I thought you liked musical theatre, Mintball...?

What snobbery. At his peak, Lloyd Webber wrote some of the most memorable and successful musical theatre songs ever, so his 'credibility' is hardly in any doubt. And in my book, songs like Memory, I Don't Know How To Love Him, Music Of the Night etc. are actually brilliant popular music, and have more than stood the test of time.



They make money. Maybe not much, and lord knows how, but credit where it's due, with no discernable talent except to annoy, they've managed to earn a living, when they clearly should be unemployable dole spongers.

And you have to admit, releasing them onto Eurovision is delicious

Totally agree with that. I tend to prefer Boublil & Schoenberg personally, but you can't deny that ALW has the ability to write spine tingling music with just the right amount of scmaltz to make it popular listening. That takes a hell of a lot of talent.

So if I've got this right, the Irish picked Jedward last year and have done so again this year?

Yes. I do. That's the point.



Yeah. He can manage one vaguely reasonable tune per show – the ones you mention are from his better era, when he had a lyricist who managed to inject some quality into their combined work.

But it's still only a tune a show – and that sort of a ratio is smashed into the middle of next week by the likes of Rogers & Hammerstein, Lerner & Loewe, Kander & Ebb, the Gershwins, Cole Porter and many more, who produced truly great popular music that really has stood the test of time over a number of generations.

Lloyd Webber, together with Schönberg and Boublil (who can manage a hardly better rate than LW – does anyone remember a single song from Miss Saignon? Les Mis has three at a push[/i]) helped create the template for a musical theatre that is formulaic but with barely even one really great, get-up-and-sing-it tune to compensate.

People might not be fans of Rogers and Hammerstein, but any one of their five biggest shows has a whole raft of songs that have entered the popular consciousness. That, my friend, is great popular music. And it is not snobbishness.

With a vengeance,

I can't possibly agree with that, except the Rogers and Hammerstein bit, which I don't have enough knowledge of.

Take Phantom of the Opera. Virtually anyone, familar or not, could name the title song, Music of the Night, All I ask of you and Masquerade as being part of that show. Evita has Oh What a Circus, Another Suitcase in Another Hall and Don't Cry for Me Argentina - everyone knows them. That's just TWO shows.

And so what if he 'needed' a lyricist. Lyrics finish a song off, yes, but the hook and arrangement are what you remember.

As for Boublil & Schoenberg, I'm sure anyone who's watched Miss Saigon will remember American Dream, Movie in my Mind and the one I can't pronounce. As for Les Mis - well your comment is just daft. Lets see; At The End of The Day, Bring HIm Home, Empty Chairs at Empty Tables, I dreamed a dream, Master of the House and On My Own are world famous songs in their own right.

Anyone who questions that quality is just a snob, as were the original reviewers of Les Mis, who famously panned it. Shows what they know, eh?

The final argument there doesn't work – any more than saying that, because it sells a lot, the Sun is the greatest newspaper in the UK or McDonalds is the best restaurant.

I made a qualification for Les Mis – see above. Personally, I remember Master of the House, the dream one and, I think, the act one close, which seemed to me to be the one really spine-tingling moment in the entire show.

But you don't have to have seen any Rogers and Hammerstein to have heard the tunes – unlike what you're asserting here with Miss Saignon.

There Is Nothing Like a Dame, You'll Never Walk Alone, My Favourite Things, Oklahoma!, The March of the Siamese Children – these are part of a widespread popular cultural currency. You might not have heard them in their original context, but you'll have heard them. They've been part of a soundtrack to western (certainly English-speaking) life for 40 years and more.

Goodness – almost the entire score of The Sound of Music alone is popular currency – and whether one likes it or not is beside the point.

And you will know Gershwin and Porter songs – unless you are a total cultural illiterate (and no, I am not posting that as an insult). Their work – like many of R&H's songs – has spread itself beyond the boundaries of an actual stage show or film.

For goodness sake, if someone doesn't have even a vague awareness of Summertime, they need shooting. If you want to hear really top-notch popular music, listen to the Gershwin or the Porter Songbooks, recorded by Ella Fitzgerald. This is stuff that people still sing and people still record.

As for lyricists – well, I scarcely know what to say if you really think that.

I've Got a Little List would be no different without the words (and Gilbert & Sullivan are one of the harbingers of the modern musical theatre). All the songs from Cabaret – the words tell us nothing; they add nothing to the story. Nobody on the Kop actually bothers singing the words of You'll Never Walk Alone – they adopted it as a club anthem for the music alone so they actually just go 'la la la la la' ...

And god help us if this is snobbery. Because it will simply indicate just how far down the path of mediocrity and dross we have gone.

More so if you can imagine that the woki sounds like fookin'.
Listen to it again.

I am clearly virtually noboby! Could not in a million years have named those songs from PoO (no pun intended). Even when you've written them down they mean nothing to me. I concede if I heard the main one(s) I would no doubt recognise it (them), but names , no. From Evita, I could only name Don't Cry for Me Argentina.

Mind you, I have heard of ALL the R&H ones that Mintball listed. That though is probably due to the power of film.