The Broadway musical Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark has not technically opened yet; it won’t do that until at least March 15. But a bunch of newspaper critics have weighed in today, and their assessment is… well, not good. To put it mildly.
Perhaps what the Julie Taymor-directed show needs is some different songs besides the ones that the New York Times’ Ben Brantley describes as ” a sustained electronic twang of varying volume, increasing and decreasing in intensity, like a persistent headache.” Fortunately, there have been plenty of other songs involving Spider-Man over the past 45 years or so. Here are a few of them.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5P8lrgBtcU]
(More on TIME.com: The Amazing, Spectacular Story Behind the Spider-Man Musical)
The classic Spider-Man theme song (“…does whatever a spider can,” you know the one) has been covered any number of times, but maybe the most entertaining rendition is the Ramones’ buzzsaw punk version.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gALN-2_xi_Y]
The concept album Spider-Man: Rock Reflections of a Superhero–crafted by an anonymous studio group, although Stan Lee occasionally turns up for a spot of narration–came out in the mid-’70s, and features songs like “No One’s Got a Crush on Peter” and “Doctor Octopus.” Here’s its opening number, “High Wire,” basically a Spider-themed rewrite of “Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting.”
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sS6t56U9tBg]
(More on TIME.com: So, Yeah, About That New Spider-Man Musical…)
Okay, fine, the Cure’s “Lullaby” is about a generic “spiderman” rather than the guy with the costume, but isn’t it nice to think of Peter Parker growing ravenous for Robert Smith’s flesh?