Doin' the Friday Shuffle

1. "Batman Theme" - Danny Elfman - Batman (Film Score)
One of the best character-specific themes in the annals of film music. Just absolutely right.

2. "Electioneering" - Radiohead - OK Computer
Probably the most direct, straight-ahead rock song on the album. And a line on at that.

3. "You Turned to Me" - Elvis Costello - North
Sweet, with a happily surprised sweet tone.

4. "Miracle Drug (Live)" - U2 - Vertigo Tour Anaheim 2005
Kind of crappy quality actually.

5. "Melinda" - Lerner and Lane - On a Clear Day You Can See Forever (Original Broadway Cast)
A old-fashioned, sweeping, grand ballad.

6. "Stars and the Moon" - Jason Robert Brown, sung by Audra McDonald - Way Back to Paradise
This song has over the past decade become a cabaret staple, and it's easy to see why. It's a beautiful piece of songwriting that tells a very clear, bittersweet story about a woman who passes on love and adventure for money and material luxury, with the obvious but well-executed twist at the end being that, of course, after she finally gets her riches and life of comfort she wishes she had taken "the moon" after all.

7. "Seasons of Love" - Jonathan Larson - Rent (Original Broadway Cast)
This rousing, inspiring anthem of hope and life can come across as a bit too obvious, but sometimes isn't that just fine?

8. "Act 4, Scene 1: "Look . . . through the port comes the moonshine astray!" - Benjamin Britten - Billy Budd (Opera)
A sweet and slow aria.

9. "That'll Show Him" - Stephen Sondheim - A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1996 Broadway Cast Revival)
Lesser Sondheim, with its central joke (the ingenue slave will "show" the captain who has purchased her by pretending as she makes love to him that he is really her true love) falling mostly flat.

10. "Savages (Part 2)" - Alan Menken and Stephen Schwartz - Pocohontas
The song part (this track is fronted by a good minute of scoring) is a little on the nose, perhaps, but Menken is pretty much incapable of writing a boring melody, or Shwartz a lyric without at least something to recommend it.

Until Whenever