean that those were the scores that are in the top that are number one and number two. It just means that the total number of votes that those scores got were those numbers. So the most votes a single show or score got was 435. To rank it, any one of the four spots that it could have gone into. In the end, the smallest number of votes was 211. And I'll tell you what score that was In a second in its final round. Everything else was anywhere between those two, often averaging around 300 to 350. So without further ado, let us get into the score rankings. Oh, shoot. Sorry, one moment. Okay, here we go. Okay. At number 52 is the score of Memphis. Memphis is the 2010 Tony winner, best musical, best score, best book, best orchestrations, and it did run for about 1100 performances. It recouped right at the end of its run, and it did play in the West End. Memphis is probably considered one of the weakest, best musical winners of the 21st century, if not of all time. It is a story about, you know, blues and rock and roll in the south in the 1950s into the early 1960s, trying to grapple with racism as well. You know, it's very Romeo and Juliet with a racial barrier in between. It is an all white creative team. And, you know, there have been. There have been shows that have dealt with stuff similar to this that also had all white creative teams, but also those better shows dealt with it a lot more with a lot more nuance. Memphis was a show that wanted to be taken seriously, but also wanted to be a good, fun Broadway time. And the best thing I'll say about the score is that there are quite a few bops in it. I think the opening number has a really good beat to it. It's got some good melody to it. I would argue, I think, that the Memphis lyrics are incredibly weak. I think the finale is pretty much a warmed over, you know, sub junior version of you can't stop the Beat. But whereas Hairspray maybe isn't looking into integration and racism in America with such a nuanced fine tooth comb, it is very specific in the tone that it's setting and it maintains it throughout. And it is a. It is a compassionate show throughout all of its fun, but it doesn't aim to be thought of as a real conversation starter. Memphis kind of wanted to be a conversation starter while also being a big, glitzy Broadway show. It wanted its cake and to eat it too. And ultimately there wasn't enough cake there to actually eat. It was a display. Wedding cake is what it was. Where you see it all gilded up, it has the illusion of being something. But if you were actually to come at it, there is nothing to absorb. So that was Memphis, and it was the lowest ranking of our rankings. It was pretty. I would say Memphis got to be at the bottom and remained at the bottom pretty easily. It was the first round of voting for Memphis. When we were determining, does it go, you know, top 10, middle 20, middle 30, bottom 40. Memphis was determined at the bottom in its first round very quickly. And this is something that I want you to remember as we eventually talk about the voting culture of these polls. As we got a little more specific with its placement, it got a little wonkier if it was going to be at the bottom at the absolute last place, because there were a couple of scores that were already at the bottom. The Will Rogers Follies, Woman of the Year and Big river were the bottom three at the time that Memphis came onto the rankings, and it was unclear if Memphis was going to be at the very bottom. But ultimately it did get to the very bottom. And it was not a vast majority in the end that voted it to be there. It was about 56%, which is the majority of the vote that placed it at the bottom. But for a score that in the first round, 80% of the voters were like, yeah, bottom 10. The closer we got to it, the more people were like, maybe not. Maybe it's second to last or third to last. But that is Memphis for you. But why did Memphis win? Memphis won because it was the only original musical that season with an original book and original score that was the best musical nominee. The only other one was the Addams Family, which was not nominated for best musical. It was nominated for best score, featured actor for Kevin Chamberlain, and I think best set design, I can't recall. But Memphis was up against three jukebox musicals. American Idiot, Fela, and Million Dollar Quartet. Of those three, American Idiot did not get a book nomination, nor did it get a director nomination, which is a shame. I would say that American Idiot was probably the best musical of those four. It was the most exciting and interesting creative take. Fela was a little more avant garde, but very enticing. I think it was maybe a little more polarizing for people. Million Dollar Quartet was a very safe jukebox musical. It was very, you know, catnip for boomers to watch Elvis and Johnny Cash. And these people just sing all the songs that they love so much. Watch Elizabeth Stanley sing Fever. That kind of. It was that kind of a musical. It wasn't egregiously bad. It was just sort of very easy. And Memphis, for all of its problems, at the very least, had an original score and an original book and was a risk. And it opened to very mediocre, to poor reviews at the beginning of the season. But they stuck it out because the producers looked ahead and saw that there was only one other original book and score musical coming in with Addams Family. And Word from Out of Town with Addams Family was that it was in major trouble. So the producers of Memphis were like, if we can keep this open, I think we have a shot at the Tony. And lo and behold, they had a shot at the Tony. But it was a very, very weak field. It beat Addam's Family, it be beat Enron, and it beat Fences for the Tony Award that year for best score. So the Adams Family, which wasn't even a best musical nominee, and two plays, and that's how we got to Memphis. Next up on the rankings is, at 51, the Will Rogers Follies. The Will Rogers Follies. It's kind of crazy that this score is this low, considering it is Cy Coleman, Betty Compton and Adolph Green. It won the best score. Sorry. It won the Tony for best score in 1991, where it also won best musical. It was opposite Miss Saigon, the Secret Garden and Once on this Island. I personally think of the four nominees, this is the weakest score, which I guess would then make sense why it's at 51. So how did it win? Well, if you listen to the Miss Saigon episode with James Soule from about a year and a half ago, you'll know that this was when Broadway was starting to really sour on the mega musical and Miss Saigon in particular. Miss Saigon had a lot of controversy surrounding it with the casting of Jonathan price, with the $100 ticket price. It was a very toxic atmosphere surrounding that musical. A lot of protests. But ultimately it didn't matter. It had the highest advance since Phantom going into Broadway and was just a huge juggernaut, undeniable. And so there was a lot of backlash in the Broadway community of we gotta take down Miss Saigon any way we can. And also, by the way, Miss Saigon had a very solid critical reception. Frank Rich in the New York Times felt that it was the best of all the mega musicals to come into New York at that point, and the most adult of the American musicals to come in. So it was opposite three American Secret Garden with a book by Marsha Norman, who was a Pulitzer winner for Night Mother. Norman also wrote the lyrics and Lucy Simon wrote the music. And Susan Shulman had directed it. And Susan Shulman had directed the revival of Sweeney Todd a few years prior. That was actually, no, I think just the year prior. That was very well received. Teeny Todd, as it was called. And then Once on this island was really bursting onto the scene, the Broadway debut of Aarons and Flaherty, and was also very beloved. And all you have to do is watch the 1991 Tony ceremony to see how excited the community was by Once on this island, as well as the wins of Will Rogers Follies and Secret Garden. Because Once on this island, unfortunately, goose egged on Tony night, it didn't win a single thing. And Ms. Saige did win actress, actor and featured actor, but it won nothing else. And you can watch the theater erupt when Marsha Norman wins book for Secret Garden. When Secret Garden wins set design, they erupt when Tommy Toon wins director and choreographer for Will Rogers Follies over Miss Saigon. And when Will Rogers Follies wins score, everyone is elated because, oh, we took it away from the mega musical. And Will Rogers Follies is a very Broadway, all American, kind of glitzy spectacular. It's also a pretty empty show. And I would argue it is not one of Sy Coleman's best. It's got, you know, solid music in it. It's Cy Coleman. He's. I think he was incapable of writing a terrible score. And Betty Compton and Adolph Green were clever lyricists. They had some good stuff. But often it was kind of Tommy Toon and his team dressing up each number in a way that you were excited by the presentation of it, not necessarily the song of it. Like Willamania is a fun opening number because of what Tommy Toon does with it, not because the song itself is so well written. Our favorite son is a showstopper because of the choreography and of the tambourine hats, not because the song itself is so incredible. And so I think that Will Rogers Follies is where it's at because a lot of people had buyer's remorse for its Tony wins. And it really has no legacy. It's never come back to Broadway. It's done here and there regionally. I know Stagedor Manor used to do it every now and then. You can watch Will Rogers Follies on YouTube. It was broadcast in Japan in the original Broadway production. And you can sort of see for yourself that it's really about what Toon does with it and what his designers do with it. It's a beautifully done production. It's just the show similar to Memphis Love, the Wedding Cake. In fact, I would say this is much more of a wedding cake because it's so decadent in that respect. But Will Rogers Follies, the bio musical of Will Rogers is, you know, it's an all American spectacle concepts musical, but there's nothing really at the center of it. And it's not the worst score of all time, but it really won more as a political move opposite Miss Aigon, I would argue. Number 50 is Gigi, which is a weird wing. This is the stage Adaptation of the 1950s Film starring Leslie Caron and Maurice Chevalier, directed by Vincent Minnelli. And it's the score by Lerner and Low. And this was a weird win because there was no stipulation at the time about pre written scores. And there are some new songs for the stage version of Gigi. This stage version premiered in the 1970s at the Eurus Now Gershwin Theater. And there was no stipulation about what constituted original at that time. It was really just like if it was written for the story, it counts as original. This is how we got Jesus Christ Superstar and Evita and Tommy winning score later on. Sorry. Jesus Christ Superstar didn't win, but it was nominated. I apologize. Those were scores that were written for the stories that they were telling and thus they were considered original. That wouldn't fly so much today with one State fair came into play in the 1990s. That was a score that David Merrick, the producer, tried to get the Tony Awards to consider an original score. And the Tony said, no, no, no. This score is, you know, 50 years old. We will consider the four songs added to this show. That will be the original score submission. But now what the Tonys do is a score 50% or more of the score on stage has to be new in order for it to be eligible for best score. That is how Thoroughly Modern Millie ended up with the best score nomination. Despite the fact that a couple of those songs are from the movie or are old standards. I believe New York, New York ultimately was determined not eligible because of this, that it was calculated and it wasn't 50% or more of the score as new. And if Gigi were to open today as a new musical, this would not fly. It would not be eligible for best score. But it did win, and it was a weak year. It was opposite See Saw. It was opposite Raisin. I think either one of those shows are better scores than Gigi. Neither one, I would say, is an incredible score, but they are better than this one. And I ultimately think that Gigi won as a final salute to Lerner and Lo as they were no longer a writing team at this point. Sorry. When this score won the Tony, they were no longer really writing together anymore. I think their very last collaboration was the movie musical version of the Little Prince. So this was sort of a salute to a legendary duo. And looking back, I think people don't look at this as the rightful winner, but its competition isn't so egregious that people are angry about it so much as, like, we didn't have to do that. Next up at 49 is woman of the Year. This is the first of two Kandern Ebb scores that are in this ranking. Woman of the Year is the musical version of the Katharine Hepburn, Spencer Tracy movie. And this is a score that I think a lot of people voted on not really knowing it. And granted, I don't know Woman of the Year incredibly well. I know it well enough to say that I'm not mad. It's towards the bottom But I do think I personally would have voted for it a little higher. It's Canter Neb. You know, they. They write good songs, they have good lyrics. There are a couple of solid songs here, and it's hard to always determine because the original production starred Lauren Bacall, who is famously not a singer. So a song like One of the Boys or the title song, you can't really get a sense of whether they're good melodies or not. You need a better singer to be doing it. A friend of the pod, Robert W. Schneider, actually got very angry that Woman of the Year ranked solo, because in his mind, it actually is a score full of bops. And I asked him, well, in context of the show, how does it fit? And he said, well, it's a little. It clashes a little bit. But ultimately, he felt that the score was what kept the show alive, which I think is, you know, gives it half an extra point. It doesn't totally fit the story it's telling, but it is what keeps the evening rolling along. And I think that is a mark of it being an okay score. I think that the best song in the show is a duet that was sung between Orin Bacall and Marilyn Cooper called the Grasses Always Greener. And it is Lauren Bracall's character who is, you know, a very famous. I think she's a journalist and very rich, very famous and suffering through a marriage that's not going super great. And she returns to an old flame of hers who's now married to sort of like a who. What's presented as a dowdyish housewife. And that's Marilyn Cooper. And she and Lauren Bacall sit on two stools and they sing comparatively about each other's lives. And it's a very, very funny song. You can watch a bootleg of it on YouTube. It's great. Marilyn Cooper and Raquel Welch do a shortened version of it on the Tony Awards later, I think a year later. You can also watch Marla Mendel doing it as part of a concert when she was at ccm, doing it with one of her teachers with a couple of altered lyrics. But 90% of the song is still the same. And it's, you know, it's talking about, oh, you raised a teenage daughter. That's wonderful. What's so wonderful? First you hired diaphragm or I bet all your friends are all celebrities. Bet you've been to the White House. That's wonderful. And this is when Reagan was president. So Lauren Bacall says, what's so wonderful. First you Pass the Jelly Beans. All very fun, very topical, and it's not a big, belty song. Bacall didn't have that in a range, although Marilyn Cooper did. But it has a nice tune to it. It builds in a lovely way. The lyrics are truly fantastic. And you watch it just bring down the House on YouTube. It is a phenomenal song. It's competition. Woman of the Year. So Woman of the Year, Best Musical wise was up against 42nd street, which was absolutely going to win. But 42nd street had absolutely no original songs in it. They didn't even have fake, like three or four editions like Gigi did. So they couldn't even really get away with that. So Woman of the Year's competition was Charlie and Algernon by Charles Strauss and David Rogers, which was a musical version of Flowers for Algernon. It did not last very long, I must tell you. Their other competition was Copperfield by Al Kasha and Joel Hirshhorn. This is also a musical that I believe was based off of. Yeah, was based off of David Copperfield. Played at the Anta Playhouse. Ran for three weeks. About that long. Yeah. And then its final one was Shakespeare's Cabaret, which I believe is just a. I guess a musical cabaret of Shakespeare sonnets or Shakespeare monologues that are done to music by Lance Mulcahy. I don't know how you say that. So you look at that lineup and you're like, yeah, Canter Nebber. Absolutely going to win with this. With a score that maybe isn't their best, but has a couple of solid songs is a musical that's still running at this point. I really cannot stress enough how helpful it is. If your show is still running during the Tony Awards for you to win, it doesn't mean that a closed show or closed performance can't win. It's just a lot less likely. So that is how Woman of the Year ended up with a Tony Award. And ultimately it not being the best Kandernev and not being revived really in New York, except for J2 Spotlight. Doing it a couple of years ago keeps it out of the memory, which is how people probably ranked it low. That's at number 49. Number 48, and then we'll take a break is Big River. Big river is the Tony winner of 1985, where it also won best musical, best book, best director, best set design, and best featured actor in a musical. And Big river was a. I think you would call it a soft hit. Now, it ran for a very sensible, very healthy Two and a half years. Just like a little over a thousand performances. I think we're talking like 1001 performances, something like that. And it's an adaptation of Huckleberry Finn. It was the show that's probably best known for bringing Heidi Lansman as set designer, onto the scene of Broadway and Des Mackinaff as director, onto the scene of Broadway. A score by Roger Miller, who is a country songwriter. I don't believe he ever wrote another musical theater score. If I'm wrong, somebody correct me in the Discord Channel. But it was up against the musicals Grind and Quilters, which were both nominated for best musical that year. But this was a very light year for original musicals. It's Big River Grind by Larry Grossman and Ellen Fitzhugh and Quilters by Barbara Damaschek. Grind was sort of in the middle of Hal Prince's streak of flops. He was trying really hard to capture the glory of his Sondheim era, of cabaret, of these concept musicals that pushed boundaries but also were entertaining and won Tony Awards, and a couple of them even made money. And it all really began with Merrily Flopping and then A Doll's Life and now Grind, and then eventually Rosa. You know, these musicals that were not without merit. A Doll's Life, in some ways, is considered just a bad idea for a musical because many people said at the time, who cares what happens to Nora after A Doll's House? Her walking out the door is the whole point of A Doll's House. Of course, then we get A Doll's House, Part two, many decades later, which is a phenomenal piece. But that's a very different kind of show, right? A Doll's Life wanted to be a grand epic with sweeping sets and lush costumes and a big epic score. And Grind, which is about a burlesque house starring Ben Vereen, wanted something similar. Wanted to be sort of a daring, hot, vulgar show that dealt with race relations and the sort of vulgarities of burlesque. And it wanted to have a concept of show business on top of this really daring story. And it ultimately was deemed just too much of a mess. It was beautiful to look at. It had a gorgeous set design and was like all Hal Prince shows, had a really impeccable style and a score that wasn't considered terribly bad, but just a show that left a lot of people very cold. And I think people wanted to love it. People wanted Hal Prince to kind of come back in and honestly save Broadway. The 80s were a really dark decade for Broadway, especially for American musicals. At this point, we really had Cats running the table. And every other show was lucky to run a couple of years. 42nd street was also kind of running the table. But 42nd street was not nearly the phenomenon that Cats was. 42nd street got huge because of announcing Gower Champion's death on opening night and then it winning best musical and being this sort of haven of old school razzmatazz. But 42nd street ran half as long as Katz and was again, incredibly successful. Any show would be lucky to have that kind of run, but Cats was really the thing that was the thing of Broadway at that time. And then eventually Les Mis would come in and Phantom, and they also would sort of run the table. And shows like Big river were considered like, you're lucky to run this long. You should be grateful every day you ran this long. La Cage was the big hit the year before. And we're at about a year and a half into La Cage's run, where it's still doing very well. But La Cage would go on to run for four years, which is huge for a spectacle, big budget musical about homosexuality. But, you know, 1700 performances is not 7800 performances. There's a bit of a difference, right? So Big river is the biggest hit of this season in terms of musicals, runs a thousand performances. And I think Big river is actually a very fun score. This is the first score in the rankings to rank this low and have a lot of buyer's remorse from voters. And whenever I would do a shakeup vote of, okay, what scores are we going to try and save? Bring them back up. Big river was something that was getting closer and closer to getting saved. The first time we did a shakeup, Big river didn't really accumulate a lot of votes, maybe like three or four. But those three or four people would vote for it every time we had a shakeup. And with each following shakeup and more scores were getting added and Big river got lower and lower on the rankings, more and more people started voting for it until finally, by our very last, our fourth shakeup, Big river got to, I believe, fifth place in the final tally, which is huge considering it, you know, was always sort of towards the bottom, and it just never had enough support behind it. And ultimately there were other scores that people really cared about and really wanted to push forward, no matter how silly it was to rank them, to move them up in the rankings because they were already rather very high. I think this score is a lot of fun. It's not perfect. It definitely has some skips, but songs Like Muddy Water songs like Waiting for the Light to Shine, you Ought to Be Here with Me, Free at last. I think those songs are really fantastic and do the job of a musical of Huckleberry Finn. And I wouldn't tell you that this score is a top 20 or even a top 25 or 30, but I wouldn't rank it at 48. I would probably rank it at like, I don't know, 38. I think it's much better than people are giving it credit for. I do think this is a score that people voted out of Bad Faith. Just sort of shrugging it off. Oh, it's Big River. No one really talks about it anymore. It's not done all that often, which is not true. It is actually done quite often and had a revival. It had a very famous revival in 2003 with Deaf West. That was the first Deaf west revival to come to Broadway, I'm pretty sure, and I wish it got a little more love here. But I think this vote is the beginning of Bad Faith voting that we're going to see in this rankings at some point and with that we are going to take a quick break. Really. I beg to differ with you. How do you mean? You're the top. Yeah. You're an arrow collar. You're the top. You're a Coolidge dollar. You're the nimble tread of the feet of. 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This was another one where the immediate first round of voting overwhelmingly went to Drood being in the bottom half. And then once we got to the final spot for it, the decisions were kind of half and half. I think some people felt that they voted a little too coarsely on it and then it sort of ended up where it was. The thing about Mystery of Evelyn Drude is also, I don't think this is a bad score. It has very die hard devoted fans, mostly people who've been in the show. A few people who have never been in the show and still love this show are those are the unicorns out there. But this is a score that, you know, it serves its purpose. It's perfectly of the era that the show takes place in. The music hall ness of it all, the Charles Dickens of it all. It's got some clever stuff to it. I think the opening number, There you are is very good. I think Moonfall is good, Writing on the wall is good. But I don't love this score. It gets the job done for the most part. But I also don't love this musical. And while I think that it ultimately serves its purpose, I find the musical to be not quite good enough and thus the score is not quite exciting enough. And I think a lot of people voted the way they did on Drood because it they just a lack of passion. I think a lot of people were unable to look at this score objectively and just went, ugh. That score annoys me. That show bores me to tears. I can't. It's too stuffy. Whatever Drood came out in 1986 or opened in 85, it was the 1986 Tonys and its competition that year was Song and Dance, the musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Don black. Richard Malpe Jr. Co wrote the lyrics. The first act used to be the one woman musical Tell Me on a Sunday. But they made Song and Dance as a two act evening with dance in the second half. The big song and Song and Dance, of course, is unexpected song, but there's also Tell Me on a Sunday, a couple other ones. It's like, it's like get that look off of your face, something like that. Song and Dance was sort of. We were in the thick of Andrew Lloyd Webber fever on Broadway, but it wasn't super overwhelming just yet. You know, Evita was a big hit, Jesus Christ Superstar was a solid hit. Cats had been a juggernaut. But Phantom hadn't happened just yet, nor had Starlight Express. So Song and Dance was sort of the calm before the final storm. And it was not super well received. It was mostly beloved for giving Bernadette Peters a star turn, giving her her first Tony Award. But it was not like an ultimate score. There was Wind in the Willows, the musical version of the beloved book by William P. Perry and Roger Macau, and that was a big bomb. And then the News, which is a rock musical with music in lyrics by Paul Schierhorn, and that was also a giant bomb. I don't believe it lasted very long. It was at the Helen Hayes Theater. Yeah, I think it lasted, God, like a week. I want to look this up. How many performances did the News actually run for? Because in my mind, I feel like it was a giant one week hit. Not even. It ran for four performances. It opened on November 7th, closed November 9th. That is a Tony nominated score, everybody. So once again we look at Mystery of Evan Drood and it's absolutely the best of the lot, but it's not a terribly good lot. You know, Drood won score at one book, it won actor, it won musical, it won direction of a musical. And that is a solid total. It's five wins in 1986. It ran for a year and a half, didn't recoup. It's had regional productions, it's done at schools a lot. It was done in Stage Door Manor. We had a Broadway revival about 12 years ago that was well received and definitely has its fans. But Drew is just one of those musicals that never fully caught on to have a fervent fan base. And I think we see that here with its ranking at 47, which is a little, you know, it's a little brutal, but it's ultimately fair. And every time we've done shake up, Vote Druid never really was able to catch enough votes. Big river caught on a lot more over the over the shake ups than Druid ever did. Next up at 46 is Dear Evan Hansen. Dear Evan Hansen. I mean, I'm not going to go too far into this one because you all know this one was up against Groundhog Day, Great Comet, and Come From Away. And I think that Dear Evan Hansen is probably the. Probably the second best score out of here, if I'm being perfectly honest. I think that like, of my personal favorites, it's at, you know, probably three in terms of actual musicals. It's definitely number four. Groundhog Day for me is, you know, a very flawed musical that has a lot of greatness about it and a score that I do genuinely love. Again, it's not totally compact. It should be reined in a little bit, but part of me loves how off the rails it sometimes gets and then it because it starts going off the beaten track and then sticks the landing comfort. Way is very tight, very compact, very exciting, very moving. It can be argued that come from way. It might be manipulative to some people that the score, while fun, is not necessarily overwhelmingly creative. Then you have great common, which is nothing but creativity, nothing but passion, nothing but weirdness. That is ultimately what should have won best score here. Evan Hansen ended up winning in what was a very big, not a total sweep, but a strong sweep. They won musical, they won score, book, orchestrations. They won actor, and they won supporting actress for Rachel Bay Jones and Evan Hansen. Dear Evan Hansen was a musical that, as we all remember, was really huge. When it came out, it was like this. It was back to back with Hamilton. Hamilton was this giant, you know, national hit. And then Dear Evan Hansen sort of came out at the right time. It was right after the 2016 election, and people really needed possibilities. They needed hope. This was a musical with songs that could be played on the radio. It was a very empathetic musical, a very earnest musical. And it really wasn't until about a year into the run when online narratives of the show started to shift. I really think it was maybe John Lovett who kind of started it with his whole diatribe about Evan Hansen as a sociopath, which I don't agree with. But I think flaws in the musical's logic and in its messaging started to come up. And that was only made worse when the movie version came out, which cut the score to, you know, shredded it to ribbons and tried to fix. Fix issues that people had brought up online about it and then actually only really made things worse. And then also try to narrow the movie into a true star vehicle for Ben Platt, and again, only made things worse. But this is a good score. There are good songs here. There are Skips, how to Break in a Glove or whatever the fuck she's called is, in my opinion, a skip. And I think there are some songs that maybe have lost their luster due to online traction. You will be found as a song that I find less moving or not I find less powerful by the day as we get more and more Pasek and Paul, like, Believe in Yourself anthems like this Is Me and whatnot and, you know, just show choir singing it in context of the show. Dear Evan Hansen, you'll Be Found, I think is a very good song and works very well as a double entendre almost, because it's not just you will be found, but you will be found out. But people voted low on this, I think because of the backlash and because people were just sort of over it. This is in that sweet spot of recency bias where it's not so new that people are so still hopped up on it and can't see straight. And it's not so old. It's become like a classic that people turn on or revere. It's like just enough years that people are. There are enough people who are sick of it where it's like, it was really hot and I'm done with it and I don't want to think about it anymore. So people voted very low on it. And when we would do a shakeup, it would always kind of come in third or fourth place of scores to move up in the rankings. It was always sort of like directly in the middle. It never was the absolute winner, and it never was at the absolute bottom. But there were always people who kind of felt that Dear Evan Hansen got the short end of the stick with the rankings. And because a lot of banger scores were entered after Dear Evan Hansen, its placement just got lower and lower. So that is just sort of the luck of the draw with that one. But it was interesting to see when it entered the ranking how immediately people voted on it, like, really wanted it to be low. And then when we finally got to placing it for real, real it was. There were people who were trying very hard to keep it from being the absolute bottom. So when it was final placements, a lot of people voted on the spot that it was, that eventually ended up in, I think, to hopefully counter people voting it for at the absolute bottom of the. Of the poll. And that will. Again, that's something I kind of want to bring up later on as we. As we continue. So that's 46, Dear Evan Hansen. So we have at 45, Kinky Boots by Cyndi Lauper. This one actually kind of surprised me because if you were around for the 2013 Tony Awards, which was famously Kinky Boots versus Matilda, Matilda came in with so much buzz, so much hype, it got incredible reviews. It had a really solid advance. Like, it was. I think it had, like an advance of 22, 23 million. So it was like, sold out for the first four months of the run. And so any tickets you wanted to buy, you had to, like, buy them six, seven months in advance. And, you know, people knew the movie, people knew the novel. It had won the most Oliviers of any show in West End history. And it was something you could take the kids to. How fun and wonderful. And there were kids on stage and there was all this hype of what theater is Matilda to go into. And ultimately Matilda came in with the producers feeling very hot on it and the rest of the community kind of getting very cold because they were in their. In the community's eyes. Matilda was getting very cocky about its position as the hit of the season of critical, financial Tony Award hit. And Kinky Boots was an American musical considered the underdog with a creative team of people that people liked. Everyone loves Harvey Fierstein. Jerry Mitchell was very beloved. Cyndi Lauper, her first time on Broadway, but who doesn't love Cyndi Lauper? And was, you know, an upbeat show about believing yourself and acceptance and love. And it was charming. And it was also, technically speaking, British, but it wasn't Matilda British, which was quirky and weird and had lyrics that not everyone could understand. And people started turning off of Matilda very quickly. And that translated to the Tony Awards, where Matilda did win book, but Kinky Boots won score. And for a lot of people, that was considered an iconic, undeniable win. I remember Cyndi Lauper winning best score for Kinky Boots, and everyone was like, well, you can't deny that. That is just. That makes so much sense. So it's fascinating to see it at 45 here, 45 out of 52. I think the score for Kinky Boots is fun. It's fine. I think the show is fun. It's fine. I thought so when it opened. I still think so now. I Never thought that the show was quite the groundbreaking, you know, blow the doors off the off the walls kind of show that a lot of people were promoting it as. I always thought that it was like people would go and have a good time and walk out with the exact same mindset they had going in with, of course, you know, one or two exceptions here or there. But overall, I remember going in and feeling like I could hear audiences patting themselves on the back for understanding the politics and the messaging of the show. And I'm like, the messaging is very clear and kind of simplistic. And it's not that I don't agree with it, it's just. It's not terribly nuanced in my eyes. And Kinky Blues is not really a nuanced show, so it doesn't have to be. But they kind of acted like they were. And the score was kind of treated like it. Like it was the perfect balance of, you know, hot Broadway entertainment and nuanced, intricate, you know, emotional storytelling. And I just never bought that. I never did. And so it's fascinating for me to now see Kinky Boots rated this low. It had its fans who wanted to vote for it high, but it also had a lot of people who were like, no, I don't think so. Think about Kinky Boots is that it actually was a little bit higher in the rankings at first, but a couple of things below it eventually moved up and that brought Kinky Boots on the lower side of this ranking. Kinky Boots was going up against Matilda, Hands on a Hard Body and A Christmas Story. I know I have some Pascan Paul die hard girlies out there who think it should be Christmas Story. I definitely think it should have been Matilda. But I'm not going to sit here and remove the Kinky Boots Tony win from Cyndi Lauper's hands. But that's. It's fascinating to me. This. This was one that really kind of surprised me. I thought it was going to be higher because I remember when it won how much everyone agreed with that win. And so to see it low on this ranking took me by surprise. Moving on at number 44, Tommy the who's Tommy? This is a ranking that I think is kind of, for lack of a better term, bullshit. This was one where people voted and I thought that it would be higher because we just had the revival that had very solid reviews. It had a strong reception from fans online. But also, this is where I tell you that what people say online is different from how they vote when in private. I think two Things led to Tommy's ranking being this low one. Is that it? Well, no, not three. Two. Tommy, as some people might know, is the only tie to happen in Best score. It tied with Kiss of the spider woman in 1993. And from what I gather, this was the beginning of the change of how the Tony eligibility rulings determined original scores, because Tommy was not an original score. It was a score that was written for this story. And, you know, they made tweaks, they rewrote some lyrics, they moved some things around for the stage version. But it's ultimately the album that everyone had known for 25 years. And there was a lot of bullshit calling from the community when it was nominated and then tied with Kiss of the Spider Woman. And so I do. So I don't think that that comes into play with the ranking here. Although I did mention that in my little backdrop, giving some context for voting as people went on in the rankings, I think two things happened. One was the fact that it is, technically speaking, not an original score, that it wasn't written for the stage. I think that turned a lot of people off when voting for it. And then I also think the revival, as liked as it was by a lot of people, a lot of younger voters of this poll, who maybe went to go see the revival, not knowing much about Tommy and were very much turned off by the story. I think that also had something to play with how they voted on this ranking, which is unfair because, again, we're judging the score itself, not the story it's a part of that is. Or rather to say we are judging the score on its own merits as well as how it works within the confines of the story it's telling. And as I said, for me, the best one should be ones you can listen to on their own. And then when you see it, it just works even better. And Tommy clearly works on its own because there's a legendary album by the who from, you know, 1969, I think, that swept the world. And songs like Acid Queen and Pinball wizard are very famous, iconic songs. And it's just fascinating. It's just fascinating for me to see people voted so low. And it wasn't really a close call. This was another one where the first two rounds of voting were pretty landslide y and then. Or at least, you know, as close to landslide as you could get. And then once we got to the final round, people were, like, a little more trepidatious about where to put it. And ultimately, I think what had happened was it was between the ranking, it's currently at. And like, between, you know, Obviously it wasn't 44 at the time that it went in. There were scores that went in after it. But let's say for now it would be like it was sort of like a split vote between 44 and 43 and. Or it was a split vote between, like, 45 and 43, and ultimately 44 was where it went. This is one where, fascinatingly enough, when we did our last two shakeups, we were like, okay, you can save one score to move up. This was a score that on the last two shakeups, nobody voted for to move up in the rankings. And the reason why that's fascinating is. I say fascinating surprising a lot. But whatever. The reason why that was fascinating for me is every other score had at least one or two votes to move it up outside of, you know, whatever was number one. The, you know, the really crazy surprise I want to give you guys, here is every score that I am writing to you about that I am telling you about. In this ranking, when we did the initial round of voting, for each score, does it go to the top 10, middle 20, middle, absolute top, absolute bottom? There are only three scores that did not that. That do not. That this does not apply to. But overall, every score here had at least 10 votes to put in the absolute top or at least 10 votes to put it in the absolute bottom. There are only three scores that this does not apply to. One is Gigi. Gigi did not have 10 scores to put at the absolute top. It had about 20 or so votes to put it in the top 20. You know, I had like five or six votes to put in the top 10. Another like 15 or so votes to put it between 11 and 20 or 11 and 20 21. But. So Gigi is the only one that didn't have more than 10 votes to put in the absolute top 10. And I will tell you the other two scores that did not have that had fewer than 10 votes to put in the absolute bottom. I will tell you those as we continue on later. But every other score that I'm mentioning here had at least 10 people voted for the very top or at least 10 at the very bottom. That means at least 10 people voted for Memphis, Will Rogers Follies Woman of the Year, Big River, Drew Dear, Evan Hansen, Kinky Boots Tommy to put it in the absolute top as well as 10 to put it in the absolute bottom. At least. At least that number. So that's very interesting, right? When you think of some of these scores where you're like, well, that's clearly iconic and should be in the top five. I'm telling you, anywhere from 10 to 40 people disagreed with you on that. And that's just about the absolute bottom. There are some people who wouldn't put it in the bottom but would put it somewhere in the middle, and that's like another hundred votes. So it's just. It's these things that we think are so factual, and there are people around who so disagree and vote so intensely because they disagree and they want that known. Interesting takeaway, is it not? That's Tommy at 44, which again, tied with Kiss of the Spider Woman and was up against, I believe, Anna Karenina. Yeah, the musical version of Anna Karenina. And then I think, Song of Jacob Zulu. We'll double check on that again when we get to Kiss the Spider Woman's rankings. But I believe that is the. Yes, that is absolutely what it is. Next up at 43 is Newsies. This was one that a lot of people got very mad about where it landed. And I will tell you, I was also taking the backup where it landed, because if you were online and in the Broadway community for 2012, 2013, and 2014, this show was everywhere. As far as the Internet was concerned. Newsies was the best thing to happen to Broadway since they put air conditioning in the theaters. The fan base Fanzies, as they were called, was very intense, very passionate, and showed up for everything that these boys did. And I say that not as a judgment call, because without them, I would not have had any kind of audience for the beginning of Broadway Breakdown. As some of you remember, I used to have a web series called Baking it on Broadway where I would bake with Broadway actors. And it's still on YouTube today if you ever want to watch it. Baking in a Broadway life is a carburet. And, you know, we had a couple. I had a couple different. My friends. Come on. Elena Ricardo, who's now in Great Gatsby, was my very first guest, Emily Skeggs, who went on to be a Tony nominee for Fun Home. People like that. But I had quite a few Newsies. I had Adam Kaplan, I had Danny Quadrino, I had Klay Thompson, Joshua Burridge, Caitlin Frank. And because of them, the Fanzies would always show up. And because of that, like, a few of them really gravitated towards the series and liked me and followed me in all of my endeavors after that and followed me to the podcast, and they were really the beginning of the audience listenership we had for Broadway Breakdown. So I'm always grateful for the fancies, but I'm telling you this, this show was so big and had such a fervent fan base that the fact that it is at 43 is wild to me. And I don't know if that is. The fancies grew up and they got less interested. I don't know if that's more people who weren't fanzies and remember this time and were annoyed by this time, think of it and vote downwards on it. Or it could be. This might have been one of the few times when I wrote in Giving context for Voting where people actually took it to heart, which is that the best songs in Newsies were not written for the stage, they were written for the movie. They were arranged better for the stage. I think Seize the Day and Carrying the Banner are much better on stage than they were in the movie. But the best song that was written for the stage version of Newsies is things called Watch what Happens, Catherine's song. I think that's the best song in the show or of the new songs, all the other songs, they're perfectly fine, but they're sort of placeholders. They're there because they have to be. And ultimately Newsies won best score for the new songs. It was, you know, slightly more than 50% of the score was new and thus they got to be nominated and they won. And their competition again was, I think it was one other musical and mostly plays because the other nominees for best musical opposite Newsies were Once Nice Work if you Can get it and Leap of Faith, and Once ended up winning Best Musical But Once and Nice Work if youf Can get it could not get score nominations and Leap of Faith was the rare one and done nominee. It ran for a month, no one really cared for it. It got a random Best Musical nomination, but no other nominations. And it's such an anomaly. But Newsies was up against Bonnie and Clyde, which is a solid Frank Weilthorn score, which is damning with vain praise, if I'm being perfectly honest. The score for One Man, Two Governors and the score for Peter and the Starcatcher, neither of which had any chance of winning. Plays that are nominated in this category never beat a musical. And we learned that with Stereophonic when it possibly could have won and voters just wouldn't do it. So it's just, it's. If you were around during this time, I want you to write in on the Discord Channel and inform people truly just how. How big and how intense the fan base was for this show and how passionate it was. So it's interesting to me how people voted for it. And I will say this was one where there was no general consensus among the voters in terms of like any kind of group. There was no group of Broadway actors who felt super hot about it or super cold about it. This was one where a lot of people were sort of in the middle. And then ultimately what tipped the scale was as we moved on with each round, its ranking got a little lower. So I think in the first round it was determined it was going to be sort of in the bottom third or bottom half. And then by the second round it was like, okay, it's actually going to be sort of middle to bottom third. And then by the end it ended up where it was. This was also a show where every time we did the submissions for how to save it, what score do we want to save and move up? Newsies would always sort of be directly in the middle. It had a couple of people who voted for it every single time, but never enough to get it to the top. So alas, Next up at 42 is last year's Tony winner, Suffs by Shayna Taub. This suphs was the very first rank ranked score on this on this list because it was Evita versus SUFFS. I told you. We started with 1980 to 2024 and moved inwards and once that was complete, then we added the 70s in chronological order. And I knew this ranking was going to be interesting from the jump because I think the score for Suffs is quite nice. I think there are plenty of compositions that are, are, you know, very catchy and clever. It's very well arranged. I think the lyrics are precise and there's a lot of exact rhymes, which is rare these days. I don't find it to be a super powerful piece for me. Granted I am not a woman, but I found the messaging of it similar to Kinky Boots where it was so big and so obvious that it felt kind of pandering. And I didn't feel a lot of drama, I didn't feel a lot of stakes, I didn't feel a lot of gumption about it. But it works for a lot of other people. I've said before the stuff about the show I liked the most was when Nicky M. James, Shayna Taub and Jen Colella's characters were all sort of circling around each other, fighting for the same goal in different ways and sort of fighting at each other because they had different ways of wanting to get their goals. But that only made up like A fifth of the show and a fifth of the score. Everything else was good. Cheeky, fun, exciting. But not cheeky enough. Not exciting enough for me. That said, I know a lot of people who liked Suff or were called on Suffs, and I thought, Suffs versus Evita, this is kind of unfair. I thought to myself, I said, it's going to be Evita in such a landslide. Because say what you will about Andrew Lloyd Webber, Evita is absolutely one of his best scores. I think it is his best score. The. It is. It has such a legacy. It's so legendary. Those songs are so iconic and it made Patti LuPone in. It's so difficult, but it's so intricate and so. And so cool and weird. And it did win. It was Evita number one, sus number two. I thought it was going to be like 96 of the vote was going to be Evita, and 40 and 4% of the vote sucks. It was 75% Evita, 25 subs, which is still a vast majority, but not quite the vast majority that I was expecting. And so from that moment on, I went, oh, shit, this is going to. Shit is going to go down. And thus it did. As we all remember, Suffs was opposite Days of Wine and Roses, Here Lies Love, the Outsiders and Stereophonic. My personal vote would have been for Stereophonic, then Here Lies Love and then Suffs. The problem is Here Lies Love had closed by that point and it also had some controversy in terms of the musicians union and Hero. Lies Love wasn't a Best Musical nominee, which didn't really help its chances. So being Closed and not being a Best Musical nominee was really tough for that. That nomination was really sort of its win. Stereophonic, I feel like, never really got as close as we all wanted to pretend it got to winning Best Score. The idea of it winning Best Score was really exciting to people. We all love Masquerade and then it just ended up not happening, which is, you know, it's what it is. It went to the traditional winner, which was an original score for an original musical that was still running. The Outsiders also, you know, counts for that way. But the Outsiders was a show that a lot of people felt the whole was greater than the sum of its parts. And Days of Wine and Roses, very divisive. It has its fans. I am not one of them. I think Lightning the Piazza is one of the most beautiful scores ever written, and I really enjoy Floyd Collins. Days of Wine and Roses is not my ghetto and I don't need to ever listen to it. Again, I saw it at the Atlantic, didn't care for it, saw it on Broadway, didn't care for it. But there are people who thought that Days of Wine and Roses could truly win. And I don't think that was ever the case. I think this really was a Suffs versus Stereophonic and then suffs came out on top and with new scores added to it, added to this ranking, Suff's placement got lower and lower. This is a score and the one above it isn't is similar. So I won't speak on it super long because I'll just say. I'll just say this subs is at number 42. Six is at 41. Now, SUFFS and six both have their fans, people who would bemoan them being constantly being so low on the rankings and would vote for them every time we had a shake up vote of, okay, what score are we going to move up in? The rankings always had its. Had its core base of voters who would submit them. With each shake up, as more scores got added to the rankings, those numbers would dwindle, but it always would remain each. Both of them always had like at least 15 people who would submit suffs that were six to move up in the rankings. But you know, the first time we were like, okay, we're going to do a shakeup. What are we. What are we moving up in the rankings? SUFFS and 6 both had like 30 votes each and then that got lower and lower as other scores got included. But I'm going to say something and it's going to be a little shocking to some of you, and I want you to remember this when we come into Tony predictions later this season. I'm not naming names. I'm not throwing anyone under the bus. When you do an Instagram poll, you can see who votes for what. Clearly not everyone knew this, but a lot of people did. When I tell you that not a single Broadway writer, music director, or like any Broadway creative, I'm putting actors aside but like on the creative side, on the, on the production side of the table of Broadway people who voted, none of them liked SUFFS or 6's scores and were adamant that they'd be low, would write to me and be like, these need to be lower. And I'm like, well, patience, we have other scores to put into the rankings. But when suffs was added, you know, people, they were all, you know, it's obviously Evita. And then they were also thrown that Evita was 75% of the vote and not 99%. And then when six came in, I was surprised at how many of these Broadway creatives voted it so low because they felt it wasn't a genuine score. I disagree with that. I think it is a true score. I think it's a very specific pop kind of score and it does what it set out to do. It maybe isn't as expansive as something like a great Comet or Hamilton, but I do think 6 is a genuinely good score. It nails the assignment it has. The question is, do you like its assignment? And it seems that a lot of people don't. And I think a lot of people also have baggage with six because of how it came into the pop culture lexicon of having the studio album that went viral on TikTok and all social media and became a go to for spin classes and aerobics exercises. Suffs. I think a lot of Broadway creatives, everyone is really proud of Shayna and really likes Shayna and we're really excited for her Broadway debut as a writer. And a lot of creatives I spoke to were underwhelmed by the final product of Suffs and that could just be. Everyone had, all of them had a vision in their head of, oh, this is her debut. She's been working on it for years. This is going to blow the roof off its hinges. And it did for some people, but not nearly for enough. So this is a score that I think will be interesting to see every year, sort of how its legacy ebbs and flows. Because it won, a lot of people were happy about it. People wanted it to run. People thought it was a real contender for best musical. I'm sure it actually was. But within a few months, a lot of the community is like, I actually don't really enjoy that score very much. So this is, this is, you know, how these things go. Fascinating is not. I will say there are Broadway actors who would vote to move stuffs up constantly. A lot of Broadway actors who would submit stuffs every time we had a shake up. But on the Broadway creative side, SUFFS and 6 both were not very well liked. So isn't that an interesting one? Okay, we're going to continue on with the rankings in just a second. Let's do a quick recap. At 52, we have Memphis 51. The Will Rogers Follies 50. Gigi 49. Woman of the Year 48. Big River 47. The Mystery of Edwin Drood 46. Dear Evan Hansen 45. Kinky Boots 44. Tommy 43. Newsies 42. SUFFS 41. 6. We'll get on to 40. And the rest of this right after this break. Billy, I beg to differ with you. How do you mean? You're the top. Yeah. You're an arrow collar. You're the top. You're a Coolidge dollar. You're the nimble tread of the feet of Fred Astaire. Every idea starts with a problem. Warby Parker's was simple. Glasses are too expensive. So they set out to change that. By designing glasses in house and selling directly to customers, they're able to offer prescription eyewear that's expertly crafted and unexpectedly affordable. Warby Parker glasses are made from premium materials like impact resistant polycarbonate and custom acetate. And they start at just $95, including prescription lenses. Get glasses made from the good stuff. Stop by a Warby Parker store near you. This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever find yourself playing the budgeting game? Well, with the name your price tool from Progressive, you can find options that fit your budget and potentially lower your bills. Try it@progressive.com progressive casualty insurance company and affiliates price and coverage match limited by state law. Not available in all states. And we're back. So we are now up to 41 on the rankings. Number 40 on the rankings on the 20th century. This one was kind of wild to me and definitely one that I got a lot of angry DMs about. And I do again believe that a lot of people sort of voted in bad faith on this. This was one of the lower voted on scores. This was, I think the only time in the last, like 10 or 15 scores that were submitted. And this was, this is our first score of the seventies, by the way. That's on the, on the ranking. This score both times in round one and round two didn't crack 200 submissions in the, in the voting. Those were. We waited till four hours passed and then moved on to the next round on both counts on round one and round two. That said, in both voting rounds it trailed pretty low. And then we got to the final one and we did get about 275 votes in the final round of voting on the 20th century. But this one was surprising to me because I, I think this score is good. I'm not in love with this musical. I think it's a fun time. There was a revival about 10 years ago and I thought that the china with revival would be enough to give some fire to voters to want to vote for it or at least vote for it a little higher than they did. I think ultimately this was one where people didn't know it super well and voted low on it because they didn't know it super well. Or the people who did know it were sort of divided on it. I think it's an. It's not an incredibly exciting score. It's not one that really pumps your blood, but it has a lot of really great stuff about it. It's sort of faux operetta mixed with jazz age. And that sounds like such tonal dissonance. But I'm telling you, it works a lot of the time and it's got very good lyrics to it. I think my biggest issue with it is that it feels a little drawn out as a musical and thus as a score. And not everyone's gonna be on board with that, especially for something that's as farcical as on the 20th century. But when it works, it works really well. Veronique Babette, two amazing showstoppers. Repent is a fun little number. I think the opening is great, but I think, yeah, this is a score that is a blind spot. Slash just doesn't have a passion enough base. It did have, you know, about 20 or so people who wanted to put it in the absolute top, but far too many people wanted to put it in the bottom. On the 20th century was sort of the inverse of something like Memphis, which I mean this kindly. The year that on the 20th century was nominated, it was nominated for best musical opposite Ain't Misbehavin, Runaways and Dancin'bob. Fosse's Dancin'so. We had two musicals. One was a dance review and one was a jukebox musical. A jukebox review. And then the other one was an off Broadway transfer that had a lot of critical love but was just a really hard sell and a really tough pill to swallow. It was a really hot ticket when it was at the Public, when it was at Joe's Pub. And then I think when they went to the. One of the other theaters after that. But once it got to Broadway, it was a very tough sell and was one of those things that people admired but people didn't really love. And for score, obviously, Ain't Misbehavin couldn't be nominated. It was, you know, a catalog musical. Danson couldn't be nominated. It was, you know, all pre written songs. So on the 20th century was up against Runaways for score as well as the Act. The John Cantor Fred Ebb musical starring Liza Minnelli, which had closed by that point and had so much bad press with it because of a. All of its out of town troubles, but also with Minnelli missing performances left and right, having a lot of health problems, a lot of mental health and drug problems. And then the final score nominated was Working, which was Stephen Schwartz's first really big flop and was a big passion project for him. He wrote the score, he wrote the book, he directed it rather to say he co wrote the score with many other writers, Susan Birkenhead, Craig Carnelia, Mickey Grant, Mary Rogers, James Taylor. And Working actually has, I wouldn't call it a great score because it has quite a few skips but it has a lot of really good stuff in it. And clearly the Tony Awards felt so as well because by the time that the Tony Awards happened, Working had closed sort of in shame. But it did, you know, it had a score nomination. I think it had a book nomination. I believe two or three members of the company were also nominated. I think Schwartz was also nominated for director which is fascinating. So it had love and probably was, I would say was probably the runner up here for score after on the 20th century. But on the 20th century it was this big musical, American musical with an all original score and book creative team. Betty Combs and Adolph Green, Sy Coleman, Hal Prince, people that Broadway loved and respected and was based off a very popular play and movie. John Cullum was finally a leading man thanks to Shenandoah. So this was his follow up and he won his second Tony for it. Kevin Kline was a Star is born moment mat Madeline Kahn movie star who came back to Broadway and succeeded. But then all this bad press of Madeline Kahn missing shows and then getting replaced by Judy K. And Hal Prince lobbying to get Judy K up for best Actress. All that kind of left a sour taste in Tony voters mouths. And on top of that, ain't Misbehaven kind of came in like a hurricane that season. Whereas on the 20th century was sort of like the Memphis of. But we have an original score and an original book and these are reviews opposite us. That was the year where the Tonys went. We don't care. Ames Behaven is something really special and we like you but we don't love you. And that might be ultimately what got in voters minds for this is like I like on the 20th century. I don't love on the 20th century or I admire it but I don't like it. And Thus it's at 40 which is low but again there are 12 other scores below it. So we'll take what we can get. At 39 is Sunset Boulevard. This one was fascinating to me because I've said before, I don't like this musical, and I don't like this score one bit. I do enjoy the recurrent revival with mysticol, but mostly because it's just wild and bonkers and fun and more adheres to the movie than adheres to any attitude that the stage show tried to have. This is an Aaron to Veit win. Sunset Boulevard was the only score nominee of 1995, and in fact, the Tonys were going to get rid of score and book altogether because the only other nominee for best musical that year was Smokey Joe's Cafe. And Angelo Webber said, absolutely not. Absolutely not. Those categories will remain and we are eligible and you will nominate us and we will win if you so choose. And they did win opposite nothing. And there are people, genuine, like, Broadway critical people, people who are so nasty about so many things. I'm talking like some of the people who wrote into my DMs and said, Fuck six. I hate that score. I think that show is bullshit. And then voted to put Sunset Boulevard in the top five. Loved this musical. I do not understand it myself, but Lezum Gay. Sunset Boulevard also is a score that it ranked a little higher when it was first on here. Obviously, a couple of other scores added moved it lower into the rankings. I believe when it was first entered into the rankings, it, like, entered in the sort of, like, high 20s area of the rankings and was sort of in the, like, right in the middle and has since gotten lower as other scores moved and other scores got added. And this is one that has always kind of been on the lower end of the shakeups. Whenever people were voting to save a score and move it up, Sunset Boulevard always kind of remained in the bottom three or four submissions. But when it was voted on, there were people who were very, very passionate about getting it into a high spot. And that didn't ultimately happen. You know what is above Sunset Boulevard? Only by one spot, but it is cats. At 38 cats. What can one say about Cats that hasn't been said? It was a juggernaut in its day. It became an international phenomenon and an international joke almost simultaneously. We have the movie, the gift that keeps on giving and keeps on hurting. That movie version is bonkers, sometimes in a way that's really incredible to watch, and sometimes in a way that makes you just want to turn it off. Not because it's so embarrassing, because it just gets so boring. Boring and dull. Which is same words, but fuck it, it's Cats we're talking about. Words don't mean Anything. I want to show you the lineup of best score nominees that Cats was up against. Cats was up against A Doll's Life, which was the musical sequel I mentioned earlier when talking about Grind, written by Larry Grossman, Betty Conlodin and Adolph Green. I think four performance flop. What happened to Nora After A Doll's Life. And it's both like a sequel to A Doll's Life while also being a rehearsal of A Doll's Life, but not at the same time. It's very weird and very messy and no one really knows what to do with it. So that's nominated and it's got some good music. Larry Grossman always wrote really good music. Grind as well. Merlin by Elmer Bernstein and Don Black. You can watch their Tony performance. It's about magic. It's about Wanda. And then there's also a TV performance by Cheetah Rivera. I can make it happen. Not good songs, just not good songs. And Merlin was the best musical nominee because it was Slim Pickens that year. It was really down to Cats and my one and only. And everyone knew it was gonna be Cats, but my one and only put up a solid fight. And then our fourth and final nominee is the stage version of Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. Jean DePaul, Joel Hirschhorn and El Kasha and Johnny Mercer, Gene De Paul and Johnny Mercer nominated for what they wrote for the movie. And then Kasha and Hirshhorn for the songs they added for the stage show. Another bomb, another show that just absolutely flopped on Broadway. Trying to cash in on the oh beloved movie musical they were putting to the stage, thinking it'll be like a 42nd Street. It ended up not even being a Gigi. It ended up being like 1/10 of a Gigi. And Gigi was already considered a flop at the time. If you want to hear more about Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, you can listen to my episode on that with John Reilly. I had never seen the movie before, and the movie is incredibly beloved. And I hated it. I hated every second of it. I don't like anything about Seven Brothers or Seven Brothers other than the barn raising dance and that the brothers are all pretty hot. That's about it. But, yeah, with those nominees, how could Cats lose? You know, it's the last time Andrew Lloyd Webber got weird with his writing. And there's some good compositions in that. Say what you will about Cats, there are some compositions that really fuck with it. I mean, memory people make fun of it, but it's become a standard for a reason. And when it's sung really well and really powerfully, especially in the context of the show. It can. It can hit you. If you haven't seen. If you didn't get a chance to see Cats, the Jellicle Ball when it was at the Pack downtown, your time will come. You'll get to see it again. It's really special and I think will give a lot of people a lot of appreciation for Cats as a score. And I will also say this. This was one where Katz, in its first round of voting, had a massive sweep to put it at the bottom. So it was in the. It was already going to be in the bottom half. And then once we got to rounds two and three of now we're voting, the thinking softened and it ended up ranking a lot higher than I think some people expected it to. And I had people who would say every time we did a shake up that they really were hoping Cats was going to make it and get to the top and get to move up a couple of spots in the ranking, which never happened, unfortunately. But it did gain traction with each round of shakeups. But I think by the final shakeup, it ranked in, like, fourth or fifth place, which is, you know, nothing to sneeze at, I would say. But, yes, we have cats at 38. At 37, we have the Ban's Visit. The Ban's Visit is a score on this list that actually once ranked a lot higher and was the first score that people voted to move down when we did our first shakeup of, okay, what, you know, what are we. What's moving up? What's moving down? Ban says it was the first one to be moved down by a solid chunk and then actually got moved down again, I think, on the third shakeup. So I like this show. I like the score. It's by no means my favorite. David Yazbeck. This is another one where it was considered such a triumph for art when it swept the Tonys in 2018. I think 10 Tony wins and it won best score opposite mean Girls, Frozen, SpongeBob SquarePants. And I think that is the correct choice. Banzizzet was absolutely the correct score winner of those four. My follow up would be my runner up, I should say would have been SpongeBob SquarePants, a score that I think has a lot of gems in it, but is overall not totally a successful score. It has its moments, but it's not. It's got its bumps as well. Frozen. I think all the best stuff in Frozen is from the movie. All the stuff they added for the stage show, it's not egregiously bad. It's just sort of unnecessary. And then Mean Girls is a score that, you know, at its best, it's fine, and at its worst, it's pretty, you know, skippable. So what are you gonna do? It's got to be Ban's visit. But just because something wins that year and is the best of its lot doesn't mean it's the best of all of the winners and has a very, you know, healthy legacy. But it is fascinating to see how seven years later, a show that was considered, you know, a true artistic triumph. The underdog, the one that really should win and deserves to win, and everyone was happy that it won. And seven years later, people are, like, kind of mid on that show. Again, the legacy of it all. Next up at 36 Avenue Q. Again, this was one where the first round of voting really kind of determined where it was going to end up. And then things softened after that. One of the voting trends that I saw was people would vote very confidently on a section of the ranking. Oh, that top 10 easily, or. Oh, yeah, middle 20 easily. And then the more specific it got, the more people kept voting in the middle. Once it. Especially when we're talking about, like, the absolute bottom or the absolute top, there were a couple of scores that. And we'll get there, I thought, were going to grab the top number one spot a few times, especially over a score that. That had been sort of staying at number one for so long. And these other scores just couldn't quite get there because people would vote for it to be in the top 10, even the top five. And then it was like, okay, do you want to put it at number one? And a lot of people just couldn't do it. They just kept voting right in the middle. Right in the middle. 1, 2, 3, 4. I'll vote for it, too. I'll vote for it at three. Eh, maybe four. Two or three. Maybe four. I don't know if I can say one. I don't know if I can commit to one. So many people who just did not have it in them to go for broke and put it right at the top of the voting chain. And I think ultimately that comes from the buyer's remorse of going so hard for other scores and then regretting it. And I'll talk about a few of those scores as we get closer to the top because some of those scores remain quite high because of the passion that came about when they were entering the race. So, as I said, avenue Q at 36 that was opposite Wicked, Caroline or Change and Taboo. And again, a score that when it won, a show that when it won, everyone said, oh, my God, what an artistic triumph. This is a victory for artists everywhere, for the underdog, for the show that could. We're not just rewarding commercialism. We are awarding merit and creativity. And I like Avenue Q. I like it a hell of a lot. This was the beginning of my journey of becoming an esoteric fuck. Because I saw Wicked in October of 2003 with the original company right before they opened. Blew my brain, changed my life. I then saw Avenue Q that January. It had been open for a couple of months. I had gotten the album. I really, really enjoyed it. And I remember being a little underwhelmed with. Didn't make me laugh as much as I hoped it would, but I still really liked it. But Wicked was. That was my girl. And then I saw Caroline or Change in May, and Caroline or Change genuinely broke my brain of what you could do on stage and what subject matter you could cover and how you could tell a story and how you could do a musical. My God, from the very moment the opening sequence began with the washing machine and the radio, the sounds that Genita Story made with that score just completely shifted my chromosomes. And I was forever changed. And then Lightning the Piazza was the following year. And then I was. I became a monster. So I remember being a teenager at this time and when people would say what it was was when Spamalot won musical, and then the following year when Pajama Game won revival over Sweeney Todd, a lot of kids around me, like the kind of kids who, like, cut up their T shirt and be like, I'm, you know, I'm very grungy. I'm like, eh, okay, you're from Scarsdale. But they would go. You just. You thought when Avenue Q1 over Wicked, that the Tonys finally were rewarding Merit and were going for the interesting, creative, bold choice. And I remember just shouting all the time, if they were going for that, they would have voted for Caroline or Change. And it's really unfair to compare Caroline or Change with Avenue Q. They're two very different shows trying to do two very different things, and they succeed at what they're trying to do. But I think that history has been very kind to Carolina Change in a way that it hasn't been to Avenue Q. Because Avenue Q is simplistic, people think that it's simple. Or do I mean that because it's simple? People think that it's simplistic? I don't know. I'm very dumb and my brain is fried, but you know what I mean, like, because it is very. Because it is very efficient and very clean and very precise, people think that it's basic or that it. It's actually problematic because it is touching on all of these really tricky subjects and isn't doing enough with it. I disagree with that. I think that's totally the point of the show is that it's touchy subjects matter done in a very simplistic kind of way. But I don't think that that is a problem. That is its goal. It succeeds at it, and I think it's actually very timely in that respect. Not everyone gets on board with that. Carolina change is far more complex and far more messy in that respect with the subject matter that it deals with. And I think that's where a lot of people are at right now. But also, I think because Avenue Q is a. A quaint score, it's hard for people to vote high on it because they want to reward a score that's big. People really like big sounds with their scores, and we'll notice that as we get higher. And that's a shame because this is a good one. And I. I did think it should have been a little higher than it's at. I think the lyrics are very good. But ultimately this was a score that, you know, it settled where it settled. People were happy to put it there. It had its fans who wanted to put at the top. Mostly people were voting for it right in the damn smack middle. You know, this was. I think, when it finally was voted on, it like ranked it like 20 or 21. And then of course got lower as other scores got added, including the 70s. But when we were looking for shakeups, I think it had. There were two shakeups that we. That we voted on post. Avenue Q and Avenue Q did not get a lot of love either. Time to be moved up in the rankings. It got some, but not a lot. Next up at 35, case of the Spider Woman. Case of the Spider Woman. The Kanderneb score that tied with Tommy. And we already sort of talked about its year. I think the Kiss of the Spider Woman is sort of middle Kandernab. It's got some amazing songs like where youe Are, She's a Woman. I think Gimme Love is a fucking bop, Dear one. But there are some other songs that are just sort of okay when you consider scores like Cabray and Chicago and Zorba as Kander and ebb. Kiss of the Spider Woman is not quite that level. It's not top tier, but it's also not bottom of the barrel. Caner and ebb. It's like upper middle class canterb. It's good. It's got some great stuff in it. I wouldn't call it one of their most iconic. That said, it does serve its purpose very well and is a very well crafted score for what it's aiming to do. And ultimately was voted a bit lower at the at the jump and had a lot of people complaining to me about its placement. Those people complaining though, every time it came time to vote on a score to move up, only half those people who would complain to me about Spider Woman's placement would submit Spider Woman. Ultimately, there were other scores that they felt were more necessary to save, including ones that are much higher than Spider Woman, which makes no sense to me. But this was a case where people voted the first two or three rounds. Not terribly strategically. They voted with their heart. And then I would release sort of the numbers of which scores got the most votes and the rankings of, okay, this score is moving up in the ranking now and it got this many votes. And then here, second place, third place, so on and so forth. And I think by the time we got to the fourth, fourth and final round of moving scores up, a lot of people got wise about scores that maybe they thought should be higher, but they knew at that point not everyone felt the same way. So they moved on to a score that they thought maybe needed to be moved higher that could maybe have more support around it, which ultimately led to Kiss of the Spider Woman finally getting moved up in the rankings. In the very final shake up vote, it got third place, which means it only moved up one spot. But it did move up and that is a huge win because it kept on being sort of in the middle. It started in, I mean, the first or it wasn't part of the first shakeup. I think the second shakeup we did, Kiss of the Spider Woman was on the board and it was towards the bottom. And then by the third shake up, it was in the middle. And then by the fourth shake up, it was in the top three. And I know a lot of people who felt very vindicated by that and really appreciated that it got to move up a little bit. They would still like it to be higher. I think it could stand to be a little higher as well. But I think this is just a score that not everyone knows. It hasn't been on Broadway since the 90s. People remember Chita Rivera. They Don't. There's not a lot of younger Broadway fans seeking it out, especially when Cheetah died. I thought more people would seek it out, but I think when Cheetah died, people were more looking at west side Story and Chicago, even, you know, nine in the Visit, less Spider Woman, which is odd as it was her second Tony win. But yeah, it's it. This was a case where I wondered how many people actually voted with what they knew or if they were voting from just like a gut instinct or if they were just thinking of the Kander and Ebb of it all or like, well, this is a candor and Ebb score, but I haven't heard much from it, so it can't be that good. It did ultimately get saved at the very, very end and got to move up one, but just that one time. All right, to recap, we have 52, Memphis 51, the Will Rogers Follies 50, Gigi 49. Woman of the Year 48. Big River 47. Mystery Bedwin Druid 46, Dear Evan Hansen 45, Kinky Boots 44, Tommy 43, Newsies 42, SUFFS 41640 on the 20th Century, 39 Sunset Blvd. 38, Cats 37, the Band's Visit, 36 Avenue Q35 Kiss of the Spider Woman. We will do three more and then we'll take another break. At 34 is the Producers. What can you say about the Producers? It was such a massive critical and box office hit when it opened, it still holds the record for the most Tony wins of any show in Broadway history and probably will always hold that. I feel like the Producers is the equivalent of this ranking of buyer's remorse when it comes to the Tonys of, oh, we might have gone a little too heavy on that one. And granted, it was truly a gigantic hit, to the point that Trey McDougal got tickets for him and Charlotte on Sex and the City to distract her from the fact that they couldn't have children. This is a very good musical. It's a very good score. It's fun, it's funny, it's tight, it's clever. This was the beginning for me of, oh, I'm always going to be voting. I'm always going to be rooting for the second rank because I was so team Full Monty that year. And I ultimately think Full Monty is the better musical and a better adaptation of the Producers. But the Producers is a very strong musical comedy adaptation and a very strong score. I don't find the score as funny as others do. I don't think that the music is as incredible as people felt at the time, but it is a good one. It is catchy. It is very Broadway jazz handsy. And I wonder if people think of the movie version. They think of the fact that the show maybe doesn't age super well right now, but it does have a production that's going on in London right now that's been very well received, that's rumored to come here at some point in a year or two. And I wonder if that will help sort of invigorate its, rejuvenate its reputation. Because as time has gone on, people have soured more and more on it and especially on the history of it being the most Tony winning show ever. People listen to the score and they go, this, this is the one that beats Hamilton for the record of most Tony wins. That beats Hairspray and, you know, Hadestown and all these other things that young Broadway fans really love. And it's like, yeah, it did. I don't know how to explain what a juggernaut it was at the time. Because it was. Audiences loved it and critics loved it. And it was a warm welcome embrace for Mel Brooks. But also because of that, Young Frankenstein became this blank check of a musical that he got for his next one. And ultimately, the cool reception of Young Frankenstein, as well as the cocky attitude that they had about ticket pricing and not really seeing their gross numbers and being in the largest theater because they were like, oh, people are going to want to see this for years and years and years and years. And it only really ran a year. Didn't get a best musical nomination, didn't get a best score nomination. And I do think that ultimately soured people on the Producers and on Mel Brooks in musical theater with all of that. But, yeah, so we have the producers at 34. This was another one that were sort of like, everyone was very much in agreement that it was somewhere in the middle. And then once we got narrower and narrower with the rankings, the decision of where it should go kept getting a little too scattered. At number 33 is the book of Mormon, another glossy, jazz hands Broadway musical dealing with very touchy subject matter that some people don't think has aged well, some people feel has become problematic. I am not one of those people. You can hear more about that episode on Problematic when I do the show with Kyle Marshall. In fact, also, by the way, you can hear episodes on Avenue q, Cats, Sunset Boulevard 6, and Dear Evan Hansen as well in past Broadway breaks and episodes. So seek those out if you want to Hear more about the history of them and the legacy of them. But this was a musical that is still running, has been chugging along. It's definitely softened in its grosses in the last couple of years. It's not quite the must see ticket anymore. It's doing well. They're filling the theater, but it's not. You can tell that its days are numbered. It's not closing tomorrow, but it's on the horizon. It's not on the pulse really anymore. And especially with Trey Parker and Matt Stone continuing with south park and really kind of using that as their platform for social commentary. And with, you know, Bobby Lopez having frozen after this and Coco after this, it. This is a wonderful bookmark in their careers. But at the time, it was sort of like the ultimate thing that they all had done. And that has not remained the case. They've all gone on to do even more after this. And the cast that originated have gone on to do more after Book of Mormon. Its legacy, I think, is more now tied to the talent that has come through that show more than the show itself. This was opposite this one against women on the verge of a nervous breakdown, Sister act. And what was the fourth nominee? Because it wasn't Catch Me if youf can, which I remember took a lot of people by surprise. Oh, Scottsboro Boys, Kander and Ebb. This was actually, this was one of three times where people thought that a Kandern Ebb score was going to win because, oh, this is the last time we can vote for Kander and Ebb. People felt that way about Curtains, they felt that way about Scottsboro Boys. They felt that way about the Visit. You'll never be able to vote for Canter, Neb. Again, so vote for them now. And ultimately was just, you know, shows that people weren't quite passionate about. Scottsboro Boys also had the hurdle of that. It had closed a while before and only really ran for like two months. But Scottsboro Boys was a brilliant piece of theater that I very much enjoyed. Yeah, comedy is really hard to make last. It's always of its time, especially when it's social commentary comedy. It's very much of its time. And when you, when it's something as a long runner like Book of Mormon is, it's not built to stand up to years and years and years of social change, of the tides turning in various ways of how we feel about racial jokes, about sexuality jokes about war jokes, genocide jokes. And it's not that it makes the show. It's not that it's like the show's at fault, or not at fault so much as comedy is the first thing to curdle in art, especially musical comedy. And I do think that has made people sour on Book of Mormon a little bit. But it is ultimately sort of dead center in the middle of this ranking, towards the lower half of the middle, but middle nonetheless. And it's above other scores that a lot of people really have passion for, like six or like Sunset Boulevard or, you know, Dear Evan Hansen and Kinky Boots. So it's. It's above that. But there are some other scores you'll be surprised to hear are above Book of Mormon at 32. Another comedy, another social commentary comedy that we have an episode about on Broadway, Breakdown, and just had a production at Encores, which is Urinetown. Urinetown is always my example of when people are like, how could Suffswin score in book and not musical? I'm like, have you met Urinetown? In addition to on the 20th century and woman of the Year, other shows on this ranking that had won score in book but did not win musical. Urinetown, by the way, it won score in book and director, which is a real triple crown, but not musical. And ultimately that came down to this was right after 9, 11. And audiences and Tony voters really just wanted something happy and peppy and fun. And while Urinetown was fun, Urinetown is fucking funny. It has some rottenness at its core because it has a lot of things to say, a lot of it. Very true, but the kind of comedic truth that not everyone's always willing to laugh at or hear. Whereas something like Mamma Mia. Is just ABBA music on the Greek islands for all to dance to. Thoroughly Modern Millie is. It's New York City. Anything can happen here. And people like that. And Millie is a fun time, but it's not as strong of a musical as Urinetown is. Year in Town also is a score that is very indebted to Brecht and Kurt Weill and 1930s, 40s Golden Age musical theater, which is not something that a lot of people can bop to. There's Run, Freedom Run, which is ultimately the boppiest of the bops for modern audiences. But things like the title song, Privilege to Pee, Don't Be the Bunny, the Act 1 finale, wonderful songs with incredible lyrics, but not songs that people can sing at a karaoke, right? Or can do for a cabaret. Not real showstoppers. And I think that is probably what knocks Urinetown down a couple of pegs on this ranking and why people voted for it the way that they did. I was surprised at how many people were mid on this score. I always thought that this was one that theater lovers really were passionate about. Like, oh, if you're a true theater nerd, you love Urinetown and they exist. But I was really surprised at how widespread this was. There were people who really loved it, people who really hated it. This had like 30 people voting for it to be the absolute rock bottom and then people who were middle of the road about it. This was a score also that every time it entered the shake up, votes always kind of landed sort of in the middle towards the bottom. People who always like the same eight or nine people who would vote for it and just be like, you're in town. Let's move Urinetown up. It deserves to be up. And then it just didn't happen. Actually, no, I take that back. I think Urinetown was only in two shakeups because it was towards. I think it was the last. No, I take that back even further. Urinetown only had was only part of one shakeup because Urinetown was the last score added to the ranking before we did the 70s, before we did the 1970s. We had one more shake up after Urinetown and Urinetown got. It was sort of in the middle of the rank of the of the tallies. Sorry. My. This is why this ranking is interesting because this happened only like a week or so ago with yearintown maybe like a week and a half ago. And already I am false memorying what happened. Urinetown was the last score added in the 1980, 2024 bookending rankings before we added the 1970s. And when we did the last shakeup before adding the 1970s year in town had submissions, but it was sort of in the bottom half. It wasn't at the absolute bottom closer to the middle, but it was in the bottom half of the submissions. People who felt that it was too smart to be as low as it was, while other people felt that there were more sweeping and deserving scores to be put at the top. Scores like Kiss of the Spider Woman and some others that I will talk about in just a second after this break. Billy, I beg to differ with you. How do you mean you're the top? Yeah, you're an arrow collar. You're the top. You're a Coolidge dollar. You're the nimble tread of the feet of Fred Astaire. You just realized your business needed to hire someone yesterday. How can you find amazing candidates fast? Easy. Just use Indeed. Stop struggling to get your job. Posts seen on other job sites with indeed. Sponsored Jobs. Your post jumps to the top of the page for your relevant candidates so you can reach the people you want faster. According to Indeed data, sponsored jobs posted directly on indeed have 45% more applications than non sponsored jobs. Don't wait any longer. Speed up your hiring right now with Indeed and listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsored job credit. To get your jobs more visibility@ Indeed.com Arts, just go to Indeed.com Arts right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring Indeed is all you need. And we're back. So next up in Our rankings at 31 was the drowsy Chaperone. Again, another musical to win score and book and not win best musical. That's because it was up against Jersey Boys, which was a jukebox musical and was not eligible for score and was just too big of a hit to deny. Drowsy Chaperone has one of my favorite librettos of the 21st century, and the score, I think is good. It does what it's supposed to do. This is one where I do not listen to it on its own, but when I watch it in context of the show, I really enjoy it. So for me, I don't think I would rank it quite this high at 31. Not above book of Mormon or the Producers or even Tommy. But it's a solid, strong, dependable score and I am glad that people felt highly about it. But I remember when it was being voted on, a lot of people were like, oh, this is ranking a lot higher than I expected. And in fact it actually was even higher because the two scores above it are scores that were actually below it before a previous shakeup. But we'll get to that in just a second. Drowsy Chaperone the year was 2006 and it was up against Color Purple, Wedding Singer and the Woman in White. Woman in White, one of the big Andrew Lloyd Webber bombs. Wedding Singer, a score and show that a lot of people like was sort of dismissed at the time. I think it's got some really great tunes in it. It's not a musical I particularly love. I don't think it's really had a second wind. Color Purple absolutely has had a second wind, thanks largely to the many hour Chocolate Factory revival with Cynthia Erivo. That of course also then led to the movie version. And now I think a lot of people like myself who dismissed it in its original Broadway run have thought more highly of it. And so Drowsy Chaperone winning, I think A lot of people look back and go, oh, that's an odd choice considering what its competition was. But in the year of 2006, the Drowsy Chaperone was sort of an Avenue Q type. It was a subs type where it was. We're really rewarding the merit of an artistic achievement. But even though we're going to award best musical to, you know, a much larger juggernaut, this is a show that's done quite often. I think a lot of people like it, and I think that its score is probably ranked higher because people like it and people have done it a lot. People really like playing Janet singing, you know, the bride's lament. People like playing the jazzy chaperone singing as we stumble Along. Yeah. One that I thought was actually ranked a lot higher than I expected. Whereas a lot of things in the bottom 15, I was like, oh, these are way lower than I would have thought. This was one that actually surprised me with how high it did. Moving on was number 30, the bridges of Madison County. This is one that actually was ranked three spots lower at first. And I was surprised at how low it was because that was a score that I thought everyone really, really loved. And I love, like 70% of bridges in Madison County. I think everything between Robert and Francesca is pretty phenomenal. I think all their duets are beautiful. It's all the other stuff. It's all the townspeople stuff, all of her family stuff that I could easily cut. And maybe that's what people were thinking of when they voted it on the lower side. Or maybe there are people who just don't like a purpley score. That's a super lovey dovey. But I expected when Bridges was entering the chat to be in the top 10 or top 15 at the time before eventually getting maybe a little lower. Some other bangers came in, and I was very thrown when that happened, I think. So when Bridges came on, I think there were 20 scores at that point that were entered. Yeah, 20 or 19 scores. And Bridges was not in the top 10 at the time. And I was very surprised by that. And it just kind of kept getting lower as other scores were added. But the very final shakeup vote that we did where we said, okay, the number one winner is going to move up three slots, the number two winner is going to move up two, and then the third winner is going to move up one. This was a case where Bridges, Madison county, and the score above it, which I'll mention in just a second, tied at number one. And both of those scores Moved up three spots. And Bridges always kind of was middle to top of submissions. When we were doing our shakeup votes, I think of the four shakeup votes we did, I think Bridges was eligible for three of them and kind of surged in this final shakeup with people being a lot more strategic about how they were going to vote for what square to move up. Especially when it became known that, oh, you know, it's going to move whatever is number one is going to move up three spots, not just one. And so people got very passionate about that. And again, I think this is a really lovely score. I think most of it. Sorry, I think most of it is lovely. It's got some skips, but it was opposite Aladdin, Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder. And if. Then we have an episode on A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder where my guests very controversially think that that should have won best score because Gentleman's Guide in their minds and mine too is the better musical. I don't think Bridges is a phenomenal musical. I think it's got a lot of phenomenal stuff in it. I think the score is the best thing about it. And yeah, I think everything that's focused on Francesca and Robert is gorgeous musical theater, but there's other stuff that's also on stage. So I'm glad Bridges got moved up a little bit. I think I still would put another five spots higher myself. I would probably rank it at number 25, because what's good about it is pretty fantastic. But I think people had what I also call mob mentality hangover, where they voted a little too low on it the first time. And then as it kept getting lower because other scores were entering the chat, they're like, oh, we should probably reverse engineer that and move it a little higher. It shouldn't be this low. And that's ultimately what happened, as did the score that's at number 29, Titanic. Maury Eston's Titanic. And this is a score that beat in 1997, the Life. Wanderen. Yes. Or Darion. We all know that score, right? By Elliot Goldenthal, of course. And then Steel Pier. Another Kandern EB score. Listen, of these four, Titanic is absolutely the clear winner. The Life has some amazing numbers in it, but that show is bipolar. Seal Pier, I think is like lower middle class Kandernab. If Kiss the Spider Woman is upper middle class, Steel Pier is lower middle class. It's not quite third tier, but it's like bump and uglies with third tier. Titanic, I think, has some Amazing music in it. It's a typical yes to score for me, where there's some incredible music and some weird lyrics from time to time, but the opening sequence of Titanic alone pushes it up. And it just had a production that encores. And I think that also gave it a lot of passion. When I tell you that Titanic ranking lower than people expected really motivated everyone to submit it to be saved in the final shakeup. This was like a true case of mob mentality hangover similar to Bridges, but ten times more with. With Titanic, there was a lot of trepidation about putting it too high. And that ultimately got it sort of somewhere in the middle. And now it's truly in the middle. But I don't know. I think. I think this was a score that people kind of re. Fell in love with because of encores. But also when people think of this score, they think of the opening sequence, they think of Ladies Maid, they think of Autumn. I don't know how much more of the score people really think about. They think of Barrett's song, I suppose, because a lot of tenors do that in class. But how many people really can tell you how much of Titanic they know? I think everyone really thinks of the opening and then we kind of call it a day. And Titanic is a lovely score. It's not the best. I think it's one of the best ones of the 90s, but I. When it comes to these voting, sometimes I think people gravitate towards what they know, the few things that they do know, and they're like, oh, my God, absolutely Titanic. That opening sequence alone, I'm like, I love the opening sequence too, but come on, how much of the rest of that score do you really know? And I don't know, maybe people did take a moment to think back on it and decide, because this is another one where, like, early round of voting, it was very much decided it was going to be somewhere in the middle, the bottom half. And then when it got narrower with the specific numbers, people softened on that. At number 28 is Aida, which stayed exactly where it's at this entire time. Aida, my hot take. I think I said this in the Aida episode, which you can listen to me and Will Van Dyke. I firmly believe if Aida had been nominated for best musical in 2000, it would have won Best Musical. And Tony nominators worked very hard with. You know, I. It's a conspiracy theory that I can't totally prove, but I do think Tony nominators worked very hard to not nominate it. For musical, they nominated for score, actress, set, costumes, and lighting, and they won four out of the five. So clearly voters really enjoyed it. And if they had a best musical nomination, I think they would have won. And that's ultimately, I think, what got Heather Headley the Tony. It's very rare to win and a performance category when your show is not nominated for musical or revival. There has to be a lot of passion around you and even, like, maybe some passion around your show. And I think the same thing happened with Stephanie J. Block with the Cher show. There was a lot of passion around her, and I think a lot of voters enjoyed this Cher show more than nominators did, and thus they voted for Stephanie. I think a lot of voters liked Aida more than they liked more than the nominators did, which is why they ultimately voted the first score. And Heather for actress. And Aida was up against two lachiusa scores, Marie Christine and the Wild Party, as well as James Joyce's the Dead. And between you and me, I would have voted for lachiusa's Wild Party. I think that score is phenomenal. Aida, I very much enjoy, and I have a nostalgic love for it. And for all the things about Aida that are great. It also has some bumps. For every the gods love Nubia, there is another pyramid. For every dance of the robe, there is like father, like son. For every strongest suit, there's how I know you, and I don't think it behooves us to ignore that. Right, Tim? If Maury Yeston can have some choicey lyrics, so can Tim Rice, right? Like some of the lyrics in Aida, My God, I. I listen and I think out loud and I go, tim, Timothy baby, Timothy Rice, Timothy Basmati Rice. What were we thinking of when we did that one from. From your cradle via Tombstone, right? Is that right? Actually, I was listening to Strongest Suit today at the gym, and I was like, oh, some of these lyrics are quite choice. It's so from your. From your cradle via trousseau to your deathbed, you're on view. So what? Like, what the fuck? It's. It's. He is. He's an odd man, and I wouldn't have him any other way. And she's a bop strongest suit, but she's also. She's also very, very campy. But, yes, we have Aida at 28, a score that I think a lot of millennials and Gen Xers have a lot of love for. And boomers, maybe less so. I know a lot of opera Lovers who detest this show. At 27, we have passion, which is our first Sondheim on the rankings. You can listen. I have two episodes on Passion if you want to listen to them. This is a score that I've definitely warmed to, and I think maybe, I like to think maybe people who follow me on Instagram who also listen to the podcast warmed to this score. More from listening to the podcast. It's got a lot of beauty to it. It's got a lot of oddities to it. It's not a top 15 score for me, especially not in this ranking. And I was surprised that when it ultimately landed where it did, it constantly threatened to get to the top of the shake up votes. For every shake up vote that Passion was eligible for, it always bumped the ceiling and got very close to being a winner. Either, you know, first place or in the final votes, second or third place got very close. And I wonder how many people genuinely love the score or were just trying to honor Sondheim because we'll talk about that as we get to our top 10 in a second. Because this is a. It's a lovely score and definitely deserved to win. The year that it was nominated, it was up against Beauty and the Beast and Cyrano, and I feel like there was a fourth one, but actually, maybe not. It might have just been those three that year. You know, it's, it's, it's, it's solid Sondheim. Yeah, it was just those three. It's solid Sondheim. It's not my top five Sondheim scores, but it is a worthy entry and it's a worthy winner. And yeah, this is one where I wonder if the name alone is what motivated people to want to move it upwards. Because I'm not gonna lie, I think 27 is. I think that's a decent spot for it, considering all the other scores we're about to come upon. Because at number 26 is Kimberly Akimbo, the 2023 winner and the first of our two Tesori scores on this list. Kimberly Akimbo has been batted about on this ranking because when we were, when we first entered it, it was the fourth score to enter the rankings and it came in at number two. It was Evita, then Kimberly Kimbo, and then Sufs, and then Woman of the Year and Kimberly Akimbo being at number two. Everyone's like, how is that possible? That score is not amazing. I'm like, first of all, it's a very good score, but it's two out of four, right? Now and look at what these four are. And then of course, as more scores started to enter, Kimberly got a little bit lower, got a little bit lower. But it kind of kept hanging on and remaining in the top 10 for a while. And then eventually it got, I think like around number 12 or 13. And then the first time we did a shakeup of, okay, you gotta move a score down, the score that got moved down was Kimberly Akimbo. And then it kind of remained where it was and people got mad that Kimberly Akimbo moved down. And then other scores got added and kept getting lower and lower in the ranks. And then we did one final shakeup of moving a score up and moving a score down. Sorry, we did our third shakeup. Our third shakeup was moving one score down and one score up. And Kimberly Akimbo was moved up and Band's visit was moved down. And there are still to this day people who looked at the rankings who were like, Kimberly Akimbo at 26 is too high. And some people who go, Kimberly Akimbo at 26 is far too low. You cannot please everyone. I am thrilled that this score won opposite Shucked, Some Like It Hot and K Pop. And there might have been another one, Almost Famous. In my opinion, it's objectively the best of all those scores. Something like It Hot has a lot of musical theater, jazz and swing to it, but it's not quite hot enough for me. I don't think the lyrics are quite as good. It's very kinetic. Try Hard Energy for My Money. And Shucked I think is perfectly pleasant. But the book is really what sells that show. K Pop, I don't remember much about it. And Almost Famous, I was forgetting that score as I was listening to it. Kimberly Akimbo, maybe it's not wall to wall bops, I think it has bops in it, but I think it is an intricate, delicate and very storytelling character heavy score. I think the music is at both quirky and beautiful. It's giving very much late 90s pop and independent feel and is very appropriate for the show that it is. And I think it's very delightful. And I know people were voting for it low at first and would send me DMs apologizing for voting for it so low. And I'm like, don't apologize to me. This is my, this is an experiment for you guys. And I love Kimberly Akimbo. I think it's a beautiful show. It's not my top five. It's not even, it's not even my top 15 of this ranking. But it's a wonderful piece and I think where it's at is pretty okay. I'm not mad about it. At 25 is Annie A score that, my God, did it divide people when we were voting for this, it had like a solid 40 or 50 votes to put it in the absolute top 10 and then another 40 or 50 votes to put it right at the bottom. And then another hundred or so they were like put it somewhere between 30 and 10. And then as we narrowed it down, ended up where it was at. This is, I believe, the second score from the 70s that we've added to the list. Aoni is a score that has some pretty iconic songs to it. Tomorrow, maybe, you know, Little Girls, Hard Knock Life, and ultimately because of the children of it all, I think gets a bad rep and because it's been produced everywhere and all these songs have been done to death, gets a bad rep. But it's also a very clever score. We like to thank you, Herbert Hoover. Hooverville, I think is for short, is a very clever song. And the songs that have soared have soared for a reason. And listen, I've made it no secret that I prefer the 1999 TV movie. I think they've cut all the fat from the Broadway score and they've really given a five star treatment to the rest of the music. And if you want to just like know how good some of that music can be, just listen to that TV soundtrack. There are some duds in it. I don't think that the title song, Annie is any good. I don't like you Won't Be an Orphan For Long. There's another one and I don't really like very much. I can't remember what it was though. I don't really care for a New Deal for Christmas. It's fine. I think it was considered a lot more intelligent and cheeky at the time and it hasn't really aged in the same way over the years. In the last two revivals, it definitely didn't land how it probably landed in 1977. But Annie overall as a musical is better than people remember and again was a giant hit when it came out. Look at the Tony performance. It's like a 12 minute Tony performance of them doing Tomorrow Easy Street. And then you're never fully dressed without a smile. And watching those girls just absolutely sell the living shit out of you're never fully dressed without a smile is amazing. And watching the audience just live for it. Annie was up against I Love My Wife, Another Sy Coleman which is a solid score. Love Revolution is a fun time. Happy End, which is Kurt Weill, Bertholdt Brecht, Michael Feingold. Sounds like a Frankenstein musical to me. I know that Meryl Streep was in it. Fun fact. And then Godspell, another very popular, well known score. And I think there are some who would say that Godspell should have won score in this round. I disagree. I think Godspell has a lot of good stuff about it. I think Annie overall is the more successful show and the more successful score because of it. But I also think that its ranking at 25 is solid. Again, this was one where people voted very low and very high for it. And what ultimately got it in the middle was enough people were sort of, you know, rallying around middle of the road for it. But the people who were passionate about it were passionate about it, and that surprised me. And people who had very differing opinions of what was the best Annie. The Broadway, the TV movie, the 80s movie. I will never sign off on the 80s movie being the best version of Annie. You all can have that if you want it. Leave me out of that party at number 25 in the Heights, this one, I want to double check my notes because it's either this one or the one above it that was in the final shake up vote. Was it this one? No, no, no, no. It was okay. No, the in the Heights, I thought was going to be like a top five score when it entered the ranking, maybe even, or a top 10. And then it ended up, I think, being in the top 15 when it first entered and then got a little lower as the 70s were included. And then a couple of other scores from the 2000s were included. Hot take. I. You know, I think Hamilton is Lin Manuel's best score. But in the Heights is the score I like more. I just feel more from it. I get emotional from it. I get very energized by it. And I don't think it's a brilliant musical. I think it's got a lot of heart to it, and I do think it's also better than the movie. But the score, I think, is just so fiery. And because Lin had so much to prove with it, he just, like, threw his whole body into it. And you can tell it's. It's. It's got that, like, raw hunger that you get from a young, really vibrant talent. And this is another one, by the way, where you can listen to an episode about it on the podcast. Me and Felipe Arroyo. Yeah. So the 20, I thought, in the Heights was the runner up winner, but it wasn't, I think in the Heights came in at like four or six in the final shakeup vote. No, the second. The second place winner of the final shakeup vote is actually what came above in the Heights at number 23, which was next to normal. Next to normal, 2009 Pulitzer winner beat Billy Elliot and Shrek and 9 to 5 for best score that one had such a. I was. This is another one where I was surprised kind of ranked as low as it did when it first entered the rankings because it had such a passionate fan base and people were trying to pull an avenue queue with it opposite Billy Elliot. When, you know, those two were going against each other, everyone was like, oh, well, in the. We're going to forget about Billy Elliot in a year or two, but we're going to remember Next Normal, which is actually kind of true Billy Elliot. It ran a very good long time. No one's ever been embarrassed by Billy Elliot winning Best musical necessarily. It ran for a very long time in London. It doesn't have a lot of ill will, but Next to Normal is absolutely the score that has lasted longer in the Broadway lexicon. And there were rumors of the London production transferring. I don't think that's ever happening. But we are getting a PBS broadcast of it, which is very exciting. I was looking at my notes here. Three scores that had majority votes on their placement that we've covered so far were Newsies, Kinky Boots and the Will Rogers Follies. I think I mentioned that with Will Rogers Follies and Kinky Boots as well. In terms of. At least in terms of the initial round of voting of people going like, oh, bottom half. And then as we got more specific, people got a little more wishy washy about where exactly to place it. And same thing with, sorry, no opposite with Kiss of the Spider Woman and Book of Mormon. Of scores that those were, scores that then were voted on were much more spread out with the initial vote. People not quite sure where it should go and thus us having to kind of find an average section for people to do their final votes on. It's just fascinating, right? Because again, I can't stress enough. Book of Mormon was such a ginormous hit when it opened. Critical acclaim, multiple Tony wins, you couldn't get a ticket. People were loving it and it didn't really get much backlash for a long time. I would argue probably not really until lockdown, when we were really having a reckoning with race in our artistic endeavors. And I know that they made some changes to it since then and things have been pretty quiet on that end. But I feel like a lot of the damage to its reputation was done and no longer became a golden example of musical theater, which I also think is unfair because I think it is objectively very good writing, whatever you think of its messaging or how it chooses to use its brute humor. So it's just interesting how those things happen, right? And something like Spider Woman to also have kind of a spread out vote. You're like, oh, are we just. Is this. Is this a case of people having not a lot of knowledge on the show, people not voting for Kendra Neb and not necessarily knowing the show, people loving the show or people hating the show? Like, what's going on here? Why is it so spread out? I feel like people should have a little more decisive views on this. And so it's just. Don't you find that fascinating? I find it fascinating how things that were so undeniable once upon a time have now become far more spread out and no general consensus. That's how we end up with things like Spider Woman as low as it is, or Mormon as low as it is because people can't make up their minds completely. The next up in our rankings, so we had in the heights at 24, next normal at 23, next normal again came in second place in the final shakeup. So it moved up two spots. It originally was at 25 and over and got to move up a little bit before we eventually added 70s shows at 22. And then we're going to take another break. Is Spring Awakening another show that once upon a time was critically acclaimed. It chugged along during the winter months when it wasn't selling a whole lot of tickets. It fucking swept at the Tonys. I think they won seven or eight Tony Awards. The teens flocked to it. It was such a moment. The cast became celebrities in Broadway and some of them became celebrities outside of Broadway. Jonathan Groff, Lea Michele, John Gallagher Jr. We have, you know, big Broadway names like Gideon Glick and Lily Cooper now from this show, Skyler Astin, as well as people who went out to be replacements in that show like Krista Rodriguez and Matt Doyle. Just like the. The number of people who whose careers were launched from this show. Spring Awakening was very much a moment. It was the moment for a brief period of time. And listen, 22 out of 52 is not bad, especially when you think about some of the scores that are coming in above it. But I was surprised when it was added to the rankings. And we hadn't included the 70s yet. That it was sort of on the lower side, right, like this was. It came in above next to normal and above in the heights, but it came in below a couple of other scores that really I was not expecting. And when I think it was eligible for two shakeups, by the time when we were doing our last two shakeups, I think Spring Awakening was eligible for two of them. And it had people vote for it. Good number of people submitted to move it up in the rankings. A couple people also submitted to move it down in the rankings, but never quite enough. And it might just be that there were so many options by that point that the love was spread. And people, the same people who were thinking maybe Spring Awakening should go up in the rankings also thought next to Normal should go up in the rankings or bridges Madison County. And I think it's one of those things where when there's so many scores you love and in your mind should be in the top five, your brain can't really focus on which is the one that most deserves to go to the top because they all mean so much to you. Or you might be an older voter on this poll who never got the love for Spring Awakening and the false rhymes by Steven Sater really bothered you. Or you're a Duncan Sheik fan and you find Spring Awakening to be sort of Duncan Sheik light. Or you're much more of an American Psycho person. But there's so much of this score that really is beautiful and really energizing. And I think when the lyrics are good, they're really good. I think the best lyrics in the show are in the Bitch of Living. Take a listen to it again if you need a reminder. I think those lyrics are very smart. They're very cheeky. They're very clever, somewhat emotional songs like My Junk. I enjoy the lyrics make a little less sense to me. Everyone also talks about how Song of Purple Summer, no one knows what it means, doesn't make sense. It's sort of. It's on that knife's edge between being a little too flowery, a little too flower power, and actually being an insightful and cutting piece of musical theater. There was a lot of talk of how Spring Awakening was super edgy at the time. And it was. It was. But I think part of that also came across because the original production was also. Was quite precise. Michael Mayer gave it a great deal of musical theater. Know how he had it move? He had it. You know, the visuals of the show were so beautiful, but also it moved in a very precise and specific way. And when the revival came out, and I think that's also why I thought Spring Awakening might be a little higher because the Deaf west revival was so beloved by a lot of people, people and has its fans from that. So I thought people were really going to be passionate about that. But I found that the Deaf West Revival, I think I mentioned it on the podcast. I found the Deaf West Revival to be fascinating and I was very impressed by what they were able to do with it and incorporate the hearing impaired performers and characters and whatnot. But I also found it to be a little messy and a little indulgent. And Spring Awakening is for me also a messy and slightly indulgent show. So in order to counteract that, you have to give it like a Swiss clock, precision in timing, which is what I thought the original production was able to do. And it's cool that it's been able to hold on so well considering the scores that it's above. Like Next Normal in the Heights, Passion, Titanic Bridges, Madison county. I think 22 is a very solid spot for Spring Awakening. We will continue with this wrap up after this break. Billy, I beg to differ with you. How do you mean? You're the top. Yeah, you're an arrow caller. You're the top. You're a Coolidge dollar. You're the nimble tread of the feet of Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile with a message for everyone paying big wireless way too much. Please, for the love of everything good in this world, stop with Mint. You can get premium wireless for just $15 a month. Of course, if you enjoy overpaying. No judgments. But that's weird. Okay, one judgment anyway. Give it a try@mintmobile.com Switch upfront payment of $45 for three month plan equivalent to $15 per month required intro rate first three months only, then full price plan options available, taxes and fees extra. See full terms@mintmobile.com your data is like gold to hackers. They're selling your passwords, bank details and private messages. MCAF helps stop them. Secure VPN keeps your online activity private. AI powered text scam detector spots phishing attempts instantly. And with award winning antivirus you get top tier hacker protection. Plus you'll get up to $2 million in identity theft coverage. All for just $39.99 for your first year. Visit McAfee.com, cancel anytime terms apply. And we're back. So to recap, we have at 52 Memphis 51, the Will Rogers Follies 50 Gigi 49. Woman of the Year 48. Big River 47. The Mystery of Edwin Drood 46. Dear Evan Hansen 45. Kinky Boots 44. Tommy 43. Newsies 42. Suffs 41640 on the 20th Century 39. Sunset Boulevard 38. Cats 37. The Band's Visitor 36 Avenue Q 35. Kiss of the Spider Woman 34. The Producers 33. The Book of Mormon 32. Urinetown 31. The Drowsy Chaperone 30. The Bridges of Madison County 29. Titanic 28. Aida 27. Passion 26. Kimberly Akimbo 25. Annie 24. In the Heights 23. Next to Normal 22. Spring Awakening and this is the rankings of the best original score Tony winners as voted on by the people on Instagram or who follow me on Instagram. I have no say in any of this. At number 21 was Falsettos. I also was kind of surprised by this one. I personally have never been a Falsettos Stan. There are some songs I really do love. I think it's a very intelligent piece. I understand its importance. It's never really moved me. The first act has always been really tricky for me. It's always I found it to be more artistically clever and creative, but it's kept me sort of at arm's length. Whereas the second act I find much more emotionally engaging, if maybe less artistically fascinating. But also because the first act, I feel so removed from it, I don't get like overwhelmed with emotion during the second act. I basically feel like I'm starting anew with Act 2 in falsettos. But a lot of people really love it and it's a very important piece and there is a lot of phenomenal work about it. William Finn, Hot Take is a good writer. That said, I was surprised the Falsettos did not go higher. I think at the time that it first got ranked, it maybe was at like number 10, maybe 11, and then just kind of progressively got lower as other scores got added. And I know when as it kind of kept dropping lower and lower and got like to 15 and then 18, I would have people message me and be like, falsettus is far too low for me. I need it higher. I need it higher. And yet when it came time to do shakeups and I think it was eligible for two, maybe even three shakeups, it never really got very far. It had votes. It always would have people who voted for it to be higher, but never enough for it to ever really be any major competition, which is so crazy because I always assumed that Falsettos had a lot of passion behind it. Definitely had passion when it came out. It was so beloved when it came out, it was a huge industry favorite. And again, all you have to do is watch the Tony performance and hear the audience's response to them. Even just beginning. It's like a rock concert almost. And when the revival happened, it got a whole new slew fans. You can see all of these slime tutorials and video crack compilations from the pro shot of Falsettos. People really loving it, young kids really loving it, and having a lot of feelings about Trina and Marvin and wizard and all these things. So I think, I mean, 21, I think is a very respectful place. Again, you'll see what's above it. But considering all of that, I thought Falsettos was absolutely going to crack the top 10. When it first entered the chat and it didn't quite. It might be one of those things where other people are sort of like me, where they admire it, they respect it, but maybe don't love it. This was another one that was sort of, you know, I would say a majority of the voters were bumping up against the top 10 for it in initial voting and then kind of voted for it a little on the lower side when it, when it came time to really make a decision. But as I said, a lot of voters would vote very strongly in the first round. Top 10, bottom 10, middle 20. And then as it got more specific in numbers, people got a lot more wishy washy. And very rarely was there an overall majority consensus on any specific number. Often it had to be a combination of votes of two and you had. And we had to go with what was the. Like what number would equal a majority vote as opposed to any specific number getting a majority vote. Does that make sense? Like if so, like let's say falsetto's. The options were to vote for it to be number 22, 21, 20 or 19. And you know, 33% of the vote said number 22 and 27% of the vote said 21. Yeah, and then like 15% of the vote said 19 and then 25% of the vote said 20. Technically speaking, 22 would have the largest percentage. But 33% is by no means a majority. 27% is also by no means a majority. But 27 is where you eventually will hit over the 50% mark because 27% and 33% equaling 60% think it should be 21 or lower. You could also say that with 25 and 15% being 40, and then the 27% at spot 21, meaning 67% of people think it should be 21 or higher. So that is where the majority lies is in that one specific spot. And if this is sounding weird and confusing to you, it's weird and confusing for me to say it. It makes sense in my head. It was made very clear to me by my mathematics friends. And then I have been doing a shit job of relaying it to you guys of how the averages work because I had to. When the voters would vote things in such a spread out manner and there was no majority consensus, I was like, how do I figure out where this score goes? You know, we've got four spots. No one's giving me any inclination of anything. And I would ask my friends who were really big on math and averages and things like that, and they gave me. They all said the same thing and gave me a very clear cut way of figuring it out. It makes sense to me. I'm just doing a really terrible job of explaining it. It's easier to explain when let's say we're doing round two and I am doing four options and I am putting in four, four spots for every option. Like, okay, Falsettos, based on your first round of voting, it could be ranked number 12, 13, 14 or 15. That's option one. It could be ranked 16, 17, 18, 19. That's option two. It could be ranked 20, 21, 22, 23. That's option three. Or it could be 24, 25, 26, 27. That's option four. And it could be that 30% of people felt it should be, you know, option three and 30% of people thought it should be option two. What I would then do is I would split the difference. And so I would say, okay, it can be. Your four spots now are 19, 20, 21 and 22, which I can't even remember if that was what I said were half of options two and three. But let's just like, let's pretend that 19 and 20 were the bottom half of option two and 21 and 22 were the top half of option three. I would split the difference and make that the four spots that Falsettos goes into and then people can vote. And that I will say that happened a lot on this ranking of having to split the difference between options and finding a majority combining two options together. Because very few scores here had an overwhelming majority that could help us decide. And if they did, it was usually not necessarily where you would expect. So Falsettos at 21 was a spread out vote that ultimately landed it here. Oh, and with Falsettos in 1992, it ultimately lost best musical. Again, this is an on the 20th century, Drowsy Chaperone sucks, year in town situation. One book and one score. But it lost musical because it lost to Crazy for your, which was a huge Broadway mega smash and was considered really the first American musical to fight back against the British mega musical. While Will Rogers Follies beat Miss Saigon for best musical and for best score, it was not the commercial juggernaut that Miss Saigon was. Whereas Crazy for your ran for four years, toured and was an American musical and just, just felt very much like we did it. We have something. We have a smash of her own again. But Falsettos, you know, whereas Crazy Free wasn't eligible for score because it was a Gershwin show, Falsettos was and was up against Jelly's Last Jam, which was again, sort of like a Frankenstein musical where they took a lot of the music of Jelly Roll Morton and used new lyrics by Susan Birkenhead. They had new music by Luther Henderson. Luther Henderson also would stitch together pieces by Jelly Roll Morton to make a whole new song. So it was a Frankenstein score, but it, technically speaking was considered new. It was also up against a musical called Metro and Nick and Nora, which was a giant bomb by Richard Malpy Jr. Charles Strauss and Arthur Lawrence. It's more considered an Arthur Lawrence flop than a Charles Strauss or Rich Maltby Jr. Flop. So of those four, Jelly's Last Jam was really the only competition Falsettos had here. But Falsettos had been around ultimately for 12, 13 years versus in trousers. Then March of the Falsettos and Falsetto Land all off Broadway to critical acclaim and gaining a lot of love in the community. So when it finally came to Broadway, Broadway was like, it happened, it's here, we're happy, we love it, and they awarded it accordingly. At number 20, we have the Wiz, a score that I love and a musical that is fine. And this was one where mostly people were up on it, really felt that it, you know, deserved to be high. It had about 15 or 20 people who voted for it to be at the bottom. But, you know, the Wiz is a musical that I think its cultural importance has overshadowed the actual quality of the material. And that might be because the material itself is kind of wishy washy. I think the score stands up and is the reason why that show sticks together. The book is passable, or the original book is passable. It's mostly just vignettes, as is the original wizard of Oz. And the book has also gone through so many overhauls that who even knows anymore what makes that book? But I mean, you look at what the Wiz is opposite. It's opposite Shenandoah. The Lieutenant, which I don't know anything about. And A Letter for Queen Victoria. An Alan Lloyd score I also know nothing about. I mean, the Wiz is the only one here that we really still talk about. Shenandoah is kind of like a cult favorite. It ran for two and a half years on Broadway. It got John Cullum his first Tony Award. But the Wiz was like the big hit of that season. It ran for four years. It got a movie version. It's done all the time. Home and Eason down the Road are big songs that people love to do. It's just, it's. That is an undeniable win. And I think it being at 20 is also kind of undeniable. You could argue to put it a couple of spots higher. I think there are some people who vote for it to be lower. There are people who genuinely just don't enjoy this score, which makes no sense to me. But I think because the show itself is sort of under baked, people then assume that the score is. And I think the score is actually what keeps you from getting salmonella with this show. At number 19 is City of Angels. City of Angels, I think when it entered the ranking, it got in at number nine by the skin of its teeth, which is baffling to me as I think that this score fucking rocks and is some of the best lyrics that are in this ranking. City of Angels was a solid hit. It won best Musical and best Score and best book in 1990. Actor and featured actress. I think they also won set design. It went off to London, where I believe it won best musical at the Oliviers but flopped. It closed after like three or four months and has since gone on to have a much better reputation. In London they did a revival of the Dunmer Warehouse. There's always talk of whether encores will ever do it, but it's really kind of tech heavy. It might never be revived because it's just like such an expensive musical to do and such a niche musical. It's both a detective noir musical as well as a Hollywood insider musical musical because it's about a man who's adapting his gumshoe detective novel into a big Hollywood picture and all the sacrifices he has to make while making it a picture because he wants to have some artistic integrity. But ultimately, the paycheck is too much, and he's dealing with personal issues with his wife, and he's a serial cheater and all of these things. The score itself is very much 1940s jazz, and it is intricate and it is bubbly and it is hot. And the lyrics are so clever, often really hilarious. I mean, I think the tennis song is insanely good. You Can Count On Me is great. You're Nothing Without Me is phenomenal. Double Talk is fun. I mean, I just. I. When this entered the chat, I thought it was going to really soar, and it did not. There was a massive vote on it for the first round of, okay, it's probably in the top 20, but that's it. And ultimately, I think what happened was that the first round of voting, it actually ended up much lower than people expected. And so the second round of voting, people voted a lot higher for it to push it up in the rankings, which then led to its final vote where it was incredibly spread out. And that is something that I did not expect. People telling me, I actually really hate this score. People telling me I only know two songs and they bore me. And then people like me who are like, this score is phenomenal. Why is it not going higher? Why is it not skyrocketing? And I don't know what to tell you. There are scores above City of Angels in this ranking that I think are not nearly as good, but their scores were coming up to that became sort of a litmus test for voters in terms of how they were going to determine the rest of the scores based off of where their personal favorites lay. And City of Angels is one that I don't understand. What people don't like about it. I can understand maybe not being your favorite, but it is objectively well crafted. And listen, it didn't have much competition. It was up against the stage version of meet me in St. Louis, as well as the Andrew Lloyd Webber aspects of Love, Love, Love changes everything. I don't know what to tell you. Grand Hotel is the only real competition City of Angels had for score. And I really enjoy Grand Hotel, but that is a show where it's really, again, similar to Come From Away or something else, where it's like the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, whereas Grand Hotel, it's more about how it all comes together rather than the individual elements. And City of Angels, I mean, that script is funny and it's tight and the score is just as good. Yeah, I think overall, 19 out of 52 is a perfectly Decent spot, but I won't lie. I was expecting it to be a little bit higher. At number 18 is Hadestown, which. Oh, boy. I have some news for you guys. Hadestown. Of all of the scores that were eligible for a shakeup to be moved up in the rankings, it didn't matter where Hadestown was in the rankings. There were always 20 people who thought it should be higher. The first shakeup we did, Hadestown was like at number four because we'd only had like 12 or 14 scores submitted at that point. It was like number four. And when I tell you that it was this close to winning the vote to be moved up a spot in the rankings because people were so insistent that it deserved to be number one and still think it should be number one, cut to again. I won't name names, but a solid number of Broadway creatives who were furious that Hadestown was as high as it was for so long. They felt that the score was dull. They thought it was pretentious and they thought it was bloated. Now I am sort of halfway between the two camps. I like the score of Hadestown. I think it is a beautiful score and I listen to it quite frequently having not seen the show twice. The show is too long. It is too bloated. I think it should have been 100 minutes, no intermission. That is just my take. I think the material that is there is all very lovely. It is ultimately too much of it. And I think similar to Spring Awakening, you can lean into the pretension and that can turn people off. Which is why this score had people who were determined to bring it down when it was voted on which score should move down in the rankings. Just as Hadestown was this close to winning twice to move up in the rankings, it was this close to winning to go down in the rankings twice. I did not know that this was as divisive and musical and as divisive a score as it is. So if you hear that hadestown is at 18 out of 52 and you're mad because you think it should be higher, be grateful. It could be much lower. If some people had their way, it would be much lower. And there were scores that people were voting high to try to usurp Hadestown. And then there were scores that people were voting low because they didn't want it to surpass Hadestown, which is. I just. I hate to use the word again. I find that fascinating. Next up. Oh, and Hadestown. Hadestown was against Tootsie that year. It was against Beetlejuice. The Prom. It was up against Adam Gettles incidental score for To Kill a Mockingbird and Joe Iconis's Be More Chill. I think Hadestown is the correct choice here. I think Tootsie probably has the best lyrics. It is David Yazbek, after all. And I think that the Prom has a lot of heart to it. It's got a lot of fun stuff in it. I think there's some really banger songs in the prom. I'll be honest. I think the. The second best score here is Beetlejuice, which has its problems, but for the assignment that it's setting out to do, it sets it out pretty frequently. I'll never understand the love for B. Marshall. If you love that show, let's just call it a draw and go our separate ways. And then the Kill Mockingbird score by Adam Guettle. We didn't have to do that. I don't know how that happened, but it happened. Moving on at number 17, La Cage aux Fall. Another one where it has voters who were so passionate to put it at the top and didn't understand why it wasn't higher. And then people who do not understand the love for that show. Again, I'm somewhere sort of in the middle. I think that La Cage is a show as a. Sorry. Is a score that has a barn burner of an Act 1 finale. One of the best Act 1 finales of all time. It then also has two really, really wonderful 9.5s out of 10. The Act 1 barn burner is I Am what I Am. You can't miss it. The 9.5 out of 10s for me are A Little More Mascara. Alban's first song in Act 1. And then the Best of Times, which is the song in act two. I think the next best song, which is a nine out of ten for me is Song on the Sand. A beautiful song that doesn't necessarily move me, but it's a very lovely song. After that, I will be honest, the rest of that score is pretty much a fucking skip for me. I think the title song, it's catchy. Sure, I never listen to it. Masculinity. I skip it every time. The Dinner Party number. Skip every time. Anne on My Arm. Skip every single time. This show has a lot of historical importance. It is not a bad musical. My hot take is everything that La Cageufal does. The Birdcage does better. I think the Birdcage is funnier. I think the Birdcage is more emotional. I think the Birdcage is more humane. I think it's tighter and I think the stakes are higher. And granted, La Cage as a musical, they only had the rights to the play. And the play was improved by its film adaptation, which is what the Birdcage is a remake of. And they couldn't use any of those changes. But still, I find Le Cage to be a step, a very important step that in retrospect, can come off as very simplistic. Sometimes simplistic is what's necessary, because some people can't go beyond simplistic. But for me, La Cage is an important step that has not necessarily aged quite well. And that's kind of shown itself when it keeps coming back. We had a revival in 2005 that didn't do terribly great. We had the revival in 2010, which both revivals won. Best revival. The 2005 revival won absolutely no competition. I would say the same of the 2010 revival. It was up against the Meniere revival of A Little Night Music, which did not translate here at all. Opposite Ragtime, which had closed, and Finian's Rainbow, which had closed. I think at a just world. Finian's Rainbow would have won, but it was long gone by that point. La Cage as a musical has never been able to capture the lightning in a bottle that it had the first time. But I Am what I Am still remains. And I think it says something. That's the song that we keep singing. It's a great song, but this is not one of Jerry Herman's best. I'll be honest. I don't even. It's not even my third favorite Jerry Herman score. I would rank hello Dolly as the number one. Mack and Mabel is probably my number two as a collection of songs. And then three would be Mame, and then four would be La Cage. Again, just me. Let's do a couple more and then we'll do the top 10 after a break. So at number 16 was rent. Oh, and I forgot to say this, but La Cage up against Sunday in the Park With George. And I think a lot of people were miffed about that. When we were voting for that ranking, it was also up against Baby and the Rank. Honestly, of these four, I would say the La Cage is the third best here. I would put Sunday at number one, Baby at two, La Cage at three and the Rink at four. Another. Another Kander Ned musical that we are just slightly pissing on. Anyway, number 16 is rent. A Score and a musical that was similar to, you know, Cats, similar to La Cage, similar to Book of Mormon. And the Producers was so of the Moment and so important in the moment and so beloved and easily given. All the flowers in the moment and then had backlash and then had backlash to the backlash. And now we're sort of in a middle ground with Rent where people admire it historically, where people can say, can I say a hot take? I think Rent is good, actually. And then also people like, here are all the ways in which Rent is either bad or under baked or middling. I think Rent as a musical is kind of bumpy, but as a score, I find it quite successful. And you cannot ignore how important it was to Broadway history at the time. I think some of those songs are the problem when a score like Rent becomes part of the pop culture lexicon and we over share it. Songs that really made an impact with us the first time will never get back because they've just been ruined by oversaturation. Seasons of Love Take Me or Leave Me Out Tonight, La Vie Boheme that even with all of the nuanced problems that some of them have on a musical writing level are quite good. And I'm glad that we've been able to sort of recognize that. Rent actually was much higher in the rankings at first. Other things kind of got in the way of that. The 1970s got in the way of that, I think. Hold on, let me do a quick check. When Rent first entered the rankings chat, I believe it was. Yeah, I think Rent was like at number eight or number seven when it first entered the rankings. It was in the top 10 and then just kind of got knocked down a peg as other scores after it entered. So it was very well regarded in the original votes. Did not get to the top five, but top 10, I think is very respectful. And now we are in the top 16. And that's because we got some more bangers coming up. We have at number 15, nine. Nine was originally number two in the rankings for a very long time. And I thought that that made a lot of sense. And I was surprised at how many people would complain to me after every vote, how upset they were that nine still ranked so high. And then nine eventually, you know, got down to number three and then number five and then number eight and then number ten. And still people were mad it was as high as it was. And I'm like, what are we talking about here? I think this score is beautiful. Unusual way. Unusual way. 9 Be Italian, call from the Vatican. My husband makes movies like, I'm sorry. These songs are phenomenal. It is a yes in score. So yes, of course there are some lyrics that are Weird, but musically, it is dynamite. There's a whole episode with me and Kevin Duda talking about it, as well as an episode on Rent and episodes on Kimberly Akimbo and Spring Awakening. So make sure to listen to all those if you haven't yet. But I remember people just being so frustrated that 9 was as high as it was. People being like, it's my mission to make sure that 9 goes lower in the ranking, which it eventually did. But I was thrown. I was very thrown. Again, things that we thought, or at least I thought were just generally agreed upon to be good or great or worthwhile that people just were fucking furious about and really had a vendetta against. Again, reasons why this ranking has been such a fascinating experiment. Nine was up against, famously, Dreamgirls that year, and that was a real nail biter of a Tony season because it was Dreamgirls running the board for the entire season opening that December and everything else being disappointing. Merrily We Roll along had opened that, I think, October and bombed, and everyone was really vicious about it. It did ultimately get a nomination for a score which I think is very beautiful and worthwhile, and I hope Sondheim was happy about that. Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat also getting nominated. Sort of like the last time Andre Webber got nominated, and everyone was like, oh, yeah, sure, him, we like him. Evita was great. This is fun. And then Nine comes in at the very last second, the day before Tony nominations come out, last day of eligibility and Dreamgirls and nine each get a million nominations going back and forth of who's going to win what, campaigning against each other. And this was really sort of the first noted example where we have documentation of people saying one thing and then voting another. People saying, oh, yes, the Shuberts have me in their pocket. I'm totally voting for Dreamgirls. But they'll never know what I voted for. So I'm gonna vote for nine people. Finding nine sexy people, finding nine stylish people. Also kind of wanting to buck against Dreamgirls for being so confident all season long that it was gonna just win Best Musical and be the hit of the year. Bucking against the Shuberts for selling some of their theaters to be torn down for the Marriott Hotel. And that night. That night, Dreamgirls won book and it won choreography and it won actress and lighting and actor and featured actor. 9. One director, which was important. It won score, it won featured actress and won costumes, and then ultimately won musical. And it was a controversial win at the time. It's still kind of controversial Today, as my DMs would have you believe, because I think a lot of people that were angry about 9 being so high were people who are big Dreamgirls fans. And Dreamgirls is an amazing score. I think that show is also kind of a little rougher than people remember, but it is a wonderful score. It's a very exciting score, a very energetic score. But nine is very beautiful. And so I don't say flowery, but it sounds like an Italian spa and I would love to luxuriate it in some more. So that was a weird one that, that it got so high and then people were so angry that it got so high and then every time it got lower, people would message me and be like, yay, it's lower. At number 14, we have hairspray. Hairspray was able to, I think, crack the top 10 when it first entered the chat. I think it was at nine. Yeah, I think it was at like the ninth spot at the time when it entered and was again major critical financial hit running for I think like seven years. And it beat. What did it beat that year? It beat Amor. It beat Year with Frog and Toad. It beat Urban Cowboy. So listen, of those four, Hairspray is the clear winner. It's just a phenomenal score. And Shaman and Whitman I don't think have ever matched it, which is. You don't have to. That score is so good that you can live peacefully knowing that you made that, that you made that hat. But from what I understand, it does sort of bother them that they haven't been able to hit that height since. Amora I think is a very beautiful, very lovely, very calming score. And you're with Rock and Toad, I think is just so sweet and delightful. Urban Cowboy, we can just skip. But yeah, that's hairspray at 14 and hairspray again, like first round, like 90% of the vote with, you know, again, like, I think like 12 people voted for it to be at the bottom, but overall like 170 people for like, yeah, top 10 for sure. And then we got to the top 10 and people got very wishy washy about where it, where it could be. Some people thought it could totally be number one or three or five. And then ultimately its final four slots that it could be voted for were I think, 7, 8, 9 and 10. And then ultimately it was decided on spot 9. But now since we added the 70s, it's moved down to 14. At number 13 is fun home. Fun Home. I think from what I Recall was in the top five for a very, very long time. And then slowly but surely started to move its way down. I mean, I think that's a perfect musical. I think it's the best musical of the 21st century. And I think the score is wonderful. And I mean, you hear 13 as a spot in the ranking and you go, that seems too low. But again, it's out of 52, and we've got some real major ones coming up. So I think anything in the top 20 should be thrilled. It's in the top 20. I have a couple in this top 20 that I don't think should be in there. So Fun home being at 13 is great. And number 12, you have parade. Parade again also cracked the top 10 when it entered Fun Home was up against something rotten. It was up against the Visit, which again, people thought like, oh, maybe we should vote for Kantarinet before it's too late. Didn't happen. Never happens. As well as Sting's the Last Ship, Parade was up against the Civil War, Frank Wildhorn, Footloose was never gonna happen. And then Jeanine Tesori's score for Twelfth Night, which is lovely. Of these four, Footloose was the only one, I think, that was still running. I think Civil War closed that weekend of the Tony ceremony. And Parade was a. You know, everyone in the community really gathered behind it. And I think Parade had a chance that it could have won Best Musical, but it was. It had closed by that point. I think it closed that February. And it had. It wasn't as warmly received by critics as I think they were expecting. It also had the stigma of being produced by Garth Stravinsky and Livent Inc. On it. And so ultimately it winning score and book was sort of its consolation prize. And it is, I'll say it's a great score. And I think that the revival really kind of drove that home for people. I knew Parade was going to crack the top 10 when it first was introduced. I thought it had a chance of being the top five. And then again, that didn't really happen. And we'll talk more about that why when we get to the eventual top five. Because there's a score that got put in number one for a very long time and people had major buyers remorse about it. And I think that ultimately shifted perceptions of how people were voting from then on. People got very trigger shy about putting anything at the number one slot after that. Parade, we have a number 12 and number 11. Fun fact, we don't have. Sorry, we don't have at number 11 we have Hamilton. Yes, yes, yes. The biggest fucking hit Broadway has had in the 21st century, bar none. Still running through sold out houses, I think won 10, maybe 11 Tony Awards, Pulitzer winner to the point that everyone knows it. Something that doesn't happen with Broadway musical as much anymore. Hamilton is known nationally, internationally, it's been successful everywhere and it is a great score. Guess what? This is another case where at least 10 people voted for it to be in the absolute bottom and then another couple of dozen or so voted for it to be in the middle. It ultimately made it to the top 10. I think it ended up sitting at number three at the time when it first entered the chat, three or four, it didn't hit one and it didn't hit two. I know that for a fact. But yeah, I think three or four is where it first ended up and then it slowly lowered after that. But yeah, like you're about to see, you're about to hear some very controversial takes after this one that really not everyone's going to be happy. But there are people who, when Hamilton entered the ranking, were so insistent that it was a masterpiece or that it wasn't a masterpiece, but it was just so important that it had to be at the top. It just had to, it had to be number one. And it didn't. It did not crack number one. It did not even crack number two. That is what has been so crazy about this experiment and how people have been feeling about this sort of stuff. Is it because it's considered overpraised at this point? Oh, it's passe to say that Hamilton is great. Oh, you're basic if you think it's good. Are people trying to vote against the grain to seem more interesting? Because that's another kind of voter we've had is the voter who will vote against what they think is the majority vote because they want to seem like they have alternative taste. There's the people who vote just to fuck shit up, the chaos voter. But then there's the voter who will look at the rankings, have an intuition of how people are voting and then vote the opposite of that, not for chaos, but because they want to be different. And sometimes the thing that's popular is good. Hamilton is objectively well done. And I had someone write into me, be like, no, it's actually a bad score. It's not a bad score. It's well written, the lyrics are good, the music is creative, it is well structured as a musical. Whatever you think of the messaging, of the themes of the Politics is a whole other thing. But as a written work, it does what it's supposed to do or what it sets out to do, and it is a massive undertaking. So just on a objective writing level, that is worthwhile. But I think ultimately it just got too big for its bridges and now there are people who think it's overpraised and thus vote lower on it than they maybe would have 10 years ago. I don't know. Again, fascinating how this legacy is working out, right? This is a Tony winner. This is a Pulitzer winner. This is like the thing of the thing. And it is at number 11 out of 52. How do you like them apples? All right, we will go into the top 10 right after this break. Billy, I beg to differ with you. How do you mean? You're the top. Yeah. You're an arrow collar. You're the top. You're a Coolidge dollar. You're the nimble tread of the feet of Fred Astaire. This episode is brought to you by Shopify. Upgrade your business with Shopify, home of the number one checkout on the planet. Shop pay boosts conversions up to 50%, meaning fewer carts going abandoned and more sales going cha ching. So if you're into growing your business, get a commerce platform that's ready to sell wherever your customers are. Visit shopify.com to upgrade your selling today. This episode is brought to you by Enterprise Mobility. From fleet management to flexible truck rentals to technology solutions, Enterprise Mobility helps businesses find the right mobility solutions so they can find new opportunities. Because if your business is on the road, they want to make sure it's on the road to success. Enterprise Mobility, moving you moves the world. Find your road@enterprise mobility.com and we're back. So to recap of our rankings of the Tony winning best scores as voted on by the I'm not gonna lie, hundreds of people on Instagram. So first up, we had at 52, Memphis 51, the Will Rogers Follies. At 50, Gigi. 49. Woman of the Year. 48. Big River. 47. The Mystery of Edwin Drood. 46. Dear Evan Hansen. 45. Kinky Boots. 44. Tommy. 43. Newsies. 42. Suffs 41 6. Sorry, that sounds like four hundred and sixteen at rank at number 41 is 6 at 40 on the 20th century. 39. Sunset Boulevard. 38. Cats. 37. The Band's Visit. 36 Avenue Q. 35. Kiss of the Spider Woman. 34. The Producers 33. Book of Mormon 32. Urinetown 31. The Drowsy Chaperone 30. The Bridges of Madison County 29. Titanic 28. Aida 27. Passion 26. Kimberly Akimbo 25. Annie 24. In the Heights, 23. Next to Normal 22. Spring Awakening, 21. Falsettos 20 The Wiz 19 City of Angels, 18 Hadestown, 17 La Cage aux Faux 16 Rint 15 9, 14 Hairspray, 13 Fun Home, 12 Parade and 11 Hamilton. Which brings us to our top 10. Number 10 is Evita. So Evita started off in the number one spot. It was Evita V Stuffs. And Evita won 75% to 25%. And Evita remained number one for about 14 or 15 spots. Evita was the number one ranked score for about 14 spots. And, and for each time a score would get added and Evita remained at number one, people kept getting frustrated. They kept saying, you know, it's, it's good, it's not great. Why is it number one? Why is it number one? I really, this is really upsetting me. And then eventually it did get overtaken. We'll get to that in a second. But Evita at number one ultimately is what led people to passionately support another score to hit number one. And then that score hitting number one is what gave everyone the buyer's remorse and the trigger shy voting mentality of voting anything else. Number one again. This score, I think, is Andrew Lloyd Webber's best score. And as I said, I was surprised that it beat suffs by 75 to 25. And then as Suffs moved down the ranking, actually I rechecked my notes. And the very first, the very first shakeup vote we did, I think we only had 13 scores in the ranking, but Suffs and Lacage had tied in the number one spot to move up, I think, two spots each. And then after that, it became only moving up one spot because I used to ask people to vote on how many spots they wanted to move up the scores. And again, on average it was one, two, three or four spots. And it always came down to one or two spots up because people weren't feeling bold enough to all unite on either one spot or four. It was always in the middle, and that's where the average always ended up. But Evita was sort of one of the last times I would say the community looked at Andrew Lloyd Webber. Truly as an artist, Evita falls in line with all other Andrew musicals in the sense that it was not critically well received, but it was significant. It was well received by audiences and became a hit in spite of the critics and won seven Tony Awards. In spite of all that, and, I mean, you look at the competition, it was up against Sugar Babies, an original sort of burlesque in Review, starring Mickey Rooney and Ann Miller. Barnum, based on the life of P.T. barnum, another Cy Coleman show, and then A Day in Hollywood, a night in the Ukraine, which is probably the second best score here. Evita is very clearly the winner, whether you like the score or not. You look at that lineup and you're like, yeah, it's Evita. Even Barnum fans cannot tell me that Barnum is a better score than Evita or is more iconic or has a longer legacy. It's just fascinating to me how it was so clear that this was number one. And then once we got, like, six scores in the rankings, that's when people started turning on it and kept waiting for something to overtake it. And then eventually something did. And again, they're lasting legacies with that. But that is where we're at with number 10 is Evita 9. Company. The next 70 score we have in here and the first major Sondheim score that we add because we had two Sondheim scores added to the rankings. And in case you haven't noticed, we haven't hit one of the 80 scores yet. Passion we've already come up past. But into the woods has yet to be introduced to the rankings, so you'll see in a second where it landed. But Company is the score that really established Sondheim as a force to be reckoned with in musical theater. He was already considered a phenomenal lyricist and a passable composer to most anyone Can Whistle was a big flop, but was well received by a small group of people. A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum was a big hit. Everyone sort of considered the score was incidental. Sondheim himself considered his score passable, if not necessarily incredible. I think it's actually a pretty solid score. But Company was the first time that he really showed what he could do, and it really changed the game in terms of musical theater composition and what you approach in a musical and how you approach it. And even with the kind of lighter competition had, which is, you know, the Rothschilds, which is very minor, Jerry Bakken, Shelton Harnick, and then the Me Nobody Knows, which is a. It's a nice review by, you know, Gary William Friedman and William and Will Holt. It's sort of the Me Nobody Knows is like Runaways for the Disney Channel. It's, you know, based off of short stories and poems written by teenagers and young kids from, you know, the, the Inner City. And it is a much more light hearted affair than Runaways and was actually a solid hit. I think it opened off Broadway at the Orpheum Theater and then moved to Broadway where it ran for about a year and a half. And it's a solid score. But it's obviously Company here. And even if the competition were a little bit stronger, I think Company still would have won. What's been, what was fascinating when I posted this on the ranking was actually People. So when I would introduce each score for the ranking, I would show the year that it was, that it won't, what it was up against, competition wise. And then I would say what the big song from that score is. And then I would write a little piece giving, you know, context for people before they voted. Consider before you vote. And with Company, I said the big song is obviously being alive, which it just, it is like it is being alive. Whether you think it's the best song on the show or not. Like, that is the, that is the song. It's the one that has broken out the most from that show. It's ultimately what people come to hear and what is sort of like the ultimate release of the musical. I had so many people who would write to me and were like, it's ladies who lunch. It's getting married today. You know, oh, it's, it's another hundred people again. The things that we think are just so factual. And then only to hear from someone else with such certainty that it's this and it's art. Right? So it's all subjective, but it sort of shows you how sometimes we kind of spin these narratives or everyone around us spins a narrative that we don't necessarily subscribe to. And all it takes is kind of putting out there in the open and saying, I don't know if I agree with that, to find that there are other people who feel that way too. And we're seeing it happen in this ranking, among other things. Are we not Company at number nine? And there are some folks who thought that Company was too low. I was actually surprised the Company did not overTake at number one. We had had two Sondheim scores in the rankings before. We eventually added the 70s scores and we added the 70 scores. I figured that Sondheim was just going to dominate the top five and just it was going to all be Sondheim at that point. And company did not hit number one. I don't even think it hit the top five. When it entered it was 2, 3, 4. Now I take that back when company entered the ranking, it originally hit the fifth spot and then went down to the ninth spot by the end of all of this. So it did hit five, but is surprising to me that that is where it was. I thought it could have easily taken number one, and it didn't. At number eight is Light in the Piazza. I'm happy with this part. Light of the Piazza, I believe, hit number four when it. When it entered the rankings, which is great. It had a majority vote on its first two rounds and then actually, no, on its first round, it had a majority vote of being in the top 10. And then when I narrowed it down, we were able to squeak it into the top five or four spots. No. 2 through 5. 2, 3, 4 and 5. 2, 3, 4, and 5 were the spots that Piazza could be voted on. That is where the second round led us. And ultimately it landed in position number four before eventually moving down once we added all the 70s musicals. The fascinating thing about Piazza was that it had a massive majority vote on its first few placements, and then after that it just dwindled and people got a little more bitter about placing it high. And I found how many people don't care for that score? People who I respect, people in the industry. And I'm. I was honestly baffled. I think that score is gorgeous. I thought. We all thought that score was gorgeous. And it was just weird to see people who were like, I enjoy that score, but I think it should be in the bottom 20. I'm like, what are we talking about? What are we doing here? Again, every score except for three had either a minimum of 10 votes in the top or 10 votes in the bottom to place it. As we all. As I mentioned already, Gigi is the only score not to have 10 or more votes to place it in the absolute top. But it did have some votes up there, like six or seven. Lighting the Piazza is an interesting win for me because you go online and people always talk about, like, how could this win Best musical? How could this win best score? And part of the reason why I was surprised at the. At some of the people who were DMing me telling me that they wanted Piazza to be lower is because one of the main narratives online is when you look at the 2005 Tony Awards, people look at Spamalot lighting the Piazza, Dirty round, scoundrels and spelling bee, and they go, how could Spamalot win? How could lightning the Piazza win so many Tonys and not best Musical? Like, was that considered an upset? Was that a disappointment? And Spamalot is a case of the biggest hit won, but it wasn't the best musical of the year. And it didn't take long for all of us to recognize that once the sort of sex haze of Spamalot opening and winning wore off, we all kind of went, oh, right, this show is not as good as we wanted it to be. Everyone was sort of looking for the next producers for the next big musical theater comedy hit to really take off and, you know, have be. Have been known across the country and run for years and just be this giant juggernaut. And even the producers couldn't maintain that. The Producers was a monster hit for about a year and then was a solid hit for the second year and then pretty quickly tapered off after that. And it managed about a five and a half year run, six year run, partly because Matthew Broderick and Nathan Lane came back to rejuvenate the box office. But nothing ever really could match that until Book of Mormon. Spamalot was a very solid hit. It was big for about a year and then it quickly tapered off after that and that's when we all went, oh, Spelling Bee is a better musical. Piazza is a gorgeous musical. Dirty Round Scoundrels is so much fun. And when Piazza won score in addition to actress and orchestrations and costumes, lighting and set, that was a really huge win because everyone thought that Spama was going to kind of sweep with maybe Spelling Bee upsetting it in some categories. Line of the Piazza really came out a major victor that night. And maybe there are some who were still bitter about that. Maybe after the encore's presentation, some people feel underwhelmed by Piazza. I was hoping that the encores presentation would introduce some new fans to it. I did not love that presentation. But that's supposed to be what Encores does, is it reintroduces us to scores we love or introduces people who don't know the score for the first time. I just, I think the score is nothing but summery butter. And I could listen to it all the time. It immediately puts me in a good mood, it puts me at ease, it stirs my soul and I'm thrilled it's in the top 10 now with all these wonderful, wonderful scores. At number seven is Follies. Follies was able to hit number four in its original ranking and then eventually got down to seven and Follies, you know, everyone has their favorite Sondheim score and I think I can make an argument of what is the best Sondheim score. Follies is my favorite I think on its own, it's so listenable. I mean, just the standards that have come out of that score alone. Broadway baby, losing my mind I'm still here Could I leave you the road you didn't take in Buddy's eyes? Like, what else can you do, right? It's just. It's. It's such a wonderful. First of all, it's a wonderful collection of songs. Those songs also make narrative sense. They make wonderful sense for their characters. It's a variety of genres because of the modern seventies musical theater vernacular, as well as the pastiche of the twenties and the thirties and the forties and. And operetta and French jazz. It's, you know, you could almost argue it's Sondheim showing off, but he doesn't go too far for you to make that claim. And I had a friend or two message me when Follies came into the rankings saying, it's actually not that good. And I let them say it, and it's fine. Everyone has their taste levels, but it makes you wonder, what do we consider to be good? And, you know, what is the barometer for where something should go? There were people who would not vote Follies higher or lighting the piazza higher because Hadestown, in their opinion, was too low. Hadestown and another score that's coming up very soon were two major score barometers for people. I can't vote this above Hadestown. I can't vote this above Blank. And it really fucked with how a lot of people felt about voting. Follies went up against Jesus Christ Superstar, two Gentlemen of Verona, which it ultimately lost best musical to and Ain't Supposed to Die a Natural Death. Now you guys tell me how well you know Ain't Supposed to Die a Natural Death by Melvin Van Peebles. This is actually one of three musicals, I believe, that Sondheim won best score over that were. Oh, actually, no, even four. Sondheim won best score over four predominantly black musicals in the 70s. And granted, the scores that he won were deserved winners. But it's just fascinating when we talk about the barriers that Sondheim broke as a writer and all the genius and precision that he had when there were black artists who made it to Broadway and really kind of trying to show a new side to culture and to art, to predominantly white audiences. And some of them succeeded, and some of them succeeded yet still didn't win. And that's not a slight to them, and it's not a slight to Sondheim, but it's a pattern that we see Often in Broadway. Right. I know we talked about this on the Sondheim series. The very first one we did with the Broadway breakdown rebrand of shows like Don't Bother Me, I Can't Cope by Mickey Grant, who's a super influential and legendary female black artist. But even against these scores, Two Gentlemen of Verona, it's perfectly fine, fun show, but like, that's not an amazing score. Jesus Christ Superstar is a pretty stellar score in my opinion, but Follies just usurps it in every single way. And yet it still only is at number seven. At number six is A Chorus Line, another Tony winning, Pulitzer winning originated at the Public Theater. Mega cultural phenomenon. The question with this one was what is the big song? One could argue it's what I did for love. One could argue it's nothing. One could argue it's the music in the mirror. One could argue it's one again. Another testament to how good this score is. This was one that actually surprised me and how well it did. I'm glad it did this well, but I, I was convinced that it was going to get a little too low. Ultimately, its first round of voting predominantly, I think like 70, 75% of the votes placed it in the top 12. And then we did 1 through 3. No, we did 1 through 4, 5 through 8, 9 through 12, and 13 through 16. Where it ultimately was able to, I think, land at five in the end. Its final spot was five before moving down one more and I was very happy about that. But there were people who Chorus Line could have ended up being spot number three or four and it ended up at five because ultimately, while people thought it deserved to be in the top 10, they didn't really think it should be in the top three or five. They thought it should have been sort of on the lower end of that. And there was questions of is it a great score or does it just work in context of the show? Which I think is an odd question, something we've been already discussing. Right. Of. When you're thinking of a score, the best ones are ones you can listen to on their own and then in context of the show, they just explode in an even better way. And I listen to the original cast recording of A Chorus Line all the time. I think that music is fantastic. I think the lyrics are great. I think it's so creative. It's a very cinematic kind of score and it feels both very show busy and organic, which is a very hard balance to perfect. And I'm not saying that the writers of A Chorus Line Perfected it. They. I think they did an exceptional job with this. But, you know, all you have to do is look at their later works to see that no one here, really, outside of maybe Michael Bennett, fully understood to his science how musicals work. Everyone kind of lucked into this and would have various degrees of success after, but never like this. And it's sort of just one of those magic miracles that happen. But it's a miracle nonetheless. And I think some people take into account the history that none of the writers really ever captured success like this. Again, I think there's the obvious factor of it being, you know, again, like such an obvious choice. Because in addition to recency bias, there's classic bias where some people will vote high for something because it's a classic. Or some people will vote against that because it's a classic. Because they think that it's overrated. Or that everyone's going to vote for it a certain kind of way. Or they think that we're being too adoring of it because it has a certain kind of reputation that maybe they don't think it deserves. Which will lead us into our top five in just a second. That also said, the score that's right above A Chorus Line, I think is another reason why it maybe didn't rank a little higher. Because this next score is a score that is the other barometer that people were voting, which is at number five, Ragtime. Oh, I should also say, by the way, A Chorus Line famously beat Chicago for best score, as well as Pacific Overtures and Tremonisha by Scott Joplin. There we go. Moving on. 1998's winner was Ragtime. The only Tony win for Aarons and Flaherty. Pretty much considered by most theater people the best Broadway score of the 1990s. Some argue the best score of all time. Some argue the best of this ranking. Ragtime was fascinating to me. I assumed because when Ragtime entered the rankings, we had a new number one that had usurped Evita and remained at number one for a long time. Remember, this is the one that everyone kind of got buyer's remorse about. And people were complaining about this score being at number one. And I was like, okay, well, here comes Ragtime. Everyone loves Ragtime. I love Ragtime. I also think that Ragtime is not the absolute goat. I have my issues with it, both as a score and as a musical, artistically and. And messagy wise. But this is to say, I thought, okay, this has such major support. Clearly Ragtime is going to take the number one spot. And in fairness, the first round, it cleared in the top 10, top 12. No problem. It was like 70% of the vote. It was like, okay, easy, breezy, beautiful covergirl. Then we narrowed it down like 1 through 4, 5 through 8, all that. All that other shit. And it did make it to the top four. Pretty. It was either the top four or it was 2, 3, 5. It was something like that, but I think it was the top four. And it made it to the top four sort of by the skin of its teeth. And that's when I was like, oh, this is going to be interesting. I don't think it's going to hit number one. And ultimately it didn't. When Ragtime entered this ranking, it. It finally landed at number three and then eventually moved down to five. Now, Ragtime went up against the Catemen, the Paul Simon flop musical, the Lion King and Sideshow. Of these other contenders, I would personally argue that Sideshow is the runner up here. But Sideshow had absolutely no chance of winning. It was a closed musical and was lucky to be nominated for what it was. The Lion King was the real sort of competition for Ragtime. And it was considered that Ragtime was the favorite to win musical that night. And similar to our suffs on the 20th century's drowsy chaperones falsettos. Ragtime won score and book as well as supporting actress for Audra and orchestrations, but did not win musical. Now, some argue that it's because Disney had finally taken over and Lion King was such a monster hit. But there was also. There's something about Ragtime that leaves some of us cold. It is a powerful, very overwhelming piece of music. It is like an ocean wave crashing over you. And sometimes that is to the detriment of the piece. Ragtime, the novel of which the musical is based off of, is a weird novel. It is basically like incel fanfiction for American history. And I mean that kindly because it is a quite wonderful novel. But it's weird. It's a weird little piece of literature. And the musical ultimately aims to remove as much of the weirdness as possible in favor of heavy emotions, extraordinarily large themes and messaging. And an overwhelmingly optimistic and can do Americana patriotic message at the end. It's helpful to realize that Ragtime was in development during the 90s, during the Clinton administrations. Pre 911 finally came to Broadway in December of 97 for the 1998 Tonys. It was a different time of feeling like an American. Where there was a patriotism and that patriotism could be loud and ornamental. And people didn't think about it much. And I was just like, yeah, let it wash over you. But I think that something about the parading of Ragtime, the ostentatiousness of its production, the largeness of its cast, and the epicness of its sound, in a lot of ways made people feel that it was a little too much and a little too try hard. And even in a stripped down version of Ragtime, that can be the case. The Act 2 is nothing but, like, power song after power song after power song. And they start to lose their luster in the theater. At least for me. When I saw it at Encores and when I saw it in the revival in 2009, I was like, oh, this is just like power belt after power belt. And it's. I loved listening to it. But in the moment of the show, it gets to be a lot. And I think that Ragtime deserves to be up here. And I wouldn't have voted for number one when it entered the ranking myself, but I thought other people would. And it didn't quite make it. And there were people who were pissed. And because it landed at number three, there were other scores, like Follies, like A Chorus Line that might have ranked higher if Ragtime had been at number one. Because people would go, it's a great score, but it's not better than Ragtime. And I would get very annoyed because, as I said, while I think Ragtime is great, it is not the goat. And it shows you how people sometimes would lead with their heart and not think either strategically or not even think objectively. Number four, another Sondheim. A little Night Music. This actually ranks much higher than I expected. And I think it's because with Follies & Co. Kind of underperforming, people felt eager to give more Sondheim his due. Because we have another Sondheim right after this. And I think you can already tell what it is. It's at number three. It's into the Woods. When into the woods entered the rankings, it ended at number two. And people thought it was going to usurp our number one spot at that point. And it didn't happen. And I think into the woods here is honestly too high. I don't think it's a better score than Night Music or Follies or even Company. It's a lovely score, but it's not as historic as those three. But into the woods landed where it landed because people really wanted to honor Sondheim when he finally entered the chat. They put him very high. And then with everything else after that, it all just sort of kind of fell into a lower place. Company and Follies kind of went a little bit lower because people maybe thought they were voting a little too high. With into the Woods, Night Music, I will say, I think, is a perfect musical and I think the score is just as perfect. This came. This was the 1973 Tony Awards and it beat for best score, Pippin A, I guess Peter Link's like, songs and instrumental music for a production of Much Ado About Nothing, as well as Mickey Grant's Don't Bother Me, I Can't Cope. And some people find Night Music boring. I get that. It is not a barn burner of a show. It's a very adult, very light whipped cream musical. As Halpern said, whipped cream with knives in it. And I just think it's delightful and I think it's so intelligent and so sexy and so stylish. But I thought it was going to be too much of a thing for some people. I thought that it was probably going to rank it, like, number 10. It ended up coming in at number three originally, right below into the woods, and then eventually ending at number four. I should say with these votes, the largest percentages we got with their initial rankings with their first round of voting, a little Night Music. When asked, like, what section do we put it in? Top 12 or 13 through 24. You know, things like that. 69% of the vote voted for Night Music to go into the top 12, and then it eventually ended at number three. So that sort of shows you how it kind of just getting pushed up and up and up. Whereas Ragtime, I think I said 70% of the vote. 70, 75% of the vote. I'm looking at my notes here. Oh. 68% of the vote of the first vote voted for Ragtime to go into the top 10, which is a majority. It's. I would argue it's a vast majority. But for something like Ragtime, which by all intents and purposes online, people would say is like the best, 68% is not the overwhelming 88% you would imagine. And that's. So whereas a little Night music started with 69% and then kind of kept getting pushed up, ragtime started at 68% and then kind of slowly started to fizzle downwards. As I mentioned, Evita's first vote, opposite stuff got 75% of the vote into the Woods. Its very first round of voting. It was voted, I think, to go into the top five or ten with 70% of the vote in its first round, and then ultimately ended at number two, right underneath the newest number one spot at the time. Into the Woods, I will also say, has the most votes of any score in this ranking. When into the woods went into its final round of voting, 435 people voted on whether into the woods was going to be number one, two, three, or four. And the majority ended up picking it for number two at the time. But 435 votes, I think I said 211 was the least amount of votes we got on a score, which was Kiss of the Spider Woman. 211 people voted to put Kiss of the Spider Woman where it was at. Into the woods famously went up against Phantom of the Opera. This is another score to win score and book and not musical. And it's simply that Phantom of the Opera was just too big of a hit to deny. Again, we're talking about the presentation of a musical rather than the material of the musical itself. Into the woods was also up against romance. Romance, which is a solid score, by the way. Everyone should check that one out. And Serafina, which is a score I know very little about, but the few things I have heard, I've really enjoyed. It's got a weird Tony performance, though, that I don't really care for. I mean, into the woods has become a universal Sondheim musical. It's become a lot of people's entryway. It was my entryway into Sondheim, and we had a revival recently that was very honorable to the material. So people have fallen in love with it again. I honestly did kind of expect into the woods to take the number one spot for a while because of the buyer's remorse people had for the score right above it. And when that didn't happen, a lot of people got annoyed. But then also a lot of people got annoyed that it was so high. And so it's weird to look it into the woods at number three and have it be above Ragtime, have it be above Follies, have it be above A Chorus Line and a Vita. But it comes down to a people know and love into the Woods. And people really wanted Sondheim to rank high. Not quite high enough, though, because at number two is the ultimate Buyer's remorse vote that we had in this ranking, which is Les Miserables. Les Mis is the score that finally dethroned Evita in the number one spot. And Les Miserables is a score that I adore. I have a whole episode about it with Suddenly Seymour. You should listen to it. I think it's the best of the mega musicals. I think it's very. I think it's very tasteful in how it reuses motifs. Some people use, say recycle, I say reuse. And I think it's full blown melodrama. But it's melodrama that's effective and it's touched a lot of people. Because it's become so popular, because it's become so huge, it's easy to tear it down. But, you know, some things get where they are for a reason. Some things are just a product of timing. And I think Les Mis is. Is one that got where it was for a reason. And you look at its competition at year for Score, Me and My Girl, Rags and Starlight Express, and it's like, I'm sorry, but the answer is clear. It's Les Mis because Starlight Express is, in my opinion, middle of the road Weber, which is not high praise. That slot should have gone to Smile. Whatever. Rags by Charles Strauss and Stephen Schwartz. Some really compelling Strauss compositions in Rags. But that is still a score that you listen to. And it's fascinating and it's bold and it's sort of like a prototype for ragtime, but it's not as successful as ragtime. And then you have Me and My Girl, which is really sweet, but like, it's 1930s British Music hall kind of music. It doesn't really grab you in any kind of way. It doesn't excite you in any kind of way. Les Mis is the clear winner here in this year and has so many standards and has really sort of just sold wherever it's gone. And I think that is a testament to the power of music, that it's so universal and that a story like this, because of the music, can translate anywhere it goes. And so I was very happy when Les Mis eventually hit the number one spot when it got into the ranking system. And when it got into the ranking system, its initial vote, 75% of the people who voted in the first two rounds felt that Les Mis should be in the top five. And then when it got number one, it got number one with the fucking bullet. And then about immediately afterwards, people started to have buyer's remorse about it. And that's why into the woods skyrocketed to number two. Because people wanted to have a Sondheim score usurp into the woods usurp Les Robinson. That didn't happen. People tried to get, you know, I think not Hamilton, but like, I think people tried to get fun Home to usurp it. That didn't happen. And when Les Mis just kind of stuck at number one, it gave a lot of people trepidation about voting so boldly ever again. That's why we had so many people voting in the middle all the time when we got to the final round of voting for these scores. And I get that. I get the passion behind voting for something only to kind of regret it and then be very cautious after that. But there are a lot of scores that probably could have ranked higher if people were a little more bold with that, and if they were bold with things like Ragtime or With Company or with, I don't know, Hairspray or Parade, and. And something else had taken over Les Mis, it's possible that other scores would have moved up in the rankings and the whole thing would be very different. But this is where we're at. So, yes, Les Mis is at number two, which leads us to the number one, which is, Surprise, surprise, Sweeney Todd. Sweeney Todd, I will say, is Sweeney Todd and A Little Night Music are the only two scores in this ranking that didn't have 10 or more people vote for it to be the absolute bottom. People voted for it to be in the bottom, but fewer than 10 votes each. I think it was, like, six people voted to put a little Night Music at the bottom, and, like, five people voted to put Sweeney Todd at the very bottom. Sweeney Todd, in its first round of voting, ultimately got 92% of the vote to place it in the top, I think 14. And from there, it went to the top, like, five, top four. And then ultimately, it did usurp Les Mis as the number one spot. It was Sweeney Todd could be number one, two, three, or four. And at that time, it was Les Mis was at number one, into the woods was at number two. A Little Night Music was at three, and Ragtime was at four. So Sweeney Todd, at the very least, was going to knock Ragtime down to the fifth spot, or it could overtake a Little Night Music into the woods. In Les Miserables, Sweeney Todd ended up getting 56% of the vote to replace Les Mis at number one, which is a majority. It's not a vast majority, though. 44% thought it should be below Les Mis, which is kind of wild. Again, we're talking about a score that it's sort of universally decided in theater that Sondheim is the goat. And some people have different opinions of what their favorite is or even what they think his best is. But no one has denied that Sweeney Todd is a Master work. And so it's interesting that when given a chance to decide, it's not quite a sweeping majority that thinks it's a good enough score to overtake Les Mis or Into the woods or Night Music or Ragtime. It's interesting to see. I don't agree with it, but that's sort of. That's sort of what this experiment is about. So we say this because with Sweeney Todd now at number one and all these rankings that we've just been listening to, this whole journey we've just done as we head into Tony season, what does this tell us? The feelings that you might have about a show or about a performance are not necessarily fact. It is art and it is subjective. And what might seem so clear to you is so different for somebody else. So you will sit here with me and we'll talk about it through the meta communications we have, through our psych, psychedelic psychology, whatever, and we will think about what we think is, you know, the ultimate front runner in any kind of category for musical, for play, for actor, actress, what have you. And there are going to be things that are going to blow your mind when nominations come out. They. It happens every year and something's going to win that is going to blow your mind because you didn't see it coming. This is why predicting the Tonys or any awards body is frustrating. But I would argue the Tonys are more frustrating than something like the Oscars because there is no precursor for the Tony Awards that can give you any indication about how people are voting. The Oscars have guilds like SAG and the Directors Guild and the Producers Guild that all vote at the Oscars. BAFTA has an overlapping voting pool for the Oscars, so you can see where people are leaning towards. There's nothing like that for the Tony Awards. All you can do is sort of follow vibes, look at past trends, think about demographics, and see where the buzz is around. Not where you want it to be, but where is it actually? Because people are going to vote with their hearts more than their heads for these kind of things. And they're going to vote in the moment, impulsively in the moment. No one's people are going to. When people vote, they think that. That what they're voting for is going to be thought of kindly in the future. And sometimes it is, sometimes there's an immediate backlash, and then it all settles and we actually come to a kindly. But think of some of these scores that, as I said, when they won, were so undeniable, right? We have, you know, we've got big river at 48, which was the big winner of 1985. Granted, it was a bad year, but it was the big winner, dear Evan Hansen, which was an absolute cultural sensation at 46. Kinky Boots, which was so undeniable at 45. We have, you know, passion at 27, which was considered like a fascinating final chapter for Sondheim's Broadway career. That's at 27. That's not. That's right below the halfway point. Kimberly Akimbo at 26, which just won two years ago. We have fucking SUFFs at 42, which was just this past year, which, you know, we talk about how something is such a rightful winner that's the real winner or something is an embarrassing winner, an embarrassing loser and whatnot. You really can't tell how these things are going to age until they age. And how you feel about a work might change over time as well. And we'll look back on a winner from 10 years ago and go, how did that happen? And in the moment, it's very clear how it happened. So as we think about this and as we head in towards Tony season, let's start calculating the trends of the past. How winners have won, what gets someone to be to win, and how can we apply that to the Tonys this year? We look at past narratives like A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder, Spring Awakening, Fuck, even Memphis. And you can sort of see that with maybe happy ending, the little show that could. That kept itself chugging along to make it to the stage in June, turn its fortunes around. You have something like Operation Mincemeat, the British import that it was such a sensation overseas that comes to New York with a fan base already. Things like Evita and Les Mis, Matilda 6, things like that. You have Dead Outlaw, the quirky off Broadway musical that could like a fun home, or Kimberly Akimbo. You have a Buena Vista Social club, which is nothing but pure vibes and good times. Something like an aimless behavin. You have Death Becomes Her. The big splashy musical comedy like a producer's or a spamalot that just offers a good time and fantastical sets and money. All of these things could win in any kind of narrative. You have to stop for a second and think of what's the narrative now? What is the vibrations on the ground in this moment? For what musical, for what play, for what actor, what writer? People will say, oh, well, we should be determining quality. We just did determine quality in this ranking. A giant group averaging 350 votes per score. Maximum votes for a score over 400. You know, minimum over 200. And do you agree with every spot on that ranking? I know I don't. But this is what we were doing. This wasn't overly political. I mean, people sometimes would be strategic with their voting, but they wouldn't be strategic to the point that they were lying about how they felt about a score overall. People were voting with what they generally thought was best, and this is how we ended up with it. So when people say, oh, well, shouldn't the best thing win? Yeah, well, what does that even mean? Sometimes it's both of how you feel about it as well as how you feel about the people involved, how you feel about the momentum and the buzz of the show. Does that excite you? Are you excited by something that's a genuine hit? You know, did Oppenheimer really need to win so many Oscars last year? Who's to say? But it was exciting to have a movie that people liked that made so much money and was culturally relevant. That's sort of what got Titanic, all the Oscars that it got. And listen, you know, Titanic went through its own backlash after it won so many oscars and made $2 billion. And then the backlash got backlash. And now we're sort of settled into a time where we. A lot of people agree that Titanic is a good movie. It took us 28 years to get here, but that's where we're at. So that's what we're. That's what we've been learning from this little experiment. And I'm thinking I might do another one soon. Tbd up to all of us to decide. It's been a. It's been a journey. I don't know what the next one might be, but if you want to follow along and vote for yourself, you can follow me attcoplick on Instagram. Usual spelling before we go away, guys, I want to thank you for sticking out with me this long. Lord knows this has been a journey for all of us. But I want to give a little bit of credit where it's due before we depart. After this episode will be my reviews for Operation Mincemeat and Buena Vista Social Club. And then I will have a short little pocket where I do a little announcement of the new series for Broadway Breakdown, which will be coming out sometime towards the end of Tony season. Not just an announcement of the series, but announcement of what shows I'll be covering in said series. And also, don't forget, if you haven't joined the Discord Channel, yet please do so, because I'm also going to be doing a Broadway Breakdown birthday episode. The next episode. The next official episode will be coming out on March 27th, which is my birthday. So I will be doing a Q and A via Discord and on my Instagram where people can submit questions and I will answer them on mic and that will be the March 27 episode. Before we do another round of Tony predictions before we go, I have one last review I want to read out for you guys. So please cue the light and the Piazza Overture music. Five stars. I'm a better fan. This show has become one of my favorite podcasts. I love how Matt doesn't take himself too seriously when he says he's the most opinionated and the least famous, but still takes a lot of time to explain his well thought out opinion. I'll say a lot of time. We're at four hours here. The way he explains all the nuance of his show and the performances is fascinating and entertaining. He brings some sass without being mean, which I find refreshing. He's so much more than a theater cutie. Oh, thank you. He's well informed and I feel like a better fan of my favorite art form. Thank you so much, John. That's a very lovely review. I appreciate it so much. You guys are so good at writing these guys. If you want to write one, please do. If you want to just give a rating, please do. I am intending to submit myself to the Broadway League at the end of this season to be a member of the official press junket. And any extra ratings I get on it on Spotify and on Apple podcasts always just helps my case. If they see the numbers, they will consider me far more legitimate. So we're at 285 ratings and reviews on Apple Podcasts. I would love to get to 300 soon, but I don't know. That's up to you guys. And maybe if we hit that number fast, I'll do another song on Instagram. We're looking into doing a cabaret over the summer, so I have to start warming up my voice. So something for you guys to think about. Anyway, that said, we'll close out with a diva today. Who should we close out with? Let us close out with. You know what? In honor of Sweeney Todd being at number one, we'll close out with Ms. Angela Lansbury. How do we like that? Okay, great. So I will see you guys next week for my birthday and enjoy the Operation Mincemeat Buena Vista Social Club review in a day or two. And take it away. Angie. Bye. A customer. What? What's your rush? What's your hurry? He gave me such a fright. I thought you was a ghost. Half a minute. Can't you sit? Sit you down. Sit. All I meant is that I haven't seen a customer for weeks. Did you come in for a pie, sir? Do forgive me if me hand's a little fake. What is that? But you think we are the plague. Found the way that people keep affording. No, you don't happen. No such. Take an amex card with you on your morning coffee run and earn cash back on a weekend trip. Earn miles. See if you pre qualify for an American Express card with no impact on your credit score. Learn more@americanexpress.com check for offers. Your credit score may be impacted if you accept a card. Terms apply.