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List Price: $17.98 | | Label: Varese Sarabande
Salesrank: 8532
Released: January 28, 2003 |
| Our Price: $12.15 |
| Used Price: $13.78 |
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| Media: Audio CD |
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The Ethel Merman Disco Album Track Listing:
1. There's No Business Like Show Business
2. Everything's Coming Up Roses
3. I Get a Kick Out of You
4. Something For The Boys
5. Some People
6. Alexander's Ragtime Band
7. I Got Rhythm
8. They Say It's Wonderful (Bonus Track)
Editorial Review:
The title says it all. This is the disco album "the Merm" recorded in 1979, a few years before her death. Rumor has it that Merman couldn't stand the disco craze that was sweeping the nation in the late '70s, recording her vocals before the instrumental tracks were laid down. Masterminded by Peter Matz, who produced, arranged, and conducted the whole thing, Merman's disco album is one of those jaw-dropping, "what were they thinking?" UFOs that periodically land on the pop landscape. Merman (at her most bombastic, vibrato-laden) barrels through eight of her signature tunes. All are taken at breakneck speed, and even dramatic show-stoppers, such as "Everything's Coming Up Roses" (from Gypsy), become dance-floor burners. Whether you find the album simply horrifying or an entrancing testimony to the power of people to lose their heads as they fall prey to a dance fad, this collision between two completely different American musical traditions is nothing short of, ahem, breathtaking. --Elisabeth Vincentelli
The Ethel Merman Disco Album Reviews:
Ethel boogies. 
2009-10-09 - Ethel Merman was one of the greatest Broadway performers of all time. Someone had the bright idea of having Ethel record a disco album. All the songs chosen for the project were songs she had previously sung on Broadway. Ethel reportedly refused to sing along with disco tracks; instead she sang the songs the same way she always had, cutting 14 of her "classics" in one take each (so they say). Afterwards, disco backing tracks were added to her voice. The results are very campy and ridiculous. It's bad, but in an entertaining way. There is one bonus song added to the seven songs that were on the original album. Not sure why they only added one song when Ethel recorded seven more songs. Perhaps they never recorded the backing tracks for the rest of the songs.
This album rocks. 
2009-04-20 - Ethel Merman Disco Album
If any album can be credited for effectively killing disco this would be it. Not that I support that but this album is HILARIOUS! You go Ethel!
HIGH CAMP SET TO DISCO
2009-02-10 - There is no doubt about Ethel Merman's voice; you either love it or hate it! But after all, she was Broadway's "grand diva' for decades. If you ignore the disco beat, and let's face it, disco died for a reason, then you'll love those wonderful belt-it-out tunes! A good value at the price, and perfect re-mastering.
Losing Your Mind 
2008-12-29 - This album is the equal of Dame Edna's album of standards, "Songs of Co-Dependency". It seems to be serious however, at least she is. You couldn't get more numbing arrangements (Peter Matz? Streisand's Peter Matz?) of Broadway classics and as they are songs she recorded several other times in appropriate settings, you can't help but compare them in your mind. At which point you lose it. It's not for the faint-hearted, a musical fatal car crash with fatalities before the ambulance arrives. I think I remember it as the album that killed disco - it revealed disco as a coke-stoked money gimmick instead of a style and it was hard to listen to any of it afterward without hearing that taint. There were a few Broadway stars who might have pulled this off - Madeline Kahn tried one disco issue that obliterated her voice - but Merman was at least twenty years too old for this stunt.
Fascinatingly Horrifying 
2008-12-12 - Here's one straight from the "what were they thinking" department: "The Ethel Merman Disco Album." With a concept like that what could possibly go wrong? As it turns out, quite a lot. If you really enjoy either disco or Ethel Merman, this is likely not a recording that you will savor. It is only enjoyable on a camp level, akin to the songsterings of William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy, only not as subtly nuanced.
The album is mercifully short, but it packs a deadly wallop in its slight package. The songs sound absolutely interchangeable in every way, and while that's one of the main characteristics of disco, this album takes musical homogeneity to a whole new level. When forced to choose a "best" track on the CD, I would have to choose "They Say It's Wonderful" largely because it has less vocals than the rest of the songs. Conversely, my choice for worst song on the CD would have to be "I Got Rhythm," precisely because Ethel suffers from severe rhythm impairment on the track, a delicious (if painful) irony.
I give the CD four stars: as a collection of Ethel Merman's vocal talents, it falls way short of the mark, and as a collection of disco music it's worse than just about anything I've ever heard, but in combination, the two elements meld sublimely into a musical bull in a china shop, propelling musical camp into uncharted territory. Listen if you dare!
