Walter Murphy - Phantom Of The Opera (1978)

Concept albums are big business, but they're also a tricky proposition. For every triumphant Tommy, there's ten turgid flatliners, although Murphy looked like striking oil when he assaulted one of Broadway's best loved stage shows. Jazz, rock, and the classics had already gone disco, after all. Now it was the turn of opera. Pairing with vocalist Gene Pistilli, Murphy treated the classic tale relatively faithfully, rendering it a dialog in song between the Phantom Pistilli, and his love, Christine (Renee Geyer). A handful of typically soaring Murphy instrumentals become the curtains around the action of the songs, but that, unfortunately, is where this album should have been kept. "A Night at the Opera," "Tocatta and Funk in D Minor," and "Chase, et Fin." are fine, pounding concoctions -- not, perhaps, as instantly stirring as "A Fifth of Beethoven," but at least cut from a similar cloth. The vocal tracks, however, are at best drab and lifeless, and frequently droning and dire. "I'm Your Man" and "Keep Dancin' (Then It's Back to the Dungeon Again)" are, simply, neither well-written or realized, and the whole result renders a ghoulish story merely grim. At the end of the story, the Phantom disappears...his body has never been discovered. Perhaps they should have buried this album in its stead.