Why the Music in Cats (2019) is Worse than you Thought

Due to a manual copyright claim by UMG (that I'm still working to resolve) some of the music in this video is either muted or replaced with some of the most hilarious stock music YouTube would let me use.
If you'd like to see what this video was supposed to look/sound like, you can check it out here:

In this video I freak out about Cats holding hands

Also, I'd like to make a special mention of Catilin Koi's video "Let's Talk About CATS".
I wish I'd done my job a little better and found this video before I made my own, and cited her multiple times because she does a MUCH better job than I do at explaining the plot to the original stage version of Cats, especially everything with Grizabella at the end of the show.
if anything about this video has made you excited about learning about the original Cats then I cannot recommend her video enough

Sources:

The article penned by the audio leads on Cats
I cannot overstate how much of a fascinating read this is, you owe it to yourself to read it!

Part 1 of the above article with some interesting insights to the film industry
(I liked the part where they lucked out with the forehead-mounted mics not interfering with the dancers' somersaults)

Luciano Berio's Sequenza III performed by Laura Catrani (I love this performance!)

because of course Cats has it's own wiki

The Toronto Star article about the Orchestra having to work up to 2 months before the film released

John Cage's Water Walk

The Greenport Peter Pan Fiasco

Maria Joao Pires prepared a different Mozart concerto to the one that was performed

The same thing happened to pianist Tianxu An in the finals of a Tchaikovsky Competition in 2019

Ray Chen breaks a string during a performance (and the concertmaster doesn't flinch when he has to swap violins like a pro)

The metal pole modern dance thing that we've all seen a million times

If I've missed anything please let me know
Seriously, if I've used a clip from your video in this video and I haven't put it here please contact me!

[pedroxqui]

Tom Hooper is just a gimmick director trying to be revolutionary by reinventing the wheel, not realizing it's round for a reason

[meganmissey]

They really said, "We're going to copyright this guy for using our movie's music because if we didn't make any money off of it, he won't either."

[ItoFumika]

Christ, as soon as he said the actors were changing the tempo of songs whenever the hell they wanted to, even my non-musical ass, who hasn't touched an instrument since the recorder in elementary school, thought, "That sounds like a fucking nightmare."

[shhh.im.thinking]

The whole lyrics-don't-match-the-story part, like when Grizabella sings "touch me" and she was already touched, really gets me because they treat these songs like ambience music instead of actual plot devices that forward the story. Yeah, memory sounds nice, but the lyrics actually matter, you know

[Raisincelery]

I like how he’s just slowly getting angrier and angrier and by the end he’s in the verge of aneurism.

[FrenkTheJoy]

I know it's just because of copyright mutes, but "just listen to the clarinet trying to follow him" followed by *dead silence* was hilarious.

[baiwatch]

An essay about the Cats movie from a guy who actually likes Cats. This is different.

[gwendolynpeterson]

YOU FINALLY EXPLAINED CATS IN A WAY THAT I CAN FINALLY UNDERSTAND ive been going off of my explanation as a kid of "theres a ton of cats who sing and dance. Theres also a cat who everyone hates. She ends up dying. Thats it."

It’s almost like the people who direct musicals should, like....understand music in some capacity.

[dias]

tom hooper just looked at a photo of the cast of cats and went "oh the one in white really stands out, shes the main cat right?" and noone corrected him

[mboatrightED]

"The actors made choices about the tempo" is such a great backhanded way to say "none of them were on beat."

[skyofserenity]

This video has taught me a lot but nothing is gonna stick with me more than the sentence “Rum Tum Tugger is rum tum tugging the harmonies.” 😭😭

[lotti]

are we not talking about how weirdly unproportionate the sizes of the cats are? they're too large inside the train but then have the size of hamsters while on the train tracks.

[mosesyu]

"I'm starting to question if there's a 100% literacy rate in Hollywood directors"

Amazing

[briandaaranda]

Cats (the animal) legit touch each other to mark other cats, people, and things, as "safe". That's why they rub the corner of their mouth against your hand; it's a way of saying "this is safe, and now it smells like me, so it's extra safe". Grizabella wanting to be touched literally was just her begging for a friend. And now I'm sad.

[aspiringjoker]

The rage that sideways unleashed upon 56:00 was phenomenal "Tombo... TREAT IT LIKE A REAL PERFORMANCE! WHAT THEY SHIT WERE THEY DOING IN THE REHEARSALS?!" All of that shit had me rolling. Five-ish minutes of sheer, embittered, unbridled animosity.

[Isa-lhmw]

I feel like sideways is kinda insecure that his audience won't care about all the nerdy music stuff, but rest assured that's what we come here for.

[scarlettrayzor]

The reason the vocalists follow the orchestra is the same reason that you stop a string of cars instead of the train at a railroad crossing. Christ have mercy

[ShockedLogic]

Mulan 2020 and Cats 2019 may have both been absolute garbage, but i will slurp up all this youtube content tearing them apart for years

[TiaGems]

I'm impressed that you talked about Cats (2019) for an hour and didn't once mention how awful the sound mixing was. I could not hear Jennifer Hudson over the orchestra in Memory and the woodwinds were drowning out the piano at the best of times