StreamingSoundtracks.com - Little Shop Of Horrors

#	Track Listing	Length	Played
01	Prologue (Little Shop Of Horrors) Alan Menken, Howard Ashman	3:26	94
02	Skid Row (Downtown) Alan Menken, Howard Ashman	4:16	155
03	Da-Doo Alan Menken, Howard Ashman	1:24	28
04	Grow For Me Alan Menken, Howard Ashman	2:24	32
05	Somewhere That's Green Alan Menken, Howard Ashman	3:48	78
06	Some Fun Now Alan Menken, Howard Ashman	2:14	19
07	Dentist! Alan Menken, Howard Ashman	2:26	121
08	Feed Me (Git It) Alan Menken, Howard Ashman	3:24	84
09	Suddenly, Seymour Alan Menken, Howard Ashman	3:25	122
10	Suppertime Alan Menken, Howard Ashman	1:58	25
11	The Meek Shall Inherit Alan Menken, Howard Ashman	3:21	32
13	Finale (Don't Feed The Plants) Alan Menken, Howard Ashman	1:30	20

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Reviewers Rating

2 reviews done for this album.

Possibly a perfect musical

By:	LadyInque
Date:	13 Mar 2011
Rating:

I submit to you that Little Shop of Horrors, with music by Alan Menken and lyrics by Howard Ashman, is, quite possibly, a perfect musical. You may think this a strange way to describe a movie, adapted from an off-Broadway play, about “A boy, a girl, and a man-eating plant.” Some members of SST don’t feel musicals belong here, and that’s a fair point. But in terms of craft — music and lyrics combined to tell a story — this is truly an excellent work.

Many people know Menken from his work on Disney movies like The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast, for which he wrote both the songs and the score. Little Shop takes place in the 60s, and Menken uses period musical elements throughout his catchy score. For example, the female chorus (name Chiffon, Ronette and Crystal in an homage to Motown) narrates the story with a rock/gospel style, a device Menken would revisit with his songs for Disney’s Hercules. Ashman, Menken’s songwriting partner until his unfortunate death, was probably one of the best lyricists in the business. His lyrics seem effortless.

At this point, I could give you a rundown of the highlights of the album. Instead, I would like to look at one track in particular as an example of why this musical is so good. In “Feed Me/Get it,” the alien plant, Audrey II (voiced by Levi Stubbs), convinces a reluctant Seymour (performed by Rick Moranis) to bring him more of the human blood he requires, by murder if necessary. The song begins with Audrey II singing its signature line, “Feed me, Seymour. Feed me all night long,” accompanied by menacing bass guitar and drums. The music is by turns funky, smooth and urgent. The lyrics are clever, with rhymes that are intricate and scan, as the plant promises wealth, power, and sex. The price is simple. “You know what kind of eats / What kind of red-hot treats / What kind of sticky-licky sweets I crave!”

Then we have a bridge where Seymour laments the choice before him. “I have so many strong reservations,” he sings, his prosaic lyrics purposefully contrasted with the melodramatic music for comic effect. Having music and lyrics give the artists two dimensions to play with, something you don’t get with score alone. The plant keeps at him, pointing out that some people warrant a harsh fate. “If you wanna be profound / If you really gotta justify / Take a breath and look around. / A lot of folks deserve to die!”

Seymour disagrees, but after the spoken-word interlude, in which we hear the evil dentist, Scrivello (Steve Martin) verbally and physically abuse Audrey (Ellen Greene), Seymour’s crush, Seymour comes around to the plant’s way of thinking. This is a major turning point in the plot, which the music shows with a repeated, intensifying vamp that leads us into the song’s climax. Seymour and the plant reprise the plant’s earlier sentiment. A lesser lyricist might have just repeated the lyrics, but Ashman switches them up: “If you want a rationale, / It isn’t very hard to see…” The music is at its fullest here, with the female chorus in the background, and the dentist’s fate is sealed.

This is what the songs in a musical are supposed to do: tell us about the characters and their motivations while moving the plot along. There are other great songs on this soundtrack that do the same thing. They’re fun, and the cast is stellar. If you don’t like musicals, well, I don’t know what to tell you. But if you do like them, and want to hear what the great ones can do, listen to Little Shop of Horrors.

Request: There are too many good tracks to list. Almost all of them show the great skill with which this show was written. “Suddenly Seymour” is a powerful love song. I like the lyrics on “Grow for Me.” “Dentist!” is funny, though it may make you look twice at yours.

Avoid: “Suppertime.” This scene from the movie gave me nightmares, so maybe that’s why I don’t like it. “Don’t Feed the Plants” comes from the rejected final scene of the movie, in which Audrey II eats Seymour and Audrey and takes over the world.

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Suppertime is the best track!

By:	Taxihunter
Date:	27 Jan 2016
Rating:

LadyInque wrote a wonderful review above. I would not waste any more keystrokes trying to convince anyone about the perfection of this musical.

My only beef: Suppertime is the perfect track to remind the viewer/listener exactly what the film is. A haunting melody with the most sublimely evil lyrics:

"Come on, come on,
Think about all those offers
Come on, come on,
Your future with Audrey
Come on, come on,
Ain't no time to turn squeamish
Come on, I swear on all my spores,
When he's gone the world will be yours..."

This is what the whole musical was about, and this song, while truly nightmarish, is what we are really watching in Little Shop of HORRORS: a horror film with great music & lyrics.

RIP Howard Ashman. You were a lyrical genius.

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