The Book of Mormon Cast Recording

I like a good show tune.  The musicals I tend to enjoy the most are ones with catchy tunes that stick in your head.  Or to put it another way, it should have a good beat that you can dance to.

I check out the New York Post on line every morning to keep up on the gossip and what's going on in the world of the arts, so I am at least semi-aware of what's on Broadway.  I was quite excited by the prospects of The Book of Mormon since it was written by Trey Parker and Matt Stone of South Park fame.  While South Park can be hit or miss, one thing that is undeniable is their ability to write a good song.  And for The Book of Mormon, they teamed with one of the Avenue Q writers, and I thoroughly enjoyed that musical.

Odds of me getting to New York for a show are zero so I must wait for the touring production to come around in a year or two, but in the meantime I will settle for the original cast recording which was on sale in MP3 form for $1.99 on Amazon yesterday.  It starts off with the incredibly bouncy and happy "Hello" before veering into African and metal influences.  It is also rather on the filthy side if you mind that sort of thing.  I'm looking forward to see which song they pick to do at the Tony's tomorrow since most of it is either perverse or plot centered or both.

The musical is about two Mormon missionaries sent to Uganda.  You can get the overall plot just by listening to the songs, but I checked out the Wikipedia entry to flesh things out.  While on the surface it seems to make fun of Mormons, underneath it shows them as dedicated people with a great deal of faith.  It does make fun of religion, but in a spirit of it's all good if you don't take it too seriously.  And I am thoroughly impressed by t he LDS response which is to brush the whole thing off as just entertainment.  In some ways you have to respect a religion that doesn't get its knickers in a twist over silly things.