For something different in the Monday music fix arena…an actual musical. While I was in New York, I was sharing a room for a few nights with my friend, Barbara. She went off one night to see a musical I’d never heard of called Hamilton (written by Lin-Manuel Miranda). Hamilton is the story of Alexander Hamilton, one of the US founding fathers. Only told in rap amongst other musical styles and with a cast that’s almost entirely POC. Barbara came back raving about it, which spiked my curiosity but at that point it was sold out for months already so there was no way I was going to get a ticket.
So I was very happy when somewhere I stumbled across the link to an NPR first listen for the cast recording last week (maybe on Tumblr, somewhere on the world wide interwebs). Barbara was right to rave, it’s a great musical. I don’t think I’ve liked a musical as instantly since Rent. The cast recording album came out on Thursday and needless to say I now own it and have been listening to it a lot. The music is great with very clever lyrics and music. The story is also fascinating (and I say this as someone who is overall, not that interesting in politics and doesn’t know a heap about American political history being an Aussie.). Well worth a listen. Not sure how long the NPR thing will stay up but hopefully for a while.
