ALW isn’t bad because he lacks skill or writes simple songs. He’s bad (on the whole) because of his lowbrow sensibilities.
Showtunes are not symphonies, but they are still good art. Someone mentioned the blues; that can be good art too. Nor do I consider listening to Frank Loesser’s or Robert Johnson’s songs a “guilty pleasure.” They are masters in complete control of their craft.
ALW’s songs simply exhibit poor, vulgar taste. Lowbrowness itself can be used to delicious effect when it is done right, so even this isn’t a sufficient condition to damn him. No, the real thing about ALW is that his songs, while lowbrow and just pretty damn dumb, are always stretching beyond their reach for the deep meaning or pithy sentiment.
A rap song that is down and dirty has no pretensions and can be enjoyed on those terms. “Music of the Night,” however, is going for… I don’t know what the fuck what. The music and lyrics in combination show the most distorted sense of what might be frightening, meaningful, tasteful. It’s Baroque bullshit.
I think what infuriates us is this: that same bullshit music and lyrics appeal to people with poor taste, who are looking for a musical that shouts “Elegant!” and “Meaningful!” and think Webber provides it. It truly is the musical equivalent of a T. Kinkade painting on a person’s living room wall. They don’t fucking know any better and look like morons precisely because they THINK, CLAIM, and LOVINGLY COO that ALW’s and TK’s products are the real thing.
It does NOT follow from that that people who listen to top-40 pop are equally moronic. Pop music often delivers the thrill of catchiness, and even not so rarely it can be art within its particular dimension. Further, most pop listeners aren’t thinking about it, aren’t worried about what is art and what isn’t. If anything, they probably assume (not quite correctly) that pop just isn’t as good as classical, or whatever, and they live with it.
As for skill, ALW has the skill of writing a good, organic melody, a melody in which all the parts seem perfectly designed for each other. “Memory” is one such song. As a melody, it’s a masterpiece. The lyrics and method of delivery turn it into corny stuff, but it’s still something to hear. You put one song like that in a musical and you’re likely to have a hit.
Of course, most of his songs are suckage through and through. I don’t find him to be consistently good at all.
Sondheim has his own issues. He’s so brilliant that he hasn’t condescended to write a catchy tune since “Forum.” “Send in the Clowns” was lucky–it’s a subtle, sophisticated song that by accident had an unorthodox downtempo melody that just happend to have “It” (but I don’t think it has that total organic quality).
(sorry, uber-Springsteen fan here)
