I'd been hearing about Lin-Manuel Miranda's Hamilton Mixtape and wanted to check it out before I actually purchased it (yes, I'm cheap), so I was delighted when I discovered that my library had a copy of the CD that I could, well, check out. As soon as my copy came, I popped it into the CD player of my car and got to know it's 23 tracks as I drove around town running errands.
And I hate to say it, but I was disappointed. I'm glad I didn't actually buy it. But I also realized that I am not right audience for this CD. For one thing, I generally don't like covers of songs (with the glaring exception to this rule being everything ever recorded by Glee)-- I usually feel like whoever sang it first did it exactly right and any deviance from their artistic choice is immediately questionable to me. So an entire CD of covers wasn't really going to be my thing. Plus, they made most of the songs from Hamilton more like the rap you hear on the radio, and I'm not actually that big of a fan of rap music. So, yes, I was totally wrong for this. So take everything I say with that huge grain of salt.
Some specific things I didn't love... Jimmy Fallon's cover of King George's song, "You'll Be Back." He actually does a pretty good job of it. He's no Jonathon Groff, but he's not terrible and it's fun to hear. But because he seems embarrassed to be trying, he begins with about a minute long introduction making fun of himself before he just sings the song. And the intro is pretty funny the first time you hear it. But then there's no way to skip it, so every time you listen to that track, you've got to get through 60 seconds of Jimmy Fallon joking around before he finally just sings. And it gets more tedious every you listen to it. (This was nice for backing up my sister's theory that Jimmy Fallon really just wishes he could be a rock star.)
I also didn't like the song "Say Yes to This." It just grossed me out. I'm not a fan of adultery, and this one felt so much more pro-adultery than the Broadway version. The original song, "Say No to This" is about Hamilton trying to resist, but succumbing to what he knows he shouldn't do; this new version was all about Maria Reynolds actively trying to seduce him. It just made me hate her.
Also, there were two tracks listed as "Interludes." These are both less than a minute of a loop of music that probably could have worked great for the background music of an actual rap song, but then there wasn't actually a song to go with them. So it's just two throw-away tracks, which seemed kind of dumb. I mean-- I get that Hamilton had 23 tracks on both of its CDs, so it's kind of cool to repeat that here. But those two tracks left me feeling like Lin-Manuel cheated.
My kids loved the song "Immigrants (We Get the Job Done)" based on the popular line from the play and it did spark a good conversation for us about how immigrants have it tough and have to work harder than anyone else to get by in this country. But for me, it felt too preachy. If you haven't already figured this stuff out, Lin-Manuel Miranda explaining it isn't going to change your opinion at all. The whole immigration debate annoys me, because I feel like the two parties aren't even talking about the same thing-- I've never met a single person who was against immigrants or immigration in general, but I've met plenty of people concerned with illegal immigration, which is a totally different issue. But I'm going to get back to my review before I get any preachier.
There were some tracks I really liked. I loved Regina Spektor singing "Dear Theodosia" with Ben Folds Five-- there was something about the quality of her voice that I found mesmerizing. And Dessa singing "Congratulations" was hilarious, and exactly what Hamilton probably should have heard after he idiotically had an affair and then published all the salacious details of it himself. "Burn" was also beautiful, although this version was a lot angrier than the Broadway recording. That's not wrong-- Eliza certainly had every right to be angry. But in the play she just sounds so wounded, and I find that far more heartbreaking.
I was too busy being annoyed with the senseless pluralization of "Washingtons" in the song "Washingtons on Your Side" to ever focus on the lyrics and figure out what Wiz Khalifa was actually trying to say. So that was probably my bad, but I still didn't like the song.
I like some of the tracks where you got an expanded version of what got cut from the play, "Valley Forge (Demo)," "An Open Letter," and "Cabinet Battle 3." And one of the points Hamilton made in "Cabinet Battle 3" about how the problem of slavery will only grow as the slaves reproduce and there are more of them that people are relying on was something I'd never thought about. I've always felt that since the Civil War nearly destroyed our country, Washington must have made the right decision to put off ending slavery until the country had time to grow stronger. But maybe I'm wrong about that-- putting it off also allowed the problem to grow, too. Perhaps, like cancer, it would have been easier to root it out before it took a firmer hold. So that's been interesting to think about.
Also, there were more f-words than in the Broadway CD, and they were harder to see coming and edit out, so I didn't really want to listen with my kids, so that was lame.
So in summary, the Hamilton Mixtape has some good tracks, but not enough to make it worth buying. Unless you really like cover songs and/or rap, I would skip this one.
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