A couple of dozen dancing, choreographing, acting, and singing counsellors rushed the kids to "Chorus Calls" and "Dance Calls" and "Showcase Rehearsals," as well as short workshops in improv, mime, mask, makeup, combat, and how-to-rip-off-hit-melodies-with-your-own-lyrics.
Amid the hefty chords, classical arpeggios and splashes of honky-tonk, his hits send melodies climbing toward well-turned choruses that, countless radio plays later, just sound inevitable.
Last summer, after recovering from a throat abscess, he issued a defiant comeback anthem called "Shut Up" (target audience: the haters), in which he touted his "twenty-two years of a blessed career" and "all these hits and melodies".
Nothing could outdo it: not more than 40 years' worth of hit-song melodies, not the shamelessly extravagant stage show, which involved ninjas, flash pots and dancers in flesh-colored lamé shorts.
The melody hit me as I was walking down Broadway, fast.
He was a limber performer, stringing together choruses and intros and pieces of a few dozen hits, and improvising melodies in between.
He was trying to hit a centrist melody and a moderate tone, and the people sitting at the president's invitation around the first lady, Laura Bush, reflected that desire, along with Mr. Bush's ongoing efforts to extend the Republican Party's reach to a more diverse base.
The striking orchestral hits and catchy string melodies are really effective.
He plucks out an example: Ice Prince's 2011 hit JuJu included lyrical melodies from Femi's own emphatically traditional track Inside Religion.
Andy Goldberg from The Jerusalem Post said that "Cherish" took "Madonna back to her old stomping grounds, the lively bass line and lilting melodies of hit albums past".
There's something about Rodgers and Hammerstein melodies that hits my sweet spot every time.
