Glee - 2x05 - The Rocky Horror Glee Show

    The director decides, in an effort to impress a woman, to have the kids put on Rocky Horror.  The rest of the episode deals with a bunch of relationships, and Sue Sylvester trying to sabotage the production.
    I love Rocky Horror.  I was introduced to the show back around when I was in 3rd grade.  I had the soundtrack on cassette, and listened to it over and over.  I was actually looking on youtube for something else - the bit of Angry Dad/Homer saying "Damn, that's good!"  - when I found the audio of the Glee performance of Damnit Janet.
    I had mixed feelings about the recording.  The other songs made me feel even more conflicted.  Simply, the audio from the movie is not great quality - the songs have a bit more mud on them than modern recordings do.  Hearing the music performed so faithfully, with modern recording techniques, breathes some new life into these songs.  But then, the vocal performances often leave something to be desired.
    I bought the soundtrack EP, and I've listened to it a few times.

    I have some specific feelings about what steps were off on certain songs, but the overall impression is this - the singing just can't compare to the soundtrack versions.  Tim Curry, Susan Sarandon, Barry Bostwick, Richard O'Brien's voices all captured the essence of their characters.  Especially Sarandon's gleeful performance on Touch-A-Touch-A Touch-A Touch Me.  In this case, I like the choreography quite a bit, but the vocal seemed like it didn't get the nature of the song.
    I'm sort of on middle ground with most of the songs.  I like being able to understand the lyrics to Hot Patootie, but I also miss the more "rock" sound of Meat Loaf's voice.
    But I have big problems with the performance of Sweet Transvestite.  Ignoring the bizarre lyric changes, the song had a remarkably compelling performance when Tim Curry did it.  In this case… it's needlessly soulful, without anything to do with the Frank N. Furter character.  There's no eroticism to the performance.

    But the episode itself was passable, but mostly forgettable.  I thought that the self-image issues brought up by having to wear minimal - or fetishistic - clothing for much of the production was an interesting idea to explore.  But sadly, the episode was too busy trying to develop a love triangle among the adults.