Specifically, it reminded me of Danny's So-Lo album cover, especially in the color scheme and zigzag/jagged lines. Definitely made me do a double take at the laundromat when I first saw it! 😆 (Also, I just now noticed it has a "No AI" marker in the corner. Good on them).
So this has been on my mind for several months now, and since joining the community, I thought I'd ask your guys' opinion.
Last spring I was reminded that the Phantom Reviewer, an "older," YouTuber known for his focus on Phantom of the Opera media, once made a comparison of the song "The Beauty Underneath," from Love Never Dies (ALW's infamous POTO sequel) to "Insanity," by Oingo Boingo. A comparison that pre-teen me originally didn't register at the time and just nodded along to in agreement, but now 20's me is all like, "Oh my God, no freaking way!" (Especially since, within the same video, he'd already compared "Beneath a Moonless Sky," to "Sally's Song). It also made me smile, proving PR has good music taste.
Specifically, he compared the lines: "Like a wave we cannot see, watching over you and me," from Insanity to "When you stare behind the night, can you glimpse its primal might?" from TBU. Give both songs a listen and get an idea for yourself. Or, if you want to check out the original video containing the direct comparison, here's the link:
Love Never Dies London Review 2 of 4 - (Minute marker: 25:30 to 25:52)
Either way though, one thing that IS for certain for me is that TBU absolutely resembles the vibe and structure as "Mike Teavee," from Charlie & the Chocolate Factory (2005), once directly referred to as "the Oingo Boingo Reunion Tour," song by YT reviewer Bobsheaux. And it was my dancing to that song as a kid that paved the way to me adoring TBU in my teens...to the point I mixed them into an awesome YT mash-up last month. 😆😉
Kind of love how he's just looming over me in the background like a horror movie villain lol, and I'm posing with the tote bag I got as part of my merch. ❤️
Also, yesterday I uploaded all my recordings from up in the mezzanine to my YT channel (not the whole show, btw, I had limited space/battery life), so if anyone wants to hear me singing along with "This is Halloween," or occasionally making quips at the fun things he says, feel free. 😆
Bought my tickets last Monday and the show is this Saturday. The center seats were sold out, and the rows in this section were at a decent price that didn't cost an arm and a leg while also still providing a solid view. Plus, I just wanted to be able to fulfill my niche. Seeing Danny Elfman in concert while in view of Box 5? Um, yes please! But if the reason Box 5 is unavailable because people are occupying it and something happens to go weird during the show, I'll know who to blame (half-joking). 😆😉
Edit: Should also mention that Boston is where I bought my copy of the POTO Original Cast Recording CD when I was 14. 😊
Don't mind Jack Sparrow chilling inside here too lol. Tbh I would've given this first place but second is good too! ☕✂️🍭🏴☠️
I grew up knowing who Danny Elfman was for much of my life, after my mom explained to me how he and Tim Burton work together all the time. Which I think originally came from me reading the Main Titles of one of Burton's films and remarking that I thought his last name was funny. (Cut me a break, I was like 5). Both of whom she was clearly a fan of, so naturally, due to our close relationship, I became fans of them (+ their partnership) as well. However, I always thought I didn't know about Oingo Boingo until I was 12 years old, when Mom bought a TNBC CD to play at Halloween for the tricker-or-treaters at the townhouse community we moved into at the time, and my pre-teen mind was blown reading the credits inside and finding out Danny was the singing voice for Jack Skellington. I exclaimed to her in shocked disbelief, "I've been hearing him this whole time?!" and she replied gently, "Yes, honey, he was the lead singer of a band called Oingo Boingo." Naturally, the name made me giggle, but also felt strangely fitting for what I knew about him. (Which, at the time, largely came down to his work with Burton and the Tales from the Crypt theme).
Buuuutt apparently, I just learned last week from checking out more Boingo in the last year, that I've *always* known at least one of their songs, even before my dad first played "Dead Man's Party," for me. I listened to "Little Guns," after finding a mash-up with it set to "Lose Yourself," by Eminem, and those first 30 seconds instilled a feeling of recognition, followed by a sudden full-on childhood memory in me as I realized, "OH MY GOD, I KNOW THIS SONG!!!" 😲
I'm about 6 or 7 and laying on the couch with the lights off in our living room while my mom's Aiwa sound system (not the exact one I have pictured, but same model) rolls its little "slot machine," animation against the music, glowing in the dark and entrancing me with the pattern of numbers that would come up, as well as the fact that I always thought the circle of CD outlines in the left corner looked like a face. And it was "Little Guns," playing in the background, particularly its opening instrumental, that made it feel especially "alive," to me, like the stereo had its own weird little world going on. To the point I even dreamt about being inside it once. If you can't tell, I had an active imagination growing up. 😆
I mean I guess it isn't all that surprising, given the "Good for Your Soul," artwork definitely looks familiar to me, and I know for a fact I saw the "Nothing to Fear," artwork as a tape inside my dad's collection at one point. (Neither are images you're likely to forget, especially the latter). But still, it took me out so bad realizing I'd had an Oingo Boingo secretly locked away inside the back of my head this whole time, waiting for the right time to be once again realized. 😝
On that note: sorry Mom, clearly you'd already been playing OB for me as a kid, and it took me this long to realize it. 🙃
I've been listening to "The Beauty Underneath," from Love Never Dies a lot lately because I've been planning a song mash-up for it, and between the two main versions of its original version (meaning before the 2018 re-working), I've concluded that Ramin sings it like a dad who doubles as a creepy carnival guy, while Ben (RIP) sings it as a creepy carnival guy who's also now apparently a dad. They're both inviting Gustave to indulge in their worlds, but while Ramin's is presented as upbeat and encouraging, Ben's is much more ominous and challenging.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying one version is necessarily better than the other because they both slap, it's just an observation I've since made.
Full intended caption: "His ghost coming into my room, and I wake up in the middle of the night to him going, 'You little a-hole, what have you done?'"
A sequel to my original "I hate it when an a-hole like that is actually talented," quote meme, also originally from a Danny Elfman interview. Can't believe I found another one but this is immediately where my head went. 😆
Fitting too, as I'm set to see Danny play in Boston on 9/12, and I'll be four rows away from that theater's Box 5! 😉✨
The fact that this video was in black-and-white also helps lol.
Some of you may recall when I posted about how "Beneath a Moonless Sky," sounds like "Sally's Song," a few months ago. Well...turns out that rabbit-hole goes deeper than I initially thought (who's surprised). And in the process, it made me realize the musical connection between the much maligned "Bathing Beauty," to the (mostly) beloved "Beauty Underneath."
Unfortunately, I'm no music expert so I won't be able to explain it in official terms (I know, how fun this must be for me), so I'll try to keep it simple. BB and BU follow a similar syllable and note structure when you break them down and really listen to each word as you sing. For example, compare "When the dark unfolds its wings, do you sense the strangest things?" to "Bathing beauty, on the beach. Bathing beauty, watch her go." They both follow a "low, high, low, high," inter-change note pattern in these bars, as well as each coming out to 14 syllables, though obviously there's some kind of scale difference.
But most importantly, their main musical through-line is that they're both near-perfectly in-line with the song "Insanity," by Oingo Boingo. Phantom Reviewer said as much about Beauty Underneath in Part 2 of his original Love Never Dies London review, which after comparing them for myself, I definitely agree with now. HOWEVER, he missed the fact that Bathing Beauty fits into it too! Hear me out. That one I discovered on my own while listening to "Insanity," and cracking a BB joke when the kid chorus sings "Say Hello," only to go, "Wait, HOLD UP." Not to mention there's a lyric where they sing, "Bathe in it and be reborn," so that didn't help. And sure enough, upon examination, it fit alongside the "low, high," note pattern and syllable structure I discussed. To the point I got creative and created this little mash-up (of sorts). I dare you to tell me it doesn't weirdly work (while also making BB sound marginally better). My apologies to Danny Elfman. 😆
Insanity by Oingo Boingo but a Bathing Beauty says "Hello!" 💀
I understand the popular head-canon is to say Meg wrote it in an attempt to get her big break, hence why Erik didn't bother to attend the performance, and I agree that'd make more sense. But at the same time, I kind of dig the idea that in the music he writes purely for financial support, he presents a superficial, more widely accepted type of beauty, but when he's allowed to be his true unfiltered self, Erik sings the praises of the beauty few truly see unless they have the mind and sight for it. Feels pretty in-character for him tbh (as much as we can say about his depiction in LND, that is). Although it IS pretty funny to imagine Meg trying to learn how to compose to impress Erik and when she confronts him at the end of the show she's all like 🎵"I proved I can do what you do, I can rip off Oingo Boingo too!"🎵
What do you guys think?