Oh, and I dislike the new Annie recording intensely. More thoughts, perhaps, after I've had a chance to finish the whole thing.
I've given the new recording a few casual listens myself, and I'm not sure I like it or not. -And it's been interesting reading some of the online reactions and reviews too. It sounds OK, but... Well.. I've never been such a big fan of the show as it is so...
The voices, in general, sound a bit too closely mic'd, and I would have also preferred a little bit more "bloom" around the vocals. They also seemed to be EQ'd toward the high end. -The girl playing Annie is, unfortunately, a sort of casualty of the EQ since so much of the orphan's writing, in general, is on the high side of things. (I always get shocked when I see the original key for "It's A Hard Knock Life"!) The orchestra sounds good, but the over-abundance of strings - and the extra brass - tend to add bit too much at times - the big endings are REALLY BIG!
Annie just doesn't work well with the "symphonic" treatment. -At least a symphonic treatment of the original orchestrations.
And then there's the second disc of
Annie 2 material... Complete with narration and "interruptions" by Carol Burnett and Martin Charnin...
And the cover art for
Annie 2 - a battered and bruised and bandaged Little Orphan Annie - is also a bit funny and sort of disturbing too.
