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Ok, in prepping a CD for a party I'm going to tonight that has a Tim Burton theme, I have listened to all of The Nightmare Before Christmas and I've arrived at the problem some people have with the songs ....
.... they're not sung.
There are ten songs, Jack is the lead or only vocalist on 6 of them. He Rex Harrisons through each of these, only breaking into song for tiny smidges. The rest is all spoke-sung.
Ditto with Oogie on his song, and Lock, Shock and Barrel on Kidnap the Sandy Claws, where only the chorus is actually sung. On Making Christmas, the company sings the chorus, and the rest is Rex Harrisoned by Jack. Similarly, he sings only the chorus of Jack's Lament, and speaks the rest.
The melodies of these songs are carried solely by Danny Elfman's score. This is very unusual, and I can see how an initial reaction would be to find the songs tiresome. They certainly are odd in this way.
I've come to rather like them, though. Perhaps the spoken cadence of the songs is a way to properly translate the source material, which was - of course - a poem on the order of Twas The Night Before Christmas crossed with Dr. Suess. Perhaps cadence-speak gets this concept across better than actual singing. Who knows?
In any case, with the songs largely spoken, not much straight dialogue outside those spoken songs, and wall-to-wall musical score that permeates the entire piece, it really is much more of a strange operetta than the standard musical that some may have been expecting.
It's really got its own unique style. I, too, found it offputting at first. But the basic story, the visuals, the characters, and the enjoyable music sucked me in for repeat viewings ... and I grew to quickly love the quirky song-things.
Yep, definitely going to see an El Cap matinee on Halloween.
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