#i am a mezzo for a reason. i do not have that range. why are you giving me a part that is 95% above a high octave E???

[the-eclectic-wonderer]

choir directors stop giving soprano parts to mezzos challenge. we've done enough. i'm not playing

[blankvort]

you've probably answered something like this but favourite songs from the stage show and i want details, GO‼️

pezberrywhoreee i cannot even begin to describe the dearth of times i have answered anything related to mean girls and the amount of times i have internally cried and screamed wanting to interrupt a conversation to talk about mean girls. i say that god is dead but you are doing his work right here. putting this under a read more because you said details and this became a study of why every song in the stage show is better than opioids and thin mints combined <333 no articulacy here just 8000+ words of vibes and ranting

first of all if cady sings a single line i am violently shoving every note of the song into a mental folder called faves in such eldritch fonts that my brain computer is halfway to summoning cthulhu whenever it loads the soundtrack. she is described as the heart of the story on the backstage casting call page for a reason and that reason is her absolutely incredible range as she struts from the plucky guitar gyrations and membranophone-focused percussion of it roars into the candid, confiding, crescendoing (and other c words you can probably guess based on the verbiage i use in dms) keys of stupid with love and then climb the vocal volcano that is apex predator and akfjskhfidbdihgshejfhiajw i love her and i love her songs and i need to shut up now i’m sorry

second (but not really because i’m still going on and on about cady i’m sorry) i’m upset abt most other productions burying cady’s fourth-wall breaks and kind of making the segue into revenge party less. i don’t know riled up?? because 1) where did my girl janis’s influence go it is so much more impactful when cady’s main reason for going along with the revenge plot and pushing it further is hearing about janis being outed from janis herself! when her main motivator becomes aaron, who she likes super superficially by the time more is better rolls around, you think wow! what a bitch! for even longer! like you don’t even have to cut the “your hair looks sexy pushed back”/”are his eyes gray or green” conversation that prods her into sending gretchen over the edge this isn’t a time issue 2) where did cady’s brain go bring me a whole box of profound regret and impulsive decisions let the people in the back hear the hows and whys of her descent into plastichood and moreover i would like her to sing more and most of all i love it when characters break the fourth wall. by that i mean i want the “sounds kind of bad right to spy on someone but they’re the first friends i’ve had and i don’t want to have none” things back because the narrative nudity and the way it follows the melody of the verses in fearless is a+++

now. my legitimate favorite songs from the stage show in chronological order

a cautionary tale: the repartee the art freaks have is elite and so are their riffs. The lyrics are 3am notes app poetry lines and that’s an amazing thing for mean girls. It’s not the typical broadway opening number but it’s rough and brash and brilliant. To me the cast of mean girls strikes the perfect balance between caricature and lived-in character and the insouciance of this song towards seriousness reflects that wonderfully. Janis assuming the worst of everyone by saying that the temptation to be popular and hot is far too great and saying that you can’t buy integrity at the mall is some nice, if blatant, foreshadowing regarding cady losing her integrity as she gets caught up in the perilous biome of shopping centers with such dangerous patrons as build-dat-bear. The last line of the chorus abruptly changing the amount of beats in the measure adds an extra kick layout fosse quality that i love too. The ending is the apotheosis of mezzo-soprano/tenor harmonization. Need both janis and damian to step on me but for different reasons. No i will not elaborate

it roars: i have a soft spot for wild life but it roars is superior in every way to me because it introduces cady, the show’s sense of humor, the cast’s incredible skill when it comes to singing and dancing (seriously i had never seen an ensemble that made me want to be ensemble before mean girls), and the perfect transition from a cautionary tale will always get me hyped. i have many thoughts about the many changes the mg script and score have gone through throughout the years but oh my god my jaw dropped at the breathtaking belting of “i have danced with the maasai, i have climbed kilimanjaro” when i first heard it mashed up with it roars and the callback the verse gets in fearless 2.0(?) totally dislocated it. Also i know that it’s a pairing so unpopular it’s basically nonexistent but hear me out when i say that it roars is just a more optimistic, afrobeat inspired version of what’s wrong with me. Cady never seems to think that it’s the student body that needs to change, she thinks she needs to fight and win to belong just as gretchen thinks she needs to serve the most powerful person in school to be deserving of… idk anything?? Of course you cannot trust me on this because i will ship cady with anyone if you give me the chance. Writing cady/the marymount girl fanfic as we speak

it roars is the first indicator that musical cady is pretty different from movie cady in that she earnestly wants to go to the us, wants to have more/better friends, wants to try high school and skateboards and rapping and starbucks venti chai. which makes sense because you know you gotta have that sick i want song so characters feel less tossed about and more thrusting into. there’s a better way to word that but i don’t have the skull size to summon a less immature dictionary right now. a curious thing about it roars, though, is that kenya, being a country and all, has high school and skateboards and rapping. no starbucks because apparently rwanda was an easier location to settle into but that’s a good thing actually nobody should support starbucks. either way you can really see that cady’s been sheltered from the realities of any society past the stone age and idolizes this incredibly abstract view of friends and people. she’s equal parts desperate and determined, artless and acute. it’s ironic, i feel that at first her speech patterns (lions and birds and stuff) seem at odds with her sub-saharan surroundings as though she’s already trying to integrate herself with this slangy teenage culture she knows nothing about and then when she finally finds herself in slangy teenage culture she compares everything to the survival-based rules of the savannah. i know this is probably for streamlining purposes but it’s also so interesting to me that her immediate reaction to her parents’ funding being cut is wow adventure wow possibilities. she knows that everybody wants connection but she doesn’t yet know why connection has to be culled by all these arbitrary rules like fashion or acting cool. like i don’t remember where i read this but some novel said that the only thing worse than being smart is being smart and sensitive because then neither the logical nor emotional explanations for any event can make sense. i swear i will find that book someday to take a photo but today i am bedridden because i walked the five or so inches from home to the grocery store

back to it roars. i hate the grammar in the line “none of my closest friends even has hands” but i love everything else about the song. the beat is so bouncy and the ostinati of the wind and brass sections are top tier. the comedic beats are underscored by cutting the music and then the vocals come back in soaring alongside the strongest bass since george perry and i could die happy if hospitals changed the flatline noise to any cady singing “so exhilarating”.

two paragraphs and we’re still going strong dead god help me. personally i feel like the best delivery of the ensemble lines have to be as obnoxious and deafening as humanly possible but i get people who feel differently. it’s just really great to me when cady is polite and confused and very presumptuous and sonja aquino’s actively going through act two of the exorcist in real time. i think that’s why danielle wade is my cady of choice too. love it when autism: the song is put through the epiglottic funnel of anxiety. also i’m wiping tears right now about the fact cady refers to phones as little screens in her first act one song and in the act two opener she’s glued to her phone because she wants attention so badly and still doesn’t feel like she has enough even though she talks about how america and the plastics are so much more than what she’s used to. Also very interesting that cady views inclusion as a game that needs to be won (and eventually comes to view baleful adoration as winning) even though she later exhibits a sort of survival of the fittest mentality that shows up as early as her mention of baboons attacking those that go near their pack. Fun fact i think her takeover of the plastics mirrors dispersal in male baboons wherein mature male baboons leave the pack they were born into to find another troop to temporarily stay in and usually if they end up replacing the alpha male of that non-natal troop they commit infanticide because then he can reproduce with the alpha male’s old mate/s. That’s not super fun but it is a fact to me. but i’ll talk about the strange views musical cady heron seems to hold about winning more in my do this thing essay which i am definitely going to write despite my best efforts to make this post under five thousand words

gonna slide the it roars reprise in here too because it’s not on the soundtrack but it still makes me feel things. “i’m sixteen just like everyone here but not like everyone here” and what if i said mean girls is the best dissection of the torturous dichotomy between being desperate to belong and being desperate to be unique. There’s a thing called theatrical exaggeration but for mental health purposes i choose to believe that north shore class of x immediately clocked cady as a weirdo utterly undeserving of trust or respect when they saw her wear socks and sandals. I know i just complained about people calling every iteration of cady boring but i feel like i haven’t seen actual hate for musical cady (at least not as much slander as i’ve seen sent to og movie and especially movie musical cady) because you can better bear witness to her most vulnerable moments when she’s singing directly at you instead of saying things in a soundproof recording studio. She’s not quitting she’s regrouping! Which is a fascinating choice of words to me because regrouping in math is basically carrying over values because they’re too much. She gets sucked into this idea that more is better even though she has to compartmentalize the information she’s learned from hostile classmates and teachers and draw connections to her experience with animals because more is not better without proper management. Also this bitch is gonna get e coli if the janitors don’t care enough to clean the slut-shaming graffiti on the wall they are not wiping down those cubicle doors

where do you belong: i love gay people. “so what if all the ducklings think you’re ugly it’s because they’ve never seen a swan” is ted talk worthy material. never getting over the fact that damian knew this girl for all of maybe one introductory french class’s worth of interaction, accused her of doing drugs, and then built her confidence back up from the seventh circle of hell. the “your mother called you baby girl?” “singing!” exchange is peak best friend banter and showcases the art freaks’ dynamic of frank, funny jerk with a tarnished heart of gold and budding broadway babe with a shocking amount of wisdom obscured by hilarity and hypocrisy. the debate team rejected damian because he was too fabulous to be deigned to one oregon-oxford role i’ve decided. i love unreliable narrators and damian shooing cady away from the mathletes as soon as she shows the barest interest in them is an entertaining way of showing that nobody in this story is free from social norms. the lunch tray percussion is something all marching bands should adopt and so are the lighting cues. janis’s reactions to damian killing his dance breaks are the best. rachel hamilton is my fave ensemble student i don’t care if she gets maybe two or three lines total.  she was giving bombastic side eyes before anyone knew the word bombastic. i desperately need to know if she knew what cady was actually saying or if she thought cady was just a lion king stan asking to be canceled. damian painting everyone but his two-person clique as problematic is also peak teenage behavior. everything at that age is just finding the lesser of two evils and figuring out whether or not you want to meet the bigger evil anyways. janis deriding “the geeks and the freaks” despite being labeled as an art freak by every mg promo is also amusing and barrett and mary-kate’s deliveries of “christian believers” could send me to heaven any day they want. the ending is so satisfying to listen to and even more satisfying to watch. also i do mean it when i say that cady was adopted by the local gays in this number. are janis and damian aware that having their own table in a school that makes juniors and seniors have lunch at the same time makes them more powerful than all the politicians of the globe combined

stupid with love: ALSKAJLDJASLDAJLLKJ. stupid with love is the best musical representation of how a crush driven by hormones and being treated with the barest sense of humor and dignity can devour a person taylor swift eat your heart out. the music really sweeps you up into this story like you’re a close friend privy to even her most embarrassing thoughts and the way her love life flashing before her eyes just shuts out whatever aaron was going to say about lebron james is the funniest thing because yeah! you can be convinced you’re totally in love with someone when you’re that age while ignoring everything that makes them a well-rounded human being! the way cady’s clearly grown up in a caring household that’s so chock full of trust that her parents can’t fathom that she’d do anything remotely dangerous while having the whole house to herself for more than one hour BUT also feels like she doesn’t “get” love is super interesting to me to like most sixteen-year-olds have the idea that their parents don’t understand them sure but has she come to the conclusion that familial love isn’t enough? that she doesn’t get enough familial love anyways? that love is unknowable? does she wholeheartedly believe that she fell in love at age five? stupid with love is a song of so many possibilities and it’s as giddy and delusional as you’d expect, every emotion heightened by cady’s new brand of eloquence. fetch may never happen but calculust absolutely should. the little snippets of dialogue in between are so endearing on both cady and aaron’s ends to the point where i can forgive ms norbury clearly not knowing how to conduct a class. who’s gonna tell cady to raise her hand before she answers. i’m kidding she can do whatever she wants, even ignore the existence of multiplication. multiplication is a bitch cady i get it

we once again see that cady is determined almost to the point of self-destruction and that she’s desperate to live a ‘normal’ life by getting together with the normalest boy of all time and the song so perfectly sets up why we should care about cady and aaron as a couple–he’s the only person thus far to not even suggest what she should think/do, encouraging her in a teasing way to be herself (ie smart) instead of telling her to be dumber so he can feel better about himself. cadaaron is the only straight ship ever argue with the wall. also the instrumental on its own is literally such a bop?? i’d drop a grand piano on myself daily if the keys could just perpetually play the song. quoth my own blog my heart belongs to every video out there of a cady opting up on the last “i learned math so i can learn love” it just fits so well thematically and makes the song even more satisfying because it makes you think yes!! summon that girlfailure swag and learn love. also this song is so next to me from twihard: a new musical coded with the pencils and/or feet providing the musical pulse. this is me very subtly begging you to listen to twihard: a new musical as put on by the esoteric ensemble productions and uploaded like a full decade ago starring danielle wade 

apex predator: i love women. i love bon jovi. i love zoology. this song was made for me tina fey told me herself. i can even forgive whoever made halls rhyme with dolls because of the regina furry confirmation. the first few chords kind of give me jaws theme vibes. it’s grinding and warning and doused in grit. you get the brightness of cady’s other songs cut with the flinty, darker strings of janis’s numbers. the heavy drum sort of sounds like a heartbeat, quickening as cady realizes the might of the pride and considers how regina’s help compares to janis’s in an almost clinical manner. shout out to erika henningsen’s “exotic pet” obviously. that line should be studied by every ivy league with a literary program because regina and cady considering the other an exotic pet instead of a real friend but still seeking each other’s approval……. maybe the narrative foils are really reflections of my tin foil hat but hear me out. it’s so interesting that they refer to regina as an apex predator because apex predators are animals without natural enemies but almost every single friend or admirer of regina’s exhibits an envious kind of awe when it comes to regina. regina’s so magnetic that you can’t be her enemy but close enough to pseudo-celebrity that you can’t exactly be her friend either. also the harmony at the end combined with the epic percussion deserves its own award. no longer does egot mean anything. One must be an egota (emmy grammy oscar tony apex predator singer) to be considered showbiz royalty

stupid with love (reprise): cady is so so smart and so so stupid. aaron getting confused at a genuine compliment not solely based on his looks is adorable but i also love it when the line delivery gets changed to be more like “wow i already know i’m cool but it’s nice to hear it from the cute possibly murderous girl who sits behind me”. same goes for cady’s “shit” right after aaron swears off dating–it’s funny as hell whether she’s smiling through the pain or so disappointed in herself she looks like she’s experiencing medical shock. her making love into a function is similarly messed up but funny as hell. i literally have a google drive folder full of audio clips of the “i just don’t get it–i’ll never get it–i just don’t get it–somehow…” part it’s so serious

sexy: this is modern feminism talking i expect to run the world in shoes i cannot walk in - the greatest mind of our generation karen smith. if the national emergency alarm was changed to the ending riff i would become an arsonist just to hear it over and over again. a youtube commenter said that she sings every line like she’s waiting to be shown the script and redo it and whenever acting and singing can waltz along in magnificence together i sob in joy even if that waltz is set to trashy pop. literally every costume shown is worthy of fashion week and then some. the sex doctor bit is beyond saturday night live. sexy rosa parks deserves the world. modern feminism is a mess but at least it built the last verse of this incredible song.

someone gets hurt: regina pretending to cry and aaron being confused again and then being manipulated into a makeout session is so so funny. so terrible but so funny. the incredible blare of noise after that first “until someone gets hurt” feels like being pushed off a cliff and into a sea of warning sirens which feels fitting. if any song from the stage show were to be played by a chamber orchestra i would want it to be someone gets hurt because everything about it is almost four seasons by vivaldi to me. as i said do not expect sensible comparisons from this review. it’s really dark and intense like all of regina’s numbers but this time her style of seduction is on full display, highlighted by some heavy timpani work and a male ensemble that’s carrying more than just regina on their backs holy cow. squidward would worship regina with how she made the bass clarinet sultry despite hitting something in the high fs during each “hurt” and holding that “go” for like five seconds. the ending is giving celine dion’s villain arc. it’s also maybe the first time the audience sees aaron through the eyes of anyone other than cady who’s so starstruck she might as well be blind and we see a guy who’s still susceptible to regina’s yknow reginaness. she guilt trips him about his potential infatuation with his body and then gets extremely touchy with him while wearing a playboy bunny costume. she asks if she was a game he wanted to play despite (maybe devoid of remorse) playing him just to get back at cady. she’s making so much shit up because peeling away too many layers of her perfection would be dangerous but so would losing aaron to cady’s actual openness. first she says “fine” to mean that she’ll be fine without aaron in the reverse psychology sense, then they say “fine” to mean that they’re both hot af, then he says “fine” to agree to get back with regina and possibly to convince himself that his interest in cady can and should be pushed aside because being with regina is better for them both. love this song. hate being unable to sing a single note of it.

revenge party: my overall fave song of the obc album, the stage show, and the movie musical. words alone cannot describe the excitement that electrocutes my nerves when i hear “now you know, caddy—” because everything from that line onwards is going to be stuck in my head for at least a week. some people can’t function until their first cup of coffee in the morning, i can’t function until my first listen of revenge party. in slight relation to that gretchen’s squawking will make me spit out any drink; such has been scientifically proven over the course of several years. i actually have a line-by-line analysis of revenge party drafted so i won’t go into detail right now because i need viewer retention but i mean it when i say art freak harmonization is the best kind.

whose house is this: if kevin g has one fan it is me. let the man rap even if half his lyrics don’t make sense. i have heard the big fun from heathers comparisons. i have heard the halloween from be more chill comparisons. all of them are so incorrect i could set several houses ablaze with the rage i feel at the very suggestion that whose house is this isn’t a masterpiece. no joke this is the first song on my workout playlist. the way nobody even cares about cady in this number is hilarious and so is kevin refusing to swear. gretchen deserves all the thank yous and so does the horns section. karen’s actions are just. Absurd as they always should be. the mario kart ass instrumentals during that “turn the freaking music up” segment make me pleasantly stressed. there are traces of jungle techno but little to no traces of cady’s signature sound and the usually lax but articulate and expressive rhyme scheme of her songs switching to frenzied verses full of immaturity and inconsideration makes me feel things that should not be felt while listening to a rave number with flatulent bass.

more is better: the only romantic duet to ever exist if you ask me. the fact that cady switches from the more sincerity-charged love to like most likely because the plastics’ philosophy is to be cool about things makes me want to bite the bars of alcatraz prisons. the way cady’s signature sound only really returns after aaron chooses to leave her because she’s become regina 2.0 without even acknowledging it is the stuff of emotionally resonant legend. as i said in my aaron review post the only thing that bothers me about this number is aaron kissing cady while she’s clearly drunk and he isn’t but cady kind of gets him back after do this thing so. yay equality. aaron’s so tired of being manipulated and told to shut up i feel so bad for him. cady’s so in denial about missing her old home in any capacity and being uncomfortable with the skin she’s tried to grow into for aaron’s sake and i feel so bad for her. the shimmering sound that comes with cady singing “stars” makes me feel better though. 11/10 would be sad again. say no to excessive air conditioning and light pollution

someone gets hurt (reprise): i like it when gays have bad breakups without even dating. what more do you want. but actually i am obsessed with the way this is blocked out because the way the chaos of cady’s house gradates into the dark street where there’s nothing but her and her crumbling friendships. the link between janis and regina is really reinforced by this song and it makes me feel insane.

world burn: the only way regina can redeem herself for wearing a black turtleneck and black pants is by slaying so hard you forget she’s just printing shit and polluting the corridors and she does it in world burn. her having a recurring set of notes to follow until she absolutely loses it is iconic. i learned so much about hernia formation through this song so i think it’s also an educational heritage site. the contrast of her 1984-esque lyrics and beats with lines like “trang pak is a grotsky byotch” is beyond hilarious but in the context of the show it makes my timbers shiver. she is both manipulated and the master manipulator. renee rapp’s opt up for the ending is golden but every regina brings their own flair and intensity to it. something that really interests me is how different actresses interpret the lines “this is what i get for helping / helping someone lame fit in” because to generalize regina either thinks she was actually helping cady or is trying to convince herself/the audience that her primary motivator was controlling cady’s every action before she got too hot to ignore or because she saw her hanging around janis and damian or because regina can’t ask a girl out like a normal person. idk it’s very fun and very satisfying to listen to and ramps up the ante for all antagonistic songs ever!

i’d rather be me: did you mean the feminist anthem of the twenty-first century? i’d rather be me is pure janis in her sort of jumpy, edgy, eleven o’clock exasperated glory tuned to this effusive fusion of pop and rock. the energy this has is soooo good because every girl in school is tired of being treated like shit because of the expectations placed on them by society and the idea that by i’d rather be me the female student body of north shore is so exhausted of the plastics’ bs that they parade janis around despite shunning her for years is amazing. most criticisms of this are abt how wordy it is or how it’s not worded right but hello janis is a teenager her inner and outer monologue is not going to be as mature as fucking grizabella the glamor cat and it can include words that anyone would study for the sats like sycophant. sycophant is not that fancy a word i learned the word sycophant from a star wars fanfiction i read when i was seven how could you not know the word sycophant at age seven squared after making a living out of reviewing shows written by wordsmiths like sondheim. sorry that was mean i’m just tired of people either going “they wouldn’t talk like that they’re teenagers” or “they shouldn’t talk like that they’re part of a theatrical production worth millions of dollars!” lmao

ok so i think that janis was losing herself just as much as cady over the course of the revenge plot taking place because okay she’s ruined regina but she’s barely changed anything about herself and if her plan had worked without hitches wtf was she going to do. was she going to keep hanging out with cady. was she going to fill the power vacuum left by the plastics herself. was she going to run regina over with a bus herself. i’d rather be me is the culmination of the crushing pillars of her revenge plot and the full realization that revenge wasn’t what she wanted–she wanted to change the way the world works, change it into a place where people can just do and be without being ostracized. to me the instrumentals and the mockery in the lyrics are almost stinging?? someone with even could describe this better than me but the strings during the instrumental section between verses remind me of a mosquito bite because they’re high and sharp and put against the heavy drums and cymbal crashes they really paint this picture of a dam of anger breaking and giving way to a new wash of awareness. 

also i cannot stand it when ppl say this song is the show giving endorsement to janis being a hypocrite there is a reason why all the lyrics are in future tense. she is wrapping her mind around the notion that there is no pleasing everyone, that there is no true gratification gained by holding grudges and letting them control your every thought, that if you don’t let yourself have the liberty of lashing out you’re only going to manifest your maliciousness in worse ways with longer-lasting effects. that being said let girls be haters

also the obc album should’ve let janis swear. every public performance of i’d rather be me should let janis swear. let her have a line with bite before her throat turns into a cavern where vowels go to melt into a singular solution

also janis’s costumes over the course of the whole show are amazing but her look in i’d rather be me goes so hard. if i had any of janis’s jackets i think i’d curl into it like a cocoon and wait until the heat death of the universe for metamorphosis into coolness

do this thing: no joke this is the second song on my workout playlist. i hate the title so much but i love also the audience reaction when ms norbury starts singing as if she didn’t just slay the what’s wrong with me reprise gets me every time. truly the actresses in the adult women track are so underappreciated and so are the adult women in general. kevin g’s unabashed doing of the thing regardless of the haters is iconic. the return of the heavy percussion is so enjoyable and so are the mathletes’ lines lining up with the steaming kettle sound somehow behind each buzzer even though i hate buzzers because in real life mathletes nobody wants to answer on beat. ms norbury best matchmaker ever i LOVED the detail of aaron being present for the mathletes’ win but cady clearly focusing on the competition above all else. i’m pretty sure the mathletes are also the only characters to drop an f-bomb in a song which is just fantastic + the gretchen/regina parallel between kevin and marwan regarding schquillz is phenomenal. “the limit does not exist” being both the answer to the question that signifies cady’s return to her old self with more self-assurance and the theme of the musical in terms of not limiting other people is a level of genius i will never reach.

i see stars: i’m sorry they gave cady a big finale where she calls everyone beautiful and bright and holds hands with the other girls she’s hurt and you expect me to not love it?? this one had to grow on me though because i was so bothered about the stars imagery coming up maybe like five songs before when we’d been following animals and math for the whole show. as we all know characters can only have one or two interests before they become completely incoherent. but now i know more about light pollution and have played the video of this song with the pride chorus more times than i’ve blinked so i get it. shane oman also breaking his crown during the escalation of the instrumentals from a very optimistic but singular combo of strings and cymbals into the violins and heavier drums and whatever else is such a good detail. i still get goosebumps with that “you stars” there is just so much emotion packed into this finale and the rest of the ensemble joining in is as effective as onions being cut directly into my eyes when it comes to crying. obviously my fave version of this is the one with cady and janis’s mini duet during the rhinestones don’t shine part but guaranteed this one will make me cry no matter what

now. for the songs that didn’t make it onto my absolute fave list they are still my children just bastard ones and i will go into detail about them too because there is no point in writing this post if it does not crash the tumblr dashboard for you

a cautionary tale (reprise): akin to its origins, the reprise of a cautionary tale kicking off act two is there to introduce the act, but unlike its first iteration, the reprise is literally just there. no jokes no nothing. would love to see it reworked into something that reminds the audience they’re north shore freshmen being told this story by janis and damian because i forget about that framing device until the dialogue break in i see stars every time lmao but other than that it’s serviceable and any song that involves art freak harmonization is a solid song

meet the plastics: maybe i don’t love women as much as i claim to. I don’t know why i don’t like this song more truly. Maybe i just need to listen to it more lmao because the lyrics are great, the tempo changing with each introduction is great, and gretch waiting until regina’s out of earshot to try and convert cady into a fetch truther is great. Maybe it’s the “humps my leg like a chihuahua” line that turned me off from it because nell benjamin i do not care that you wrote legally blonde i do not think regina george would bring up animal humping imagery considering what her mother puts her through unless she was hopped up on pain meds. All that being said i would die for the polyphony at the end and karen playing with cady’s hair near the end is so cute

what’s wrong with me: gretchen it’s not you it’s me and i like songs with a specific sort of climax and what’s wrong with me really does feel like a music box piece played by some dusty not-quite-antique you find in the attic that makes you feel a particular, peculiar strain of melancholy because it’s so cyclical and fragile. which is the point, probably! It just sounds really different from the rest of the show and i feel like the lyrics don’t quite fit the language we’ve heard gretch using so far but maybe that’s also part of the point. That being said the line “see that you see what’s wrong with me” makes me go mad because there are so many ways to interpret it. Is she telling the audience that they should be able to see what’s wrong with her? Is she saying that the audience sees something good in regina that she can’t see anymore because of her constant mistreatment? Is she once again asking what’s wrong with her or has she finally had a breakthrough about her dismal self-esteem?

fearless: oh my god a cady song and act ender that i’m not totally into sound the sirens. but really fearless without the revisitation of the it roars/wild life passage that tells the audience what makes her fearless aside from wanting to move to america (which might make her more fearless than i thought now i sound that out but still) isn’t my favorite songs despite it having some of my favorite moments like karen’s ribbon dance, gretchen’s very cool dance, cady mirroring regina’s pose on top of the cafeteria table at the start of meet the plastics at the end, the mini someone gets hurt reprise at the end, it isn’t my favorite to listen to because the lyrics are just all over the place. Cady why are you saying that she’ll go cry to mama do you think mrs george is sober enough for that. Cady why are you spouting live love laugh merchandise ass quotes. Cady why are you quoting dwayne the rock johnson “imagine stronger, better, bolder” are you going to play a lacrosse game against regina. Why does karen not wear more vests after this number

You know what made me care about fearless?? The fearless reprise. Oh my god the fearless reprise. I need to make a separate post about the fearless reprise but i can’t listen to it more than once a day or i’ll end up crying for hours on end.  

stop: is it homophobic of me to put three damian songs on this list? probably but i make up for it by filling that broadway cares bucket every time i can. and it’s not that i even really dislike stop!! I have so many thoughts about stop!! i just don’t like it when compared to the other songs that can hold up inside and outside the context of the show!! i just feel like it has to be experienced live to understand its award-losing enormity unlike where do you belong and even then it sounds noticeably different from the rest of the show + essentially pauses the narrative to talk about a whole other story that never gets resolved outside of damian being ghosted (i thought theater was supposed to provide escapism 😔) and then frays a bunch of threads out from the ensemble in a way that doesn’t feel quite as well sewn in as the worship we see during apex predator or after rockin’ around the pole because like. it’s funny sure but just the act before we saw that things can be funny while also moving the story along past attempting to hammer in the message “stop ignoring your real friends” in cady’s thickened-by-makeup head. 

also how does damian even know about her word vomit. cady barely even word vomits in the stage show. it’s all just word coughing fits of confusion and unintentional comedy under peer pressure. whenever she says something embarrassing she either gets cut off or turns it into a whole song. i’m sorry damian i love you and your stupid straw hat but we just saw the whole show we don’t need a recap of everything that happened in the last hour with almost zero internal rhymes and without the frantic pacing of ya got trouble from the music man. cmon.

onto things i love about stop tho which are a) the gaiety (and gay-ty) b) the dancing and c) the staging. i love it when gay characters just get to be silly goofy instead of singing themselves to their graves and even if damian was built off the dramatic thespian homostereotype he gives me the impression of a silly goofy teen trying to balance the interests of his best friends with his sanity through the medium he’s most comfortable in which happens to be literally show-stopping song-and-dance number. also we get cadnis content in the background and the choreo i’ve seen for how janis plays keep away with cady’s phone only gets better (which of course is a synonym for gayer. let the babies hold hands before they yell at each other in the street and see a 15-second death they’re both sort of kind of responsible for). the dancing of course is wonderful. i mean does it make sense in-story for damian to somehow be popular enough with the ladies to rally them into a giant dance break after asking them to divulge their biggest, darkest secrets like an hour after being kicked out of the girls’ bathroom and calling one of them danny devito? probably not. is it really enjoyable when you aren’t itching to get back to the main story? yes. it also makes north shore feel more authentic in a sense?? obviously there’s so much about the social hierarchy exaggerated for comedic effect but yeah public high school is that crazy one day you’ll hear that a classmate got into a drunk driving accident and the next you’ll hear that the same classmate scored an audition for the x factor. and the transition from the art classroom, which is one of my fave sets in the whole show because aghhhh i want to pause everything and analyze art whenever it comes up in a tv show or movie or video game or musical because it’s almost never just art present for the sake of filling the set! there’s a reason why the set designers put that there or downloaded that asset or whatever! based on the official yt video in stop we see a sort of cubist portrait of janis ian, a few monochrome figure studies, and some more abstract pieces and i so want to know what this number would’ve looked like in-universe. did cady legit just run out of class to confront damian and get swept into a gay tea spilling session until the end of the day. be glad you got suspended girl

so. while i cannot begin to fathom the stamina it takes for damian to go from that gorgeous dance break into the grand vocal ending—philip doesnt know what he’s missing out on for sure—stop is not something i play on purpose but if the obc album shuffles to it i won’t complain!

what’s wrong with me (reprise): is it homophobic of me to put every gretchen song sans whose house is this on this list? probably but again it’s just not something i can put on repeat/a number i think depends on the production to arouse much entertainment value. it’s fucking hilarious though i’ll give it that. like it might be in the top three of mg songs when it comes to unadulterated comedy. my heart breaks when gretchen realises she’s stuck in this cycle of servitude and is still being hurt by the people she most desires the approval of and her work is still going unappreciated and then i get a heart attack from laughing because regina’s reign of terror is so absolute even her own mother has feared her from the age of three onwards?? in addition to that what’s wrong with me reprise is why i cannot stand for mrs george hate she’s just a girl too. a toxic girl who never emotionally developed past high school but like. what do you want her to do. she has never had a heartfelt conversation with her daughter ever. also “why couldn’t it just be drugs” is so funny to me because yknow. reggie gets hit by a bus and spends the rest of the show so high she forgets her love languages are acts of slanderous service, passive-aggressive gifts, weaponized physical touch, quality time spent playing hard to get, and words of refutation. taylor louderman deserved a tony for pulling the kalteen bar scream off every night too i think it’s night queen aria levels of difficulty.

the funniest part of this song to me is probably the way it starts and ends so abruptly. usually you can tell when a song’s about to start in a musical but gretchen nearly breaking down into sobs as soon as cady turns her non-self-tanned back without missing a beat is both relatable and hysterical. my girl is clinging to les mis motifs and middle school herd mentality in a world meant for fosse tributes. the spotlight is only on her when she talks about how dim her light feels in comparison to other characters. then mrs george joins in and you get the first female/female duet to rival defying gravity since idk. everything in fun home. i take cash and credit not criticism.

but really the gretchen/mrs george connection is so interesting because they tether themselves to regina in a style that’s irreconcilable with happiness on either end and they know that but possibly for a mix of selfish and sympathetic reasons don’t want to leave in any capacity. the way they’re separated on stage by little more than a change in colored lighting is interesting too and raises the question of whether or not they’re aware that regina’s sun is burning those closest to her in general.

also. can plastic cady snap and yell at me i want to feel something

in conclusion i love you pezberrywhoreee thank you for asking this. i think i said the words “also” and “but” more times than i said the word “gay” and that’s a real hurdle to fly over. i think i expect many random things in your inbox hereafter as retribution/reward depending on how you see it

[ambitionsource]

did you guys ever have voice casts for the characters? like people/singers you think the characters would sound like n all that? if so would you mind sharing them?

This is such an interesting question... admittedly, Es and I hadn’t really thought about it! We especially just think about the actual actors for those who already sing, but we can provide a couple other samples for each person if it intrigues you to know! Let’s see...

FARKLE | Corey actually does sing -- though not often in this version of reality -- but I do believe he has some professional training. We think of this song he’s recorded in particular, which I think is a really good example of how he sounds circa S1 in my head (this song is actually a bop. The YT version cuts out like 20 seconds too early but I found a version on Tumblr last year that was full so now I have it on my phone LMAO let’s go 2015 Corey). Anyway, it’s that pretty stereotypical power tenor vibe. A couple more comparisons I suggest are:

Jonathan Groff -- I think Jonathan Groff is the best comparison I can make. He’s theatrical, he has a pretty impressive range, but he rests pretty comfortably in the natural tenor range. Like he can do Kristoff one minute and King George from Hamilton the next, and I think that is equitable to Farkle’s range. The man key is that he’s a powerful vocalist. I think Farkle’s true center of his voice has a higher resting place than Groff, but it’s close enough. Example track: Bohemian Rhapsody. One of Glee’s best and an amazing display of Groff’s vocal range in one track. Farkle could match this beat for beat, flair for flair.

Chris Colfer -- I think that the flair Chris Colfer brings to a lot of his performances on Glee match well to Farkle’s vocal stylings as well (which is why he’s done a few performances with that version), but to be clear, I think Colfer’s voice is softer / higher than Farkle’s. It’s more about... emotion and inflection here than tone. Example track: Not the Boy Next Door. Farkle did this on the show, so you know we endorse it. This was also the track Esther brought up when I asked for her opinion.

Brendon Urie -- I think that Urie’s range is really akin to Farkle’s. I don’t think Farkle has at all the same kind of flair or inflection that Urie does (and Farkle is obviously more Broadway than radio), but on certain tracks I think it’s pretty cross applicable. Example track: Dying In LA

I’ll continue this under a read more to spare everyone who doesn’t want to read on because clearly this will be lengthy LOL.

RILEY | I have not heard Rowan sing since the thinly attached source material theme song days, so I honestly don’t think of her much as Riley’s voice (though I think she could do it if trained for it). Especially because of all the mains, Riley is one of the ones who is meant to be less trained and unimposing. For me, the most important quality to Riley’s voice is that it’s not overwhelming. It’s beautiful, and leaves an impact when you listen, but it’s never going to be Maya or Zay’s big, brassy vocals. And that’s fine. That’s what makes it unique in the landscape of the show (and why it appeals to Lucas rather than turns him away). A couple more comparisons I suggest are:

Amanda Seyfried -- I admittedly only know Seyfried’s work in the first Mamma Mia film, but she has the right delicate soprano that I envision Riley having. It’s like... a lilting, soft thing that’s enjoyable to listen to but can escalate into strong belting if needed and handle it effectively enough. Example track: Thank You For Music. Literally a perfect track for Riles.

Phillipa Soo -- Another great example of a powerful soprano player. Case in point enough that we’ve had Riley do a Eliza Hamilton song on the show already. Gentle and gorgeous, but sharp and intense when it needs to be. Example track: Burn.

mxmtoon -- First of all, let this be my plug that everyone should listen to mxmtoon. I love her. She has this lovely gentle voice and her instrumentation is so good. Her EP dusk is gorgeous and I cannot recommend it enough. But she is a great non-theater example of what I think Riley’s voice is like. She varies between ukulele and piano, and everything is just really understated and nice. Example track: show and tell.

MAYA | This is easy. I literally don’t have to say like anything. She just is Sab. That’s it. Like Sab is a phenomenal vocalist and she’s brassy and bold and has range and that’s all Maya is. Like literally that’s it LOL. If you need examples, hit her discography, but I’ll specifically highlight “Sue Me,” “Looking At Me,” and “Diamonds Are Forever” aka the Sab songs we’ve had her do on the show.

ZAY | Zay is an interesting one, because I don’t really think he fits any specific category in my head. He kind of defies definition. He definitely has a brassy swing to him that allows him to pull off showstopping numbers (like his Kossal audition with “Ain’t No Way”), but he can pull it back and reshape it to fit breathtaking musical theater renditions (like “Music and the Mirror”) or banging contemporary (think “Consideration” or “Self Control”) in a way that I don’t think Farkle or Maya can. He is the most vocally versatile of the bunch, and that makes his comparisons sort of wide-reaching as well. I’m not really familiar with Amir’s vocal ability outside of rap (so at least we know he can do that), but based purely on what I hear in my imagination, a few comparisons:

Leslie Odom Jr. -- A younger and less polished Odom, to be clear, but this is a big one for me. I think Odom’s vocal strength and range is so impressive, and what really strikes me is how... grounded and resonant his voice is. That’s a big thing for Zay for me -- you never doubt he’ll be able to support his vocals and that they’re strongly rooted. If he ever cracked or ran out of breath, it would be a shock. This is also really tied to Zay because of how much I would kill to see him perform “Wait For It” and how I feel like it’s such a Zay song. But anywho... Example track: Wait For It.

Frank Ocean -- Ocean has such a cool interesting range and does a lot of things with his performances vocally, so that’s why he’s on here in that he also defies definition. I think Zay also considers Ocean a musical inspiration, so it makes sense that he would adopt or emulate some of his style. I feel like he also translates emotion well, which is a key Zay trait too. Example track: Godspeed.

Amber Riley -- Now hear me out here. Obviously, Zay is a baritone and Amber is like a mezzo soprano / alto / what have you, but the reason I’m listing this Glee legend as a comp is because the quality of her performances is so sharp. It’s like, any time Amber performed on the show it was jawdropping. Her vocal runs are insane, the power behind her vocals is awe-inspiring. She captivates you from the first note, and that is why I always think of Zay. That’s how it is when he performs too, especially in moments where he’s trying to sell it (like his Kossal audition). I wouldn’t be giving my authentic comparisons if I didn’t mention this. So there. Example track: And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going (I would sell my soul to see Zay perform this. Please. PLEASE. Maybe I’ll crowdsource with Charlie and we’ll both sell our kidneys).

CHARLIE | Speaking of Charlie, he’s an interesting one, too. I honestly didn’t really... have a concept of how he sounded in my head, but then when I learned that Tanner sings, it was not at all whatever was deep in my head. But I love his voice, so I think I kind of ended up reconfiguring my perception of what Charlie sounds like around that revelation and now I’m still kind of trying to figure out exactly what that sounds like in the context of the show. The thing is, though, I think Charlie also doesn’t really know what his style is (LMAO), so it’s okay that we’re experimenting a little bit. Like in S1, the few times he sang, it was all over the place but mainly radio. Then in S2, he did predominantly musical theater duets. And now in S3, we’ve really just gone all over the map (from punk-rock opera with “Superstar” to bubblegum pop with “Party For One”) and there’s a lot of fun in that. Where Charlie will land, I don’t know yet, but I will share with you all Tanner’s only recorded song at this point and you all can start to orient yourselves from there. But a few other ideas to get the ball rolling:

Norbert Leo Butz -- Now here’s the thing... Charlie doesn’t sound like this LOL. The reason I’m including Butz is because I started writing about Jeremy Jordan and his rendition of “If I Didn’t Believe In You” and Jordan’s rendition is truly just so inferior that I realized no, I really don’t think Charlie sounds like Jeremy Jordan. So then I ended up here, and you know what, here’s the thing. I think an older Charlie would sound like Norbert Leo Butz. Like, give him 10 or so years, and this is where he’ll settle. To a degree at least -- I don’t think he’ll ever go quite as brassy or bold as Butz can lean sometimes, but the way he like... emotes through his vocals feels extremely Charlie, and the range is about right in terms of voice part. Anyway, give him 10 years, and then get to the point with this amazing example track that is one of my favorite musical theater tracks ever even though I hate the character who sings it. Example track: If I Didn’t Believe In You.

Oshima Brothers -- The shape of the O bros vocals don’t quite match how I hear Charlie in my head (they’re a bit too flat), but the essence of their performances resonate with him very strongly. It’s that gentle, soft-spoken acoustic vibe that I think is so core to Charlie’s performing delivery, which is part of why he’s so consistently overlooked even when he proves time and time again that he can bring compelling vocals (i.e. Haverford’s semi-finals setlist). Example track: Cadence.

Harry Styles -- It’s funny to think that if Charlie saw I was comparing him to Harry Styles he would lose his shit, but I want to be very specific about why and under what conditions I’m including him as a comparison (as he’ll show up on another person’s list too). I think Styles specifically works as a comp for Charlie in regards to the general tone and quality of his voice, in particular when it is on a softer acoustic (like “Cherry” or “Sweet Creature”) and when it’s more upbeat (like “Lights Up”). Like I’m not out here being like Charlie is as good as Harry Styles LOL, but I think the core qualities of their voices are similar. Especially when cross-compared with the other examples above along with Tanner’s actual voice. Example track: Sweet Creature.

ISADORA | Isadora is an anomaly of sorts, since she’s that character archetype where they never expected to be a singer but then ended up being talented anyway (Asher is in the same box). I tend to imagine her with a defined alto register, and a slightly huskier, gravelly tone as compared to Maya’s polished, trained vocals and Riley’s gentle, chime-like resonance. So it’s like... gritty, in a way? I have never heard Ceci sing, though I’ve been told she has once upon a time, but I am working basically from scratch in regards to how I imagine her. So without further ado, some comparisons I suggest:

Jorja Smith -- I think Jorja is the most Isa-like track we’ve had her do on the show thus far, to my brain at least. She has this charming edge to her vocals even when they’re on the softer side which is exactly what I envision for her, and I think there’s such a strong definition to when she jumps into her lower register. Whereas with Isa, I think it would be the same, but reaching into her upper notes would be even more of an audible stretch. Example track: Don’t Watch Me Cry.

Dua Lipa -- Another strong alto here, which automatically tracks Isadora for me. Dua especially has that husky quality I was describing. I would recommend all of her Live Acoustic EP to get a sense of what I’m highlighting most as a comparable, but it’s just that like... slight grit, gonna-kick-your-ass alto excellence. It’s so hard to articulate so I hope you get what I’m saying LOL. Example track: Tears Dry On Their Own Acoustic.

Madison Reyes -- I don’t know how many of y’all have watched Julie and the Phantoms yet, but it’s fun. And Madison has a great voice, which made her another good comp for Isadora. Same thing of like that unpolished but compelling belter, slightly gravelly quality. Example track: Wake Up.

LUCAS | Obviously, Lucas doesn’t sing all that often. And when we do give him songs, or roles in songs, most of the time it’s of a variation where he can more talk-sing the words than actually Sing. But he’s not totally exempt, so he deserves a comparison. For me, it’s like... the way Lucas would tell it it’s like he’s the worst singer ever in the history of the universe and you should never hear him, but honestly he’s like. Fine. He’s not great and he would never have gotten into the school for singing, but he’s not terrible. He’s passable. When he tries, it’s charming. I think the biggest key that makes him different from everyone else is he doesn’t have much of a range -- when I pick songs for him, I always try to go for ones that kind of stay within the same octave or register for the entirety so it’s almost like monotone singing, because that’s about what he can handle decently (his performance in 211 being an exception, of course, because it had to be). So, comparing accordingly:

Harry Styles -- I warned you he’d be back again, but this criteria is even more hyper-specific than Charlie. I think Styles is a great comp for Lucas in the very limited tracks where he is not showing off in any capacity and is really just keeping it stripped down and to the point (think “To Be So Lonely”). His cover of “Girl Crush” is another good example of what I mean. It’s basically like the same 4 or 5 notes and very little movement or flash, and his voice kind of takes on a grittier, flatter quality which is what I’m aiming for. Example track: From the Dining Table

That’s really it honestly. He doesn’t perform enough to warrant much else. You get the idea lmao.

ASHER | Although we didn’t expect it back in the days of S1, Asher has certainly jumped up to take spotlight in terms of performing in the last couple of seasons! Ricky (along with Liam) are actual singers and were together in a band for several years, so there’s no doubt they can sing and I think of their voices most often (in particular, I recommend the “Compass” music video, because it’s a good song and allows you to actively see which boy is singing what). But admittedly, Ricky’s handful of solo tracks since FIYM went on hiatus are average at best (and his lyricism... king you need Liam to write your lyrics LMAO), so I don’t usually jump to his music as examples of what I think he -- or Asher -- is actually capable of. So with Ricky’s good vocals as a base, here are some additional comparisons:

Ruel -- Cannot stress this one enough. There’s a reason Asher’s true initial debut was Ruel’s best track (”Younger”). He just has that perfect like... strong tenor with soft edges that feels very teenage twink and very Asher. It’s not quite Diva!Asher flair, but at Asher’s most base vocal style, I think Ruel is the perfect match. Example track: Down For You

Troye Sivan -- Same kind of traits here in terms of like smooth tenor, and in this case it actually is a certified twink singing so the crossover is even more apt. I don’t think Asher is as... electronic as Troye’s production often is, but the general range of his voice is close enough to be considered a match. Example track: 10/10

DYLAN | So same FIYM video shared in Asher’s applies here as well, but I think what works so well about Liam’s voice in regards to Dylan is that I think the key trait to Dylan is that he’s not flashy. When I think about Liam’s voice (and I love his voice, he’s my favorite FIYM member), I often think about when Sue on Glee called Quinn’s voice a “soft, forgettable alto,” but only it’s a tenor and I mean it in a nice way. The most endeared way. Dylan is less about being impressive and more about just like... character. His voice is not the best in the bunch but you can feel how him all of his performances are through his inflections and his energy. That’s what Dylan vocally feels like to me. So aside from his soft, forgettable tenor on the second verse of “Compass,” here’s a couple other niche comparisons for Dyl Pickle:

Princeton in Avenue Q -- Whenever “Purpose” comes on shuffle, I think about Dylan because of how distinct and energetic the delivery of the song is. There’s just so many little quirks and inflections and moments of fun within the vocals, and that reminds me so much of how Dylan performs. Little laughs, free-wheeling runs, stuff like that. Example track: Purpose.

Graham Verchere -- This dude like isn’t even actually a singer and he isn’t that big an actor, but I love love love his rendition of “Thirteen” with Grace VanderWaal and every time I listen to it I think about Dylan and Asher. It captures the other end of Dylan’s range for me (the soft, forgettable tenor thing) in the sense of like... imagining Dylan plucking out songs for fun on his guitar while hanging out with Asher and then playfully serenading him and the two of them doing a carefree, easy duet like this. I just love it. So I’ll include it. Example track: Thirteen.

[blackkudos]

Frenchie Davis

Franchell "Frenchie" Davis (born May 7, 1979) is an American Broadway performer and a soul, dance/electronica, and pop singer. She first came to public attention in 2003 as a contestant on the singing competition show American Idol. Davis began performing in Rent on Broadway soon afterward, and was a member of the cast for four years. In 2011 Davis reached the top 8 on the first season of singing competition The Voice.

Early life and career

Davis was born in Washington, DC and raised in Los Angeles, CA. She graduated from Howard University in 2014 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts.

In the year 2000, she began her performing career in productions of Little Shop of Horrors and Jesus Christ Superstar with the Freilichtspiele Theatre Company in Schwabisch Hall, Germany.

American Idol

Davis was a contestant on the second season of American Idol in 2003, but was disqualified early in the season due to topless photos taken earlier in her career.

According to Davis, she was up-front about her pictures:

"When I first discovered that I had made it to Hollywood and found out I would be competing to get into the top 30 and then later in the top 12, they had given us all this paperwork to fill out, background checks and that whole thing. So when we were doing that I had a discussion with some members of the production staff and I exposed to them a piece of my past; that when I was 19 years old, I took some pictures and that’s not the person I am [anymore]. I wanted to be up-front about it. We talked about it and then nothing happened".

The Idol staff took no action then, but two months later, they decided that Davis's participation would be inappropriate. "They had decided that because American Idol was a family show, that they could not have me on the show because of the pictures I had taken –though they had never seen the pictures," she told EuroWeb. She also added that no one was able to find the pictures in question as the website that featured them had been taken down.

Double-standards controversy

In 2007, revealing pictures of season six American Idol contender Antonella Barba surfaced on the internet, but Barba was kept on the show (though she was voted off shortly afterward). Many drew parallels to Davis's earlier situation. In an interview conducted for The New York Post on Monday, March 5, 2007, Davis said,

"I couldn't help but notice the difference between the manner in which she was dealt with and how I was dealt with.... I think it's fantastic if

Idol

has evolved, and I think it's fantastic she won't have to go through what I went through four years ago … but if the rules have changed, I believe there should be something to make up for the fact that I was humiliated needlessly."

The discrepancy was discussed on talk show The View on March 6, 2007. Co-host Elisabeth Hasselbeck argued that the difference was that Davis was paid for her pictures whereas Barba was not. Co-host Rosie O'Donnell disagreed, saying, "I think it's racist. I do... I think it's because she's black". American Idol was also accused of racism by Project Islamic H.O.P.E. activist Najee Ali: "obvious that it's a racial bias... when you have a situation where a black contestant is punished and a similar situation happens to a white contestant and there is no punishment and they're allowed to continue on the show."

Post-Idol career

After American Idol, Davis appeared in the Broadway musical Rent in 2003. She sang the solo in the opening song of Act Two, Seasons of Love, and in ensemble roles such as Mrs. Jefferson (Joanne's mom), a woman with bags, a coat vendor, Mrs. Marquez (Mimi's mom) and others. She also occasionally played the part of Joanne. On June 1, 2005, Davis returned to her previous role in the Broadway production of Rent. Davis had previously announced that she would leave Rent in May 2007, but announced her final performance following a mid-April 2007 show. During the weeks leading up to the April 29 performance of Rent's 10-year reunion, Davis appeared in an iTunes Podcast (Rent: The PodCast). She also joined the original cast for a special encore performance.

In 2004, Davis was cast in the role of Effie in a West Coast-touring production of Dreamgirls, which appeared in Sacramento, San Jose, and Seattle, and later went to the Pittsburgh Civic Light Opera.

From August 3–19, 2007, Davis starred alongside Miche Braden and JMichael in the role of Mahalia Jackson in the Hartford Stage production of Mahalia: A Gospel Musical, written by Tom Stolz and directed by Jeremy B. Cohen.

In 2008, Davis, along with fellow second-season American Idol participants Ruben Studdard and Trenyce Cobbins, starred in the 30th-anniversary national tour of the musical revue Ain't Misbehavin'. The tour ran until May 2009, and was nominated for a Grammy award in the Best Musical Show Album category.

In the fall of 2010, Frenchie was cast in the role of the Fairy Godmother in Rodgers & Hammerstein's Cinderella (Enchanted Edition) at the Berkeley Playhouse, the resident theatre company at the Julia Morgan Center for the Arts in Berkeley, California.

The Voice

In 2011, Davis competed in the first season of reality competition series The Voice. In the first episode, she performed "I Kissed a Girl" by Katy Perry, advancing to the next round as a member of mentor/judge Christina Aguilera's team of 8.

On the May 10 episode, Frenchie competed in a sing off against Tarralyn Ramsey, both singing "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)" by Beyoncé. Frenchie won and made it to the next round.

On the June 7 episode, Frenchie performed "When Love Takes Over" by David Guetta and Kelly Rowland. She was told, "You may very well have the strongest voice in this whole competition."

In the next week, it was announced that Frenchie did not win the fan vote from the previous week's performance, which would have allowed her to move on in the competition. However, Aguilera used her own vote to move Frenchie onto The Voice's Elite 8.

On the June 21 episode, featuring the Showdown of the Elite 8, Davis performed "Like a Prayer" by Madonna.

Frenchie Davis was eliminated during the semi-finals, finishing fifth overall. She did, however, join the other members of the final eight contestants of the show: Javier Colon, Dia Frampton, Vicci Martinez, Beverly McClellan, Casey Weston, Xenia and Nakia on a U.S. tour summer 2011.

Post-Voice career

In December 2012, Frenchie starred in the musical God Doesn't Mean You Get To Live Forever at the Baruch Performing Arts Center in New York with legendary pastor Dr. James A. Forbes Jr. and Gregory Charles Royal. In 2014 she made her film debut in the comedy film Dumbbells.

In 2017, Davis starred as Henri in The View UpStairs - an off-Broadway musical about the UpStairs Lounge arson attack that killed 50 patrons of a gay bar in New Orleans. She was also a winner of the Jose Esteban Munoz Award from CLAGS: the Center for LGBTQ Studies (formerly known as Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies) at The Graduate Center, CUNY. The award is given to an LGBTQ Activist who promotes Queer Studies outside of academia.

Recording career

Frenchie is a featured artist in the Tony Moran single "You Are" that was released December 1, 2009, and peaked at number 5 on the Billboard hot clubplay chart. "You Are" was the debut single from Moran's album Mix Magic Music.

On September 4, 2012, Davis released her debut solo single, "Love's Got A Hold On Me". The song peaked at #12 on the Billboard Dance Chart. The song was billed as the first single from an upcoming solo album, Just Frenchie, but the album was not released.

Personal life

Davis possesses a vocal range of Lyric Mezzo-Soprano.

In 2012, Davis came out as bisexual. She continues to be a strong and outspoken advocate for the Bisexual community, LGBTQ Youth and for LGBTQ People of Colour.

In 2013 she was the featured performer at the National LGBTQ Task Force's 25th National Conference on LGBT Equality: Creating Change in Atlanta GA where she explained that she had come out for all of the young LGBT people. "It's so wonderful to see all the young people here. You all are the reason that I chose to be out. Because it is important that you see people in the public eye who are not ashamed of who they are. It is ok to be true to you."

In 2014 Davis created a stir when she spoke out bluntly in response to the verdict in the Shooting of Jordan Davis by Michael Dunn where the jury deadlocked on the charge of first-degree murder, saying "As an LGBT woman of color, I am having an extremely difficult time grasping WHY Matthew Shephard’s life is so much more valuable than Trayvon’s or Jordan’s????!?!?! Help me understand, y’all! Help me understand".

In popular culture

Davis was impersonated by guest host Queen Latifah on the March 8, 2003, episode of sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live; Davis was lampooned for her nude photo scandal, brash attitude and melismatic singing style.

Awards and Recognitions

In June 2017, Davis received the José Esteban Muñoz award from CLAGS: The Center for LGBTQ Studies - an award that is given to individuals who promote Queer Studies in their work or activism. She shared the award alongside Nathan Lee Graham and Wilson Cruz.

[goldenchains2019]

Music: The Chicken Soup for my Soul

Now, Music has been one of my “best friends” in life.

Why best friend? It has been one of the little things in life that have made a great impact in my life. My mom told me she listened to so much music while she was pregnant with me, and both my parents were such big fans of music. So, while growing up I was exposed to so many genres of music.

Imagine a warm day in 2004, mama would be blasting a Kylie Minogue song and 4-year-old Renee would be dancing to it. and imagine a chill day, and my dad just came home from abroad and he blasts Hoobastank and singing along to it even if he is kinda, slightly, tone-deaf (love you, papa. hihi). Those were some instances that I associate music with. I am a very nostalgic person, so I tend to love to listen to old music especially music from the 70s-80s.

Now as I grew up into a young adult, I have grown to love almost every genre. Because if the song has a great vibe, I vibe to it. And there is something about listening to the little things in a song too, like how the beats go, what instruments are used, vocal techniques used, and effects that had been used throughout the song. It’s all fun, really. That’s why I have grown to love singing, dancing, and playing instruments.

You see, at the age of 2 my mom told my mom told me I already picked up the microphone and she taught me how to sing Celine Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On”. That’s where everything kicked off. In 3rd grade I joined the school choir, until I was high school. In the first few years I was a mezzo soprano but now I have shifted to alto. For some reason, I could hit low notes now and I could not fully hit a note with a full voice, I end up using my head voice instead. Trust me, I have no idea why I had a reverse puberty. Or at least I kind of went through a male puberty in the voice department. But hey, I’m still happy I’m able to have a wide range. Funnily enough, over the pandemic, I got to learn the ever famous Mariah Carey dolphin squeak, also known as the whistle note. Now before you go and assume I could flawlessly do it, well, think again! I can’t.. yet.

For instruments, I started out with a toy snare drum, because my mom gave me one. But I later learned I had no sense of rhythm with drums, so I went with a guitar. I know, generic, but at least I can play when given easy chords! There was a time where I tried to learn a song in fingerstyle, but dang it’s difficult! I guess, you can say I’m an intermediate with my guitar skills. Some of the songs I started out with were:

- Speak Now by Taylor Swift

- What’s Going On by the 4 non-blonds

- I’m Yours by Jason Mraz

With piano, I’d say I am a total beginner. I could only play with my right hand and horrendously try with both hands. I like to some melodies on it especially with song that I like at the moment. I some songs (not full, just segments of the songs) I knew were:

- They don’t know about us by One Direction

- Therapy by All Time Low

- I Need U by BTS

And after that started I started to learn the ukulele because it is basically the bass guitar turned smaller and the sound is much higher. In the guitar equivalent, you have to put on capo on the 5th-6thfret to have a similar sound to a ukulele. There’s something about the ukulele that’s so fun and uplifting whenever I play it. The vibe is what makes it so fun to play when you’re about to feel down. Also, recently, I mean in 2020, I bought a kalimba and I swear, it’s so fun, it’s like a piano but make it metal and tiny. It’s how a Ukulele is to a Guitar and how a Kalimba is to a Piano.

Some of the songs I’ve learned on ukulele:

- I’m Yours by Jason Mraz

- I Do Adore by Mindy Gledhill

- Can’t help but falling in love by Elvis Presley

- a medley of K-pop songs to make it look like a whole song

Then on Kalimba:

- Happy Birthday Song

- Black Swan by BTS

- some of the songs I learned on piano too

But of course, I will never not be thankful to have a voice as one of my instruments as well, and honestly, it’s the instrument I use every single day. Every single day, there has not been a day where I have not listened to music, and I sing along to it every time. At this point, I don’t really care if they find me annoying, as long as I get to have fun.

[Also it’s a form of revenge towards my neighbors too, because they are awfully loud, especially the crying children.]

[gracieisnotmuchofawriter]

Alone (Therapists & Children)

A couple years ago, I met someone who meant the world to me. His name was Robin. We sat in that room lit with bright orange lights. Steps ran down to the center where a piano sat. A projector sat atop the ceiling, pointing towards a white sheet just behind the piano. Off to the side sat a shelf with a stereo on top. The walls were dark, brown and obviously made of wood. Squares of foam sat a few inches apart across the walls. The entrance sat off to the side, on the other was a closet that stored all of the chairs. I sat at the back with all of the Mezzo’s. Ms. Curtis had trouble gauging what my range was. We were doing these team building exercises, to find our voices and sync up. When she got to the Mezzo’s she was very disappointed when she found out I had never sang a word in that room. She gave me Mezzo because of my speaking voice. So I sang throughout that hour with everyone who was just now realizing I existed.

  I didn’t sync well with the Alto’s because my voice was a little too high. Finally, she decided I was a Mezzo Soprano, so she grabbed a random Baritone Bass off the shelf to start the usual exercise. He sat down and it was the first time I was ever interested in a boy. He had big brown eyes, messy red curls on his head, all styled forward. He always looked so cool in those blue, slim fit jeans, slip-on Vans, some short sleeved button up shirt. His face wasn’t hard, it was soft but defined. We connected after the teacher found out we both hadn’t sang a word in that room. What started out as a team building exercise turned into another search for this boy’s proper range. She told me to sit back down and—as she put it—“Just, wait until we’re done.”

  When it was all said and done, the bell rang. It was the last hour of the day. Afterward we properly met after school. He walked me to the bank my aunt worked at, our conversation was easy enough. He took me out. It was the first time I wore a dress since I was four. I met his friends, they became my friends. They bought me an Xbox. This boy and I had sex, it was my first time. Then senior year happened. Texting everyday turned into a few texts throughout the evening. Weekends turned into a few texts in either the afternoon or the evening. All of the sudden, in October, he announced he was moving to California to be with his mom and dad. He stopped coming to school. He stopped talking to me. He stopped talking to his friends. Or at least I thought. I remember jumping online, seeing my brother on, he was talking to someone, I could hear him. I thought it was everyone else. It was Robin, the boy I was seeing.

  The next day, it felt like everyone was staring at me. My stomach felt hollow, my heart ached, I felt tired, hungover. I floated through the day, I slept in my history class. My friends (his friends) tried talking to me at lunch, but I couldn’t pay attention. I complained about an upset stomach and called Brielle. Her and her girlfriend picked me up. My room felt so big and empty. The white bumpy walls, the dark brown floors, the glass desk in the corner, the TV just above my dresser in front of my bed. My bed’s white blanket, my tan pillowcases. Everything just looked bland and lifeless. I ignored my brother through the rest of the week. He didn’t do anything wrong, though, he just thought I was still talking to Robin, he didn’t know, no one knew he ignored me like that.

  Today, my heart swelled to the size of a grapefruit. My lungs felt punctured. My chest felt like a cinderblock laid atop of it. I sat in the bathroom heaving, trying to catch my breath. No one heard me, Asha went home for the weekend, the girls on the other side went home as well. The ringing in my ears became louder. A harsh pressure pressed onto my sinus’, tears came out of my eyes. It felt like pins kept stabbing my back and across my shoulders. I laid down on my side, curling up into a ball.

  “Jude’s not the same.” I kept groaning through my heavy sobs.

  Jude went home to Lincoln, to see their family, their siblings. Apparently their brother had a kid recently. Jude left on Thursday, they haven’t texted me back. It’s Saturday.

  My brain kept bringing up terrible thoughts, the more I ignored them the louder they got.

  ‘Jude’s done with you.’

  ‘Jude’s tired of you.’

  ‘Jude’s bored of you.’

  ‘Jude knew you were irritating the day you bitched about lying to your instructor.’

  “No, they’re just busy.”

  “No, they’re just busy.”

  “No, they’re just busy.”

  “No, Jude didn’t care, they really just wanted me to move past it.”

  ‘Jude’s just another Robin. For good reason.’

  ‘Jude should move past you if this is how you react to a couple days of silence.’

  ‘Maybe your mom knew how much of a wreck you are, maybe that’s why she left you.’

  I got off the bathroom floor, I walked into my room, my eyes stung, my back hurt, my stomach hurt. I opened my drawer, finding that pill bottle. “Take one(1) as needed”. I dropped two tablets into my hand, stuffing them into my mouth. I grab my bottle of water, washing the pills down into my stomach. I stumble back, chest still on fire, thoughts still racing. I curl up onto my bed. I want my aunty.

—

“Jude’s memo, September Twenty-Eighth.

‘Eggs, milk, diet soda, Gatorade and a gift for this cute girl I met at school.’ That’s my list for today’s outing. It’s a relatively humid day, my hair feels all flat and my face feels like a cheeseburger. My armpits are kinda yeasty and I don’t care, nothing’s gonna stop me from wearing a tank top today. Anastasia carries my sweater so if those clouds man up and actually do something, I got something to cover up with. Also, I need to pay my phone bill. It’s prepaid, thank god, so no late fees.

I started making these after mom died, our families never been the same. But my brother’s kid being born has done the impossible. I’m driving down to Lincoln to meet up with my sister and we’re gonna go see his beautiful little family. We’re gonna lay our mom to rest, properly this time. When it happened, my siblings and I couldn’t bear to be around each other, we all just saw our mom in each other I guess. Each other. Us. It still really hasn’t hit me that we’re all gonna be in the same room together again. It seems so far away that I’m wondering what Amber might like from Lincoln, what can I find her that she’ll get excited about. Me,

Jaime and Judith are gonna be in a room again but all I can think of is my stupid crush. She’s not stupid, the act of thinking about her over this momentous occasion for the Kent family is strange and dumb.

I don’t know... Amber. She might just be a crush, just a curiosity for the school year, I mean, I’m not even sure if I like graphic design. I like doodling, I like making things, but advertising? Is that me? Maybe Amber is just someone to distract me from those fucking questions, but at the same time, her face keeps popping into my head, I can hear her voice if I just imagine it, I don’t know. She’s much, uh, ‘looser’ these days. She doesn’t seem so tense, so distant. I’ve been sitting next to her in Digital Layout One for the entire year so far, this week was the first time I saw her usually milky face turn colored, splashes of pinks on her cheeks, her lips seem, I don’t know how to describe it, but she seems like there’s just more life to her. Her shoulders slump more, her legs don’t bounce like crazy, her hair sits behind her ears more, she takes off that big ass sweater she’s been wearing. She replaced it with a much more comfortable cardigan. She just seems healthier. Probably because a friend sits next to her. But how ethical is it? I mean, this only started because I have a crush on her. Is this okay? Is it okay to pursue her with the slightest expectation that I might get some coochie at the end of this? The answer is probably no, especially given for the fact that I know next to nothing about her, her past, her wants and her needs. I mean, maybe it’s too early to judge things, perhaps I should slow down this thought of not knowing her well enough, the ethics and just have fun. She likes me well enough, I think. We laugh a lot, she shares her sense of humor with me. I mean, she made a sex joke earlier this week, and it was a fucking cute one at that! Jesus, what do I do? I want McDonald’s, there’s one in Missouri Valley, I’m gonna check it out, give’em a visit, see how those nuggets have been. Does Amber like McDonald’s, I mean we got Chipotle and Taco Bell, she must like McDonald’s. Or maybe she’s just too polite to ask, like I say I want Chipotle and she just goes with it. Maybe these questions are best suited to ask her and not the woman who’s gonna listen to this with me on Monday, Hi Jamie! What do I do? What would my mom say? She’d probably tell me just follow my heart because she really had nothing else to add, she always thought me being wholly queer meant she couldn’t give me adequate advice, but that’s not true, when she did give me advice, it was always fucking good, it was exactly what I needed to hear, even if I didn’t want to hear it. I know examples would be better, but, this recording is getting a little long. My mind is a bit wild today. From meeting Amber, to my brother and his girlfriend finally popping that kid out, getting to see my sister Judith after four fucking years. Maybe the reality of seeing everyone is actually hitting me, maybe I am really nervous and I’m just trying to use Amber as a shield from all of this.”

[verdiprati]

Yet more “ask verdiprati”

Continuing the series and catching up on some questions I promised to answer a year ago . . .

Q: I know you kind of answer this in your "about me" section but I've always been curious as to what draws non-singers to opera. What specifically about the art form is the biggest draw for you? In a similar vein: seeing as you aren't a singer are there some things about opera that you wish you understood but just can't quite get a grasp of? Basically do you feel that not being a musician hinders your enjoyment of opera in any way? 

A: It is hard to say what is the biggest draw for me! I have always really liked baroque instrumental music a lot, but I also like most of the historical range of instrumental “classical music,” from early (western) music to Mozart, Beethoven, and Tchaikovsky to Joaquín Rodrigo and Aaron Copland. So I am not sure why baroque opera utterly transfixed me the first time I heard it while years of standard Met Opera fare on the radio (plus a little exposure to live opera performances: Don Giovanni, Die Zauberflöte, and Carmen) left me only mildly interested. There is something about the individuality and expressiveness of the human voice in opera that I now find very absorbing, and for some reason that plus the baroque musical aesthetic was the right combination to draw me in. 

I like highly formal poetry, too: Pope, Milton, Shakespeare, Donne. Perhaps there is something about the combination of music and text in baroque opera that made it “click” for me even though I could not understand the Italian in Alcina, the opera that first hooked me. I think I also like the strong rhythms and repeating structures typical of the baroque; they may plug into the same part of my brain that appreciates a well-constructed sonnet or heroic couplet.

I was pretty strictly a baroque-only opera enthusiast up until I went head over heels for my current favorite singer. She has really opened my mind to new things; I would never have gone to see Berg’s Lulu or Brett Dean’s Hamlet if she were not involved. (I still would not listen to either of those operas repeatedly the way I have listened to operas by Handel, Monteverdi, Lully, and Rameau over and over.)

I have definitely noticed that there is a preponderance of singers and other musicians among the younger (I can’t say “under 40″ anymore . . . let’s say “under 50″) opera crowd, and I am a bit of a strange beast for knowing almost nothing of music theory. I sometimes do feel that not being a musician hinders my enjoyment of opera, especially when music critics or other fans online discuss a performance in technical terms that I do not understand very well. I am sure I am missing out on layers of appreciation because I do not know how to analyze what I am hearing musically; I enjoy formal English poetry a great deal in part because I have been well trained in identifying poetic elements like chiasmus and zeugma, and I appreciate them when they are used really well. I think I also sometimes fail to appreciate the technical demands of a piece—it is not always obvious to me what passages of music are especially difficult to perform.

At the same time, I think it is nice that opera is a purely recreational enjoyment for me. My professional life is entirely unrelated. When I travel for opera, it is VACATION TIME. When I interact with opera singers, I am never hoping for the slightest wisp of professional, technical, or artistic advice; my presence is merely social and I can devote my attention entirely to appreciating them. Sometimes when I meet new people on the opera scene they ask “Are you a singer?” I always say “NO no no no nooooooo, I do not sing at all. But I am a very good audience member.”

Q: Who's your second favorite mezzo ;) (Or alternatively, your favorite historical singer)

A: Oh man, there are so many good mezzos, it is hard to pick one whom I would nominate as the runner-up to my current fave. Susan Graham was my first favorite mezzo, thanks to her Ruggiero on the Les Arts Florissants Alcina recording, and I maintain a warm admiration for her. Lorraine Hunt Lieberson was also someone I discovered early on in my life as an opera fan (in the DVD of Glyndebourne’s landmark Theodora), and I think she was quite wonderful; I am sorry I never saw her in performance. I also want to name Dorothea Röschmann even though she is a soprano; she has a dark, textural tone to her voice that sounds mezzo-ish to me. I would class her with Sarah Connolly and Christian Gerhaher as the best recitalists I’ve ever heard in live performance. And finally on this very crowded “second place” platform I would want to find room for Sonia Prina, if we count contraltos as a breed of mezzo. She has an un-pretty sound that rubs some people the wrong way but I’ve found her riveting as a character performer.

Nice alternate question about historical singers. I have not listened to a lot of historical recordings but my father’s music collection—which I listened to a lot while growing up—included two much-treasured LPs of Elizabethan English song performed by Alfred Deller, so I hold a special place in my heart for Deller in that repertoire.

Q: Hmmm... favourite opera? If you could interview/talk to one opera-involved person, who would it be (or do I even need to ask) and what would you talk to them about, ask them, etc?

A: Favorite opera is always a toss-up between Alcina and Semele. 

If you had asked me the second question back when I started this blog, the answer would have been that I was dying to talk to Sarah Connolly. I have now had that opportunity on many occasions, and I am not sure whom else I would want to talk to next! 

One burning question I’ve not yet asked Dame Sarah is what the heck is the beaded / be-chained / epauletted . . . thing she is wearing in the two headshots by Peter Warren that she used for several years. Is it considered a necklace? A capelet? A collar? Is it part of the dress she is wearing, or a separate piece layered on top of a strapless dress? (Is that even a dress? One cannot tell from the photos. It could be a bustier.) Who designed it? Does she own it, or was it borrowed for the photo shoot? Has she ever performed in it? I have never seen anyone else wearing anything remotely like it. It is so perfectly Sarah: she has a knack for carrying off dramatic jewelry, and this piece mixes fine craftsmanship and traditionally feminine details with a vaguely military or masculine shape (the suggestion of epaulettes and the placket of a dress uniform jacket down the front). 

You were perhaps expecting a more profound question about onstage artistry. What can I say? Fashion is a lot of fun to talk about. (I think Dame Sarah would agree.)