Musicals

OK look I'm only going to say this once, so you dipshits can just stop bringing it up.

I hate musicals. I am 47 years old, I have been passionate about music since I was a little kid. Music is my thing. I hate musicals. I will never like them. Yes, I've tried, over and over for decades. Sorry.

I'm not going to go into how 98% of the people yapping at me like deranged tiny dogs get incredibly defensive and mad when I say to them, why don't you like eating a handful of OTC ephedrine and going to a punk rock show. Why don't you like going to live shows. Why don't you like loud music. Why don't you like doing drugs. Drugs are fun. A lot more people like drugs than musicals. Why can't you just spend a bunch of your time and effort trying to appreciate a band called Butt Trumpet while on cheap speed you bought from a biker in a gas station bathroom. Why can't you do that? Lots of people like that. Et mother fucking cetera.

So the short story is, I hate musicals, I will never like musicals, they're stupid and bad and dumb and you are stupid and bad and dumb for liking them and never shutting up about how if I just listen to THIS ONE I'll suddenly change my mind. Spoiler alert: I won't. That ship has sailed. Stop trying.

If you'd like the more nuanced take, well ... OK I still dislike musicals. But, like:

• Hamilton really did a great job in creating what could have been another dumb aria-fest with hip-hop and a genuinely fresh approach to the performance and material. Still don't like it.
• Rachel Bloom is a hilarious genius. Nearly every bit from her show is just laugh-out-loud funny. Also they go on for about a minute or two too long - a necessity of building them into 3 minute pop songs when they're really standup bits set to music. I have watched a lot to see if there's some big payoff at the end, and there rarely is. You can bail 2/3s of the way through, you got the joke, the best bits are usually in the first chorus.
• Like I said above, the Once More, With Feeling episode of Buffy contextualized the sudden onset of a musical in-universe as horror. But, most of the songs are forgettable and the best bits are usually not in the songs, and really you're sitting through a bunch of songs to get to the 4-word payoff of the entire bit.
• Les Mis is probably better as a musical, I'll give you that. Hugo is a big name for a reason but that story is .... Kinda dry. I still can't seem to give a shit about it as a musical. See, they're just not my thing.
• I've seen bits of Cabaret and it can be a visual wonder, like, just an amazing stage performance. Also I don't give a fuck about any of it. (Probably the same for, like, Chicago and a few others)
• I kinda enjoyed Rocky Horror, but not so much for the music or the performance or whatever, but it was a great way to meet girls and buy drugs.
• And before you ask no I don't like the Green Day musical or any other thing that strays near my "preferred" genres. You see, I do not like musicals.

Which is to say, the format of musical is, to me, bad. I can absolutely recognize strong performances, great set and production design, good choreography, and catchy tunes. I am under no circumstance required to want anything to do with it. That's how nuance works. If you can't understand what nuance is or allow it to exist, please try not being a goddamned child.