Priscilla Queen Of The Desert (Original Cast Recording)

This is one of those albums. On the top of the insert it says "Relive the Experience" and then the logo for Priscilla: Queen of the Desert: The Musical, and then at the very bottom in small print it states, "Music Inspired by the Australian Stage Musical." Now this is curious, right? It's not the musical, not a cast recording, but a 39-cut anthology of tunes "inspired by" the musical. Impossible, since the vast majority of these songs, by people like Donna Summer, Petula Clark, Bananarama, Kool & the Gang, the Commodores, Peaches & Herb, Elvis Presley, Rose Royce and so many others were recorded decades before the musical. No truth in advertising here. That said, much of the musical was inspired by the experience of this music, and Priscilla is a pretty hip compilation of pop and soul from the '60s through the '90s. You can find all of these cuts on some compilation, most of them readily, but to have them all in one place like this -- how often can you run across Clark's "Downtown" on the same set as Smokey Robinson's "I Second That Emotion," or Summer's single version of "MacArthur Park," or Womack & Womack's awesome "Teardrops"? Oh; there's more, like Dame Joan Sutherland's and Luciano Pavarotti's love song from Verdi's La Traviata, and Pat Benatar's "We Belong," or Lipps, Inc's "Funkytown." In other words, despite the fact that this isn't a cast recording, you can relive the experience or else just boogie your ass off to most of this music. This suits the purpose of a comp even if there is a little deceit involved. ~ Thom Jurek