You can’t stop the Beat

June 27, 2012 by Book Reviewers Online 1 Comment

You can’t stop the beat
as it comes speeding down the track.
Child, yesterday is history
And it’s never coming back
Cause tomorrow is a brand new day
and it don’t know white from black
Cause the world keeps spinning
round and round
and my heart is keeping time
to the speed of sound.
I was lost until I heard the drums
then I found my way
Because you can’t stop the beat

Turn the Music up – let the shimmy and the beat begin !

The song “You Can’t stop the Beat” is the finale song in “Hairspray” – the musical movie, released in November 2007, and directed by Adam Shankman. It was nominated for 3 Golden Globe Awards. In 2008, it won the Golden Reef Award for “Best Sound Editing – Music in a Musical Feature Film”, and won the Ensemble Cast Award for its cast. The People’s Choice Award was given for “Favourite song from a Soundtrack – to the singing cast for “You Can’t stop the Beat.” A full list of awards nominated and won can be found here.

I LOVE love love this movie and could watch it any week. Here is the trailer for it below. It’s a feel-good movie with wonderful dances and music and an awesome theme – and of course – with lots of hair & hair-spray!  If you want to follow, which character in the movie sings what, you can see that by clicking   here.   Better still – watch the Movie!!

It’s set in the 60s, in Baltimore, U.S.A., and a reminder of not letting others erode your self-confidence, and a message that we are all one human “race”.

You can find alot of photos of the actors/actresses of the movie by clicking here. Its cast includes Michelle Pfeiffer, Christopher Walken and John Travolta. The music is by Marc Shaiman and the lyrics by Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman. John Waters wrote the original screenplay in 1988. The Broadway stage musical opened in August 2002 and won the 2003 Tony Award for Best Musical and 8 other Tony Awards, including for Best Score. A complete list can be found here.

If you haven’t watched the 2007 Hairspray musical movie yet, I highly recommend that you do. Music is the stuff everything is made of, I think. There is a wonderful companion guide book to go with the movie, produced by New Line Cinemas, Insight Editions. It is written by Diana Landau, and the ISBN is 10-1-933784-38-5.

There is a great scene in the movie where Queen Latifah, as Maybelle, sings a beautiful, poignant song, “I Know where I’ve Been.” You can listen to it on You Tube and read the lyrics by clicking here ****

You can’t stop the beat. Let the Beat go on ….