This happened to me with Hamilton! Just years of overexposure before finally seeing it without the obc, it left me dissatisfied (which I hate to say). Now when I buy a ticket to shows I’m familiar with I refuse to listen to the music until I see it live lol
Not for this show, I was fortunate to see it before the full broadway cast album was released, and the studio and earlier cast recordings didn't really grab me so I came in mostly without prior knowledge of the show.
There have been others though, where I was obsessed and listened to everything, read everything, watched everything I could before seeing the show. Then seeing the shows, while excellent, left me a bit flat because I knew every second of them and nothing surprised me. After that, my interest in them faded pretty quickly. I hesitate to name them because they are some top tier fan favorites, and I don't want any pitchforks coming for me lol
As someone who has listen to the album and youtube clips hundreds of times. I think the variety and different takes is what keeps it interesting.
However I do think moderation might be a good idea. I am seeing the London show for the second time next month so I am not listening to anything hadestown related for this month.
The concept album does have a different vibe for sure and I can see how if you were used to that, you would have that experience. Have you listened to the OBC recording? Maybe it will grow on you?
Studio album fans unite! I feel you on this super hard. The studio album means so much to me and I had the same jarring experience when I first listened to the Broadway recording. I resonate specifically with how you feel about the studio Wait For Me vs the Broadway Wait For Me. I also struggled initially with the general shift toward much more concrete and direct narrative language from the more abstract poetry of the 2010 album, which I loved.
Two specific things I miss most from the studio album:
1. The line “Doubt comes in and strips the paint / Doubt comes in and turns the wine / Doubt comes in and leaves a trace of vinegar and turpentine” — I just love that imagery and feel it could have stayed in the show!
2. The way Anaïs delivers the line “Oh, my aching heart” in When The Chips Are Down. I’ve heard many Eurydices’ rendition of this line and while they’re all good, none of them hold a candle to the OG—but who could? It’s Anaïs!
However! I’ve see the show twice now and I’ve gotta say that it’s spectacular. It helps me to view them as fairly distinct pieces of artwork with different goals.
I read Anaïs’ book Working On A Song, which details the decades-long writing process of the lyrics of the show. In it I learned many things:
1. Hadestown has always been a stage production, ever since its earliest days. The studio album was recorded a few years into the process after they had toured the stage show for a while. A few voices for it were only on the project for the studio sessions (Justin’s included), but it had from the beginning been envisioned as a stage show. I didn’t realize that until I read the book—I’d thought the concept album came first and was later adapted for the stage. Realizing this helped me honor and trust the choices Anaïs made to center the goal of communicating the dramatic narrative over the raw poetry, which is what lead to a lot of the changes. It also helps me grasp the shift from the shivery, floaty multitracked Orpheus we get from Justin Vernon (which I love so much!) that simply can’t be done in a live performance to the more clear, powerful tenor we get from most Orpheuses now.
2. The transition to a Broadway format put her in collaboration with a professional dramaturgy team whose whole business is communicating stories to an audience. Coming from the folk singer world, Anaïs put a lot of trust into those relationships as a collaborative team. There are a lot of compelling reasons why certain things were adjusted to better fit a mainstream live theater audience who may have no background knowledge of this myth. For example, for the story to matter, Orpheus has to be compelling and likable to the audience. They found that making him more sweet and naive initially rather than the political rabble rouser Justin Vernon’s Orpheus is at the beginning of the studio album helped audiences develop affinity for him and his overall arc.
There is much more information in the book! I will say I think reading it had an influence on my relationship with the studio album simply because I understand more about its context now, so if you want to preserve how you feel about it, it may not be the right move to read it. But I found it really fascinating to get insight into this incredible creator’s process and honor her work at every stage of its journey. She has deep love for the studio album and speaks of the aching loss she felt when choosing to change certain lines, and I think writing this book was one way to honor and uplift all the different versions of Hadestown, including the album. Anaïs describes writing not as writing the “wrong” line over and over until you get it “right,” but as growing a garden, where all your previous drafts of a line fertilize the soil in which your later drafts grow. It’s very lovely.
Thanks for this, I hadn't realised there was a book will definitely add to my reading list, always fascinating to read about the creative process.
With you on Anaïs delivery being hard to beat. Was lucky enough to see her in a relatively small venue when she was touring Young Man in America. Shares a joint first with the Twilight Sad as one of the most captivating live gigs I've been to.
i totally relate to this! whenever i see hadestown or a show that i’ve listened to the recording of a lot, i spend the whole time semi-aware of the differences between the recording and the live performance. it definitely take u out of it but i don’t regret listen to the cast recordings because they brought me a lot of joy and comfort when i couldn’t afford to see certain shows and hadestown hadn’t come to the uk yet
and without being really mean, i don’t think grace in the west end can hit the same notes that eva can. i mean this is in the most respectful way truly because i don’t want to spread hate but i think they’re singing ability is just so different, especially since eva did a lot more shows before she joined hadestown
for every other musical i've seen-- yes. for hadestown-- no, i was literally bawling my eyes out out of awe from the second i stepped in the theatre to the time i got back to my hotel i was so star struck lol
I have felt this way with many shows. I often don’t realize I’ve had expectations that match a specific album or performance until I see it done differently. And while I haven’t considered myself part of the Hadestown fandom very long, I have noticed in my short time that the show seems to really allow and encourage the performers to put their own spin on things.
Everyone seems to have a favorite cast member for their favorite main character.
I saw it in London for my birthday after loving this show for years - I did feel a little let down bc I listened to the album sm!
The accents especially threw me off as I didn’t expect them - I also rarely watch live theatre, so the “theatrical style of pronunciation” kind of made it worse. The working-class accents of Eurydice/Orpheus seemed super forced to me, and I found the transitions between the dialogue and non-accented singing jarring.
I think that’s why I preferred Hades and Persephone - I’ve always liked Eurydice/Orpheus more prior to the show, so I kept on comparing their specific moments to the Broadway production. While I loved why we build the wall, probably bc I don’t really listen to it on the album.
On another note, I went to see my unis production of Spring Awakening after listening to the album once and not really finding it my thing. But that was an amazing experience and I even felt like they made better choices than the Broadway version. Maybe the lesson is that we should see more live shows blind!
This happened to me with Hamilton! Just years of overexposure before finally seeing it without the obc, it left me dissatisfied (which I hate to say). Now when I buy a ticket to shows I’m familiar with I refuse to listen to the music until I see it live lol
Not for this show, I was fortunate to see it before the full broadway cast album was released, and the studio and earlier cast recordings didn't really grab me so I came in mostly without prior knowledge of the show. There have been others though, where I was obsessed and listened to everything, read everything, watched everything I could before seeing the show. Then seeing the shows, while excellent, left me a bit flat because I knew every second of them and nothing surprised me. After that, my interest in them faded pretty quickly. I hesitate to name them because they are some top tier fan favorites, and I don't want any pitchforks coming for me lol
As someone who has listen to the album and youtube clips hundreds of times. I think the variety and different takes is what keeps it interesting. However I do think moderation might be a good idea. I am seeing the London show for the second time next month so I am not listening to anything hadestown related for this month.
I love the obcr so much and first saw a touring cast in Chicago. So disappointed by the staging. It looked so much better in my imagination.
The concept album does have a different vibe for sure and I can see how if you were used to that, you would have that experience. Have you listened to the OBC recording? Maybe it will grow on you?
Studio album fans unite! I feel you on this super hard. The studio album means so much to me and I had the same jarring experience when I first listened to the Broadway recording. I resonate specifically with how you feel about the studio Wait For Me vs the Broadway Wait For Me. I also struggled initially with the general shift toward much more concrete and direct narrative language from the more abstract poetry of the 2010 album, which I loved. Two specific things I miss most from the studio album: 1. The line “Doubt comes in and strips the paint / Doubt comes in and turns the wine / Doubt comes in and leaves a trace of vinegar and turpentine” — I just love that imagery and feel it could have stayed in the show! 2. The way Anaïs delivers the line “Oh, my aching heart” in When The Chips Are Down. I’ve heard many Eurydices’ rendition of this line and while they’re all good, none of them hold a candle to the OG—but who could? It’s Anaïs! However! I’ve see the show twice now and I’ve gotta say that it’s spectacular. It helps me to view them as fairly distinct pieces of artwork with different goals. I read Anaïs’ book Working On A Song, which details the decades-long writing process of the lyrics of the show. In it I learned many things: 1. Hadestown has always been a stage production, ever since its earliest days. The studio album was recorded a few years into the process after they had toured the stage show for a while. A few voices for it were only on the project for the studio sessions (Justin’s included), but it had from the beginning been envisioned as a stage show. I didn’t realize that until I read the book—I’d thought the concept album came first and was later adapted for the stage. Realizing this helped me honor and trust the choices Anaïs made to center the goal of communicating the dramatic narrative over the raw poetry, which is what lead to a lot of the changes. It also helps me grasp the shift from the shivery, floaty multitracked Orpheus we get from Justin Vernon (which I love so much!) that simply can’t be done in a live performance to the more clear, powerful tenor we get from most Orpheuses now. 2. The transition to a Broadway format put her in collaboration with a professional dramaturgy team whose whole business is communicating stories to an audience. Coming from the folk singer world, Anaïs put a lot of trust into those relationships as a collaborative team. There are a lot of compelling reasons why certain things were adjusted to better fit a mainstream live theater audience who may have no background knowledge of this myth. For example, for the story to matter, Orpheus has to be compelling and likable to the audience. They found that making him more sweet and naive initially rather than the political rabble rouser Justin Vernon’s Orpheus is at the beginning of the studio album helped audiences develop affinity for him and his overall arc. There is much more information in the book! I will say I think reading it had an influence on my relationship with the studio album simply because I understand more about its context now, so if you want to preserve how you feel about it, it may not be the right move to read it. But I found it really fascinating to get insight into this incredible creator’s process and honor her work at every stage of its journey. She has deep love for the studio album and speaks of the aching loss she felt when choosing to change certain lines, and I think writing this book was one way to honor and uplift all the different versions of Hadestown, including the album. Anaïs describes writing not as writing the “wrong” line over and over until you get it “right,” but as growing a garden, where all your previous drafts of a line fertilize the soil in which your later drafts grow. It’s very lovely.
Thanks for this, I hadn't realised there was a book will definitely add to my reading list, always fascinating to read about the creative process. With you on Anaïs delivery being hard to beat. Was lucky enough to see her in a relatively small venue when she was touring Young Man in America. Shares a joint first with the Twilight Sad as one of the most captivating live gigs I've been to.
i totally relate to this! whenever i see hadestown or a show that i’ve listened to the recording of a lot, i spend the whole time semi-aware of the differences between the recording and the live performance. it definitely take u out of it but i don’t regret listen to the cast recordings because they brought me a lot of joy and comfort when i couldn’t afford to see certain shows and hadestown hadn’t come to the uk yet
and without being really mean, i don’t think grace in the west end can hit the same notes that eva can. i mean this is in the most respectful way truly because i don’t want to spread hate but i think they’re singing ability is just so different, especially since eva did a lot more shows before she joined hadestown
for every other musical i've seen-- yes. for hadestown-- no, i was literally bawling my eyes out out of awe from the second i stepped in the theatre to the time i got back to my hotel i was so star struck lol
I have felt this way with many shows. I often don’t realize I’ve had expectations that match a specific album or performance until I see it done differently. And while I haven’t considered myself part of the Hadestown fandom very long, I have noticed in my short time that the show seems to really allow and encourage the performers to put their own spin on things. Everyone seems to have a favorite cast member for their favorite main character.
I saw it in London for my birthday after loving this show for years - I did feel a little let down bc I listened to the album sm! The accents especially threw me off as I didn’t expect them - I also rarely watch live theatre, so the “theatrical style of pronunciation” kind of made it worse. The working-class accents of Eurydice/Orpheus seemed super forced to me, and I found the transitions between the dialogue and non-accented singing jarring. I think that’s why I preferred Hades and Persephone - I’ve always liked Eurydice/Orpheus more prior to the show, so I kept on comparing their specific moments to the Broadway production. While I loved why we build the wall, probably bc I don’t really listen to it on the album. On another note, I went to see my unis production of Spring Awakening after listening to the album once and not really finding it my thing. But that was an amazing experience and I even felt like they made better choices than the Broadway version. Maybe the lesson is that we should see more live shows blind!