Bravo, Monsieur!

It was a dark and stormy night. The wind howled menacingly in the little town of Rocky Mountain House. Lightning flashed. Thunder crashed. On that fateful evening fourteen years ago, the rain... hold on a sec. What's that, brain? Oh. Turns out it was actually a balmy summer afternoon. Well, so much for the imagery, then! Stupid brain. Anyway, I wasn't outside frivolously frolicking about like children are supposed to do during the days of their summer vacation. No, I was inside playing The Adventures of Bayou Billy for the NES. This was an ambitious game for its time; combining brawling, driving, and shooting sections. It was really hard, and it really sucked. As can be expected, this suckage extended to the game's music, as well.

Digression:

To be fair, this wasn't something unique to this particular game back then. Horrible video game soundtracks were one of the hallmarks of the NES area, caused by a combination of poor technology and apathy on the part of the game developers. There were few exceptions to the Nintendo Audio Curse, and the situation didn't improve until the advent of the Super NES. That really made no difference to me, however; I was still stuck in the era of tinny booping and beeping.

It doesn't take long for a video game soundtrack to grate. I usually play other music to save my sanity. Back then, the tape of choice was MC Hammer, but that was beginning to grate as well. So what to do? I rifled through the household selection of tapes and chanced upon Highlights from Andrew Lloyd Webber's Phantom of the Opera. I remembered that my mother and her friends wouldn't stop gassing about it. Deciding that I should hear for myself what the fuss was all about, I popped it in the stereo. Apart from the interesting contrast that arose from listening to Prima Donna while pounding the crap out of digital villains, I wasn't that impressed. Little did I realize that fourteen years later I'd still be listening to it.

It came to pass that I salvaged the tape from the back of our storage closet a few years later, while I was looking for decent music to listen to while I played The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. I put it in the stereo of the swanky game room I had "convinced" my parents was necessary, and I don't think it left for another month. It turns out that being a bit older made me a lot more receptive to the joys of the musical. Much to my father's chagrin, I suppose; it must have been a bit disconcerting for an AC/DC lovin' hog ridin' man to find his son listening to a musical while playing a game that involved a little green elf.

Which begs the question: Did I ever see a performance of The Phantom of the Opera? Why yes, I did! However, apart from the business with the chandelier and the... um... "qualities" of the girl playing Christine, I don't remember too much about it. So I guess that leaves out any possibility of discussing it, then. On we move!

There is the begging of another question: Why the hell am I even bothering to write about The Phantom of the Opera? Well, it turns out the chaps in Hollywood are producing a movie version of the musical. Sound good? Hold your horses, young fella; Joel Schumacher is at the helm. That should give you a bit of a pause. The man has a history of working with great ideas yet dropping the ball. The perfect example of this - barring the obvious one - is Falling Down. A man suffers a stress-induced meltdown after dealing with too many of society's flaws then proceeds to toss aside the Unspoken Rules. This is an idea with great potential. So why does the movie devolve into him pulling a gun in a fast-food restaurant because he missed breakfast by five minutes? Given his past directorial efforts, I don't have high hopes for his take of The Phantom of the Opera.

But successful movie or no, at least I'll still have my tape, and the wistful nostalgia that goes with it. Memories... shit, wrong musical.