Coming Around to Next to Normal

First, I'm trying to win tickets to see In the Heights, when it comes to LA next summer. If you could spare a couple seconds and just click this link, I would really appreciate it.

Now, moving on... Over the past few days I’ve been listening to the cast recording of “Next to Normal” on repeat. And for most of that time I was still trying to decide if I actually liked it or not.

I first gave the musical a listen in May, on a long bus ride. Earlier that day I had listened to “The Last 5 Years” for the first time as well, and was hooked from the first song. “Next to Normal,” on the other hand, failed to hold my attention.

So it wasn’t until the past week or so that I really gave it another chance, and it was partially because I was just looking for something new to listen to. One time through, still nothing. Second time, zip. Third… one of the songs actually stuck, “Superboy and the Invisible Girl.” So I listened to that one on repeat for a while (and learned all the lyrics, and scribbled them in the margins of my notebooks) before returning to the rest of the CD.

And now, according to the play count on iTunes, I’m on my 15th listen of the whole thing. In addition to “Superboy,” many of the other songs have also lodged themselves into my head. Once you've listened to something so many times, the melodies start to stick.

But it's not really the music itself that's finally gotten to me, but rather the story and characters behind it. Natalie especially stood out, first in "Superboy," then in "Everything Else," and just her sarcastic comments in general ("It's going well..."). And then after that, it took a few more listens to better understand the parallels between Henry and Natalie, and Dan and Diana. It probably wouldn't taken so long had I been paying full attention to the music, but I simply let it play while I did other things.

I still wouldn't say that I'm in love with the show, but I like it a lot more now than I did after my initial listen, during the summer. And it's gone from a show I'd see just because I've heard it's good, to a show I really would like to see. Hopefully someday I'll get the chance.