Customer Reviews:
 "The Best"ÿ January 4, 2000
6 out of 8 found this review helpful
I am/was in the play Evita for our Community and I have to say, this is the best music ever!I listen to this CD 24-7! I love the movie and I think that everyone who is interested in musicials or if you like them go out and buy this CD it's the best ever! I have all of the different copies of the Evita soundtrack including the Broadway version but this tops them all!
 Madonna shows us that she can actually sing, really sing! May 9, 1998
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
Listening to Madonna's "Evita" Complete Motion Picture Music Soundtrack evokes the same feeling that one gets when watching the movie: "Can this really be...MADONNA?"! Well, it is she, in all her expected self-absorbed glory, but with a twist. The girl can sing; she really can. I confess that I'm no great fan of the New Queen of Pop -- oh, I admire her spunk, her business acumen, her cultural iconoclasm, her in-your-face sexuality, and her identity-of-the-month publicity personas -- she's so easily dismissed as just another Cindy Lauper with better "people." But, dammit, when you listen to this "Evita," you come away thinking, "Wow, she really can sing." And sing she does. And she can sing good stuff, too. Andrew Lloyd Webber is as close to American classical legend as one gets, post World War II, and he doesn't write commercial jingles; he writes music. Madonna appreciates this fact, and she treats his music with a reverence and style (without pretension) that I would have never expected. I will not comment further on the quality of the Evita musical score in general (it is an accepted great work of American musical artistry), but I will say that Madonna's renditions of it are exquisite -- she gives us a passion, a caring, a personal experience, a love for the music she's performing that is nothing short of captivating.Madonna's treatment of "Evita" is not for Madonna's traditional (or perhaps I really mean stereotypical) fans; it is for fans of good music. That those two worlds collide in this CD is testament to the talent that Her Majesty would be well served to demonstrate more often. Good job Material Girl: I didn't think you could do it, but you did.
 Madonna does a nice job but, the Broadway Cast does it BEST December 23, 1999
6 out of 7 found this review helpful
Madonna and Antonio Banderas do a nice job. But, their performances lack the power and emotion of the Broadway Cast. You have try the Broadway version with Patti LuPone and Mandy Patinkin.
Fantastic Orchestration makes up the weak vocals October 25, 2000
6 out of 8 found this review helpful
Every time I listen to this soundtrack I am more and more impressed by the orchestrations done by Andrew Lloyd Webber and David Cullen. One of the nicest things about turning a Broadway musical into a Hollywood film is that you finally have a full studio orchestra playing the music instead of just the musicians you can afford to stuff into the orchestra pit in the theater. Even so, the original cast album of "Evita" did feature a full string section on "Don't Cry For Me Argentina." But the added orchestration on this soundtrack is absolutely awesome and it is not just a question of having more instruments. Some of my appreciation is for the little things I notice in the background, such as the castanets that pop up in "Oh What a Circus," the flutes in the intro to "Goodnight and Thank You," and the honky-tonk piano in "The Lady's Got Potential." Apparently Lloyd Webber thought about this a lot during all those years "Evita" was in pre-production. The credits say Cullen provided "Additional Orchestrations," so there is some question of who actually gets credit for what, but wherever the line of demarcation falls this is as nice a job of adapting a musical to film that you will ever hear.The vocal liabilities of the singers are much more noticeable on the CD than they are when you are watching the film. Madonna has never been a particularly strong singer, but power has never been the key to her performance anyhow. I keep getting the feeling she is falling behind the pace on the fast songs, particularly "Eva Beware of the City," which only highlights her strength in the slower numbers and from that perspective she pretty much nails "Don't Cry For Me Argentina," which is the one song she has to nail. Of course, there are the inevitable comparisons to Patti LuPone, and I have to wonder if I think Madonna's best effort is on "You Must Love Me" because it is more suited to her vocal stylings than LuPone or because I never heard anybody else sing that particular song. But then the first time I heard "Don't Cry For Me Argentina" Karen Carpenter sang it with opera singers doing the intro part, so there. Similarly, Antonio Banderas does not have the same impact as he does on film, where his expressive looks and gestures provide so much of the nuance of his meaning in singing any given line (e.g., "On What a Circus"). Jonathan Pryce really does not have all that much to sing in this show, but his few moments certainly match the emotion tenor of each scene (e.g., "She is a Diamond"). Jimmy Nail sounds (and looks) to young to be Evita's ticket out of the sticks, even though he is technically the best singer in the group ("On This Night of a Thousand Stars"). However, the additional vocalists are all obviously younger than the actors lip-syncing in the film, so at least there is consistency. All this being said, I have to say I do not think it incredibly strange than when I listen to this album at home I tend to put on the DVD rather than the CD. Not only do I get to see the visual dimension that is so important to these performances, but the beautiful cinematography. Besides, the deathbed sequences were done live so what was recorded for the CD was never used in the film. However, whenever I listen to the disc it is the
Madonna finally gets a chance to SING! March 21, 2003
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
There are two types of reviewers for this album: those that have seen the stage show and those that have only seen the movie. I belong to the latter, thus I can only judge it from that standpoint.Therefore, I can only say that The Material Girl does an extremely good job in bringing the music of Andrew Lloyd Webber to the screen. It is obviously that that singer worked hard; she shows a maturity that is far removed from her early "Like a Virgin" days. A healthy release at two discs, "Evita" will have one "crying for Argentina" and wishing that Madonna could find another vehicle such as this one.
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