First off, the music. It does tackle various musical styles and attempts to capture the epic sweep of the narrative. However, it only excells in a few areas. In fact, "Your Daddy's Son" and "Wheels of a Dream" are the only two tracks that live up to my expectations. Most other songs have a musical phrase or two that's highly inventive, but that inventiveness sadly is not sustained throughout most tracks. The only consistantly excellent part of the music are the orchestrations, which are grand, sweeping, and epitomize what the show is trying to be.

Also, the performances are only so-so. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say Brian Stokes Mitchell's Coalhouse is highly overrated. I was especially disappointed with his stacatto singing, which breaks up his phrases far to much for my taste. As he evidenced by his performance of "The Impossible Dream" on the 2003 Tonys, this man can SING, but sadly doesn't do so very often on this CD. Marrian Mazzie's Mother is all right, and she has a nice voice, but the character doesn't get the best songs.

The only cast member who is truly up to snuff is Audra McDonald. The first time I heard her sing "Your Daddy's Son," I got chills. She has such a piercing, powerful voice, and has invested so much emotion in this one piece of music it's unbelievable. It's the highlight of the entire two disc set, and I spent most of the rest of the CD waiting for her to get more of a chance to sing. Unfortunately, after "Wheels of a Dream" she pretty much disappears, and I wish her character could have been in more of the show.

My biggest problem with Ragtime is that it tries to hard. You can tell the performers and writers are trying to be great, which annoys me to no end. The truly great musicals do not have to work this hard to get your attention; they simply are amazing. For example, Audra McDonald simply IS excellent on this CD; Brian Stokes Mitchell pushes a little too much. This in a nutshell is the problem with this show: Too much pushing, too little true excellence.