like 1:30 in the morning is a good time to talk about spoilers, elitism, and why wicked has made over a billion dollars and has the fewest cast recordings of any musical i know of

wicked is interesting among cast recordings because as far as i know it's the only musical with an incomplete track listing in the sense that there is a major song in wicked which has never been professionally recorded in any capacity

there are songs that are "missing" from some cast albums but these are usually in the form of short reprises or interludes which [hand wobble] as a collector i'm annoyed about but as a realist i get why they're often not included. they don't really "matter."

this is ABSOLUTELY NOT THE CASE wrt the wicked soundtrack. here is the missing song from the wicked soundtrack, which you will recognize if you have seen the show live and you will absolutely be bewildered by if you've only ever heard the cast recording:

it is EXPLICITLY REMOVED from most cast recordings because it's a [looks at smudges on hand] spoiler?

which. yyyyyyes? yes it's kind of a spoiler? but also . . . a cast recording is a spoiler?

songs from popular musicals that are plot spoilers:
- empty chairs at empty tables, les mis
- spooky mormon hell dream, book of mormon
- words fail, dear evan hansen
- literally any song from hamilton

what i love about the mere idea of not recording a song for a cast recording because it's a "spoiler" is that (as i have said before) theatre's elitism is based on the concept that theatre is best experienced live and a taping or a recording can be only but a pale imitation

by the - first of all let me make something clear: i don't believe knowing most spoilers ruins your enjoyment of things and i actually think in 90% of cases if knowing a spoiler "ruins" something, it wasn't a very good ~tweest~ to begin with

anyway by the maxim "theater is best experienced live" it should literally not matter whether or not i know the plot of a show because the EXPERIENCE of the art is the main draw of spending obscene amounts of money on going to see something live.

there is some merit to this idea. for example: the main draw of experiencing phantom of the opera in a theater is the excellent special effects. this is also the draw of cursed child.

great comet and pippin fall into the other major category: audience immersion.

wicked is . . . ostensibly in the first category, but they're aware that the effects aren't necessarily the main draw of the show so they've gone for a slight Mystique™ to their show.

much like hamilton, wicked is EXTREMELY CONTROLLED

when i say extremely controlled:

hamilton's control over performances and show clips, to some extent, makes sense. hamilton is very new in the grand scheme of things and there's nothing to be gained from "diluting" the IP as it were and there were already plans to film it.

wicked is fifteen fucking years old.

as far as i know, here's the list of professional recordings of wicked:
- 2003 english cast recording
- 2007 german cast recording
- 2008 japanese cast recording
- there's a semi-professional recording of the 2016 mexican cast that i don't think they were supposed to release

here's a list of places with official wicked productions:
- broadway
- west end
- australia
- germany
- japan
- finland
- denmark
- netherlands
- mexico
- korea
- brazil

"why does this even matter," you're probably saying. "what the fuck is even the point of this thread."

i own like nine fucking recordings of mamma mia, which is approximately the same age.

that's stage recordings. i'm not even counting the movie recording.