xanadu broadway cast recording love/hate relationship

xanadu on broadway (original broadway cast recording) is exactly what it says it is, which is why i love it and hate it:

love

• the lead is the sweet and powerfully voiced kerry butler who was incredible as penny in hairspray (i saw her in hairspray's seattle pre-broadway run).
• the fantabulous quirkdiva jackie hoffman has plenty of stage time, doing double duty as calliope and aphrodite.
• there's a hunky guy in jean shorts (yeah i know you can't see him listening to the cd but there's some pictures in it and you can imagine).
• it does justice to the frothy disco classics i'm alive, magic and xanadu.
• the only thing gayer than roller skates on a broadway stage is a hunky guy in roller skates on a broadway stage which by the way this show has got.  and roller skates remind me of my skating at g.a.s. (great american skate) as a kid so i am swept away by the freedom of it all, until i remember leaning against the roller rink wall and watching better skaters whizz past so i tried to skate fancier which led me to fall down, which reminds me:

hate

• kerry occasionally affects a self-aware australian accent in mock tribute to olivia newton-john.  it's painful and not super funny.
• if you like disco lite classics like have you never been mellow?, then possibly you'll be okay with the slower parts of the cd.  personally when it comes to disco, the farther something is away from 128 beats a minute, the more i hate it.  and except for the three numbers i mention in my love section above, i, well, hate it.
• the guy in jean shorts is not andy gibb and while i know the guy in the movie wasn't andy gibb either, he looked like andy gibb and andy gibb would have been perfect for this show if he were still young and still alive but at least they should have picked some high-pitched disco voiced guy rather than a generic voiced studmuffin.
• strictly as far as the cd goes, the comedy is mostly lost.  whereas other comedic shows with key visual elements can still stand on their own as cd only.  for instance, bea arthur on broadway - just between friends was full force even on cd, though maybe that's because i had golden girls on in the background while listening and bea hadn't been on roller skates anyway.
• the success of this show encourages the theatrical production of other movies of the era, such as  zapped! the musical.  i don't want to see scott baio on broadway.

if you think you'll love it, or at least like it, get the xanadu cd. it's about 80% cheaper than seeing it on broadway and it will take forever before your local community theater performs it anyway.  it would take a lot of bake sales to pay for that many pairs of roller skates.