In which I listen to soundtracks of Disney musicals, but why?

Mary Poppins (Musical soundtrack: 2/5): Way to stomp on an icon of my childhood, there. OW. Okay, so, I adore the original movie. I am aware that much of this love has to do with having watched it over and over again when I was, oh, four, but also the movie is another of those high-energy absurdity-filled things that succeeds through not ever taking itself seriously. (Though again, the characters are often taken seriously.) And the musical does Take Itself Seriously, which I hate. (One of the low points for me is when Mrs. Banks has to sing a Moving Song about How Being Mrs. Banks Is So Hard Because She Is, Like, An Oppressed Woman, where she is apparently trying to channel Ragtime and it Does Not Work. Now, I adore Ragtime, too, but Ragtime turns high over-the-top angst into an art form by Always Taking Everything Seriously, and never hinting, even for a moment, that the super-angst could possibly be ridiculous -- you can't have it both ways.) AND it took out all the actually good songs from the movie ("Sister Suffragette," "The Life I Lead," "Stay Awake," "Fidelity Fiduciary Bank") (K and I had this hilarious conversation recently where it turned out neither of us had the faintest idea what a suffragette was when we watched this movie as children) and replaces them with stultifyingly obvious super-sugary-Disneyfied songs. (Occasionally it keeps a song in, and does its best to ruin it by disneyfying the accompanying instrumental, but you can still hear how much better the original songs were, even so.)

The Little Mermaid (Musical soundtrack: 3+/5): In contrast, Little Mermaid started its movie life as a super-sugary-Disneyfied confection, so there wasn't much more they could do to it. Some of the new songs are simply filler, but some aren't bad. I'm always a fan of songs that have more than two singers, so of course I enjoyed the quartet "If Only" even if it is a trifle indulgent. On the other hand, Ursula's voice character is far more compelling in the movie version.

Beauty and the Beast (Musical soundtrack: 3+/5): The musical soundtrack, happily, has Terrence Mann, whom I have been in love with since, uh, sixth grade (that being when I first heard the cast recording of Les Miz). (Except, um, a little creepy because the fact I remember him from my childhood means he must have been in his 40's when doing this, and then Belle is supposed to be high school-age... erk. Although, actually, I guess the way the fairy tale goes, the Beast is probably supposed to be really old, huh? Hm. I may just have ruined a perfectly nice fairy tale for myself. And to be sure, Mann is a good enough actor that he comes across in this character as having a mental age of 15, so there's that.) Sadly, it does not have Angela Lansbury. That's about all I have to say about that.