the gift was ours to borrow

Example: ever since the release of the RAH album, there's about even odds that any given actor playing Freddie will sing the same riffs that Adam Pascal sang at the end of "Pity the Child". It's not going to be long before people start singing Aaron Tveit's riffs instead, or taking the same options up he does. And I think both performances, while technically very well sung, misunderstand the overall story and style of the piece. The revival in particular is very clean and modern in a way the show as a whole isn't, really. (It's also a glorified concert staging, but that's another matter...)

Ooh, let me break this down:

First off, my favorites:

The 1984 concept album is hands down the single best album of the show, and the 2014 remaster is excellent and includes a few additional tracks that make a wonderful supplement.

The OBC gets a lot of flak but I like it, and if you'd like a better version, the 1990 Long Beach production does a lot to improve it with minimal changes. The OBC album itself is also fairly good and the cast is my favorite overall cast of any production.

My personal favorite is the 1990 Sydney production, which is a hybrid of the London and Broadway scripts but also really does its own thing with it. It sounds completely different to any other version of Chess but largely in a good way, and it's one of the only versions that makes a modicum of sense.

Now, to more directly respond to your question: alternatives to the RAH album. The most common recommendation (and a common favorite album among fans) is the 2002 Danish tour album with Stig Rossen and Emma Kershaw. It's not a perfect album, but it has generally better performances from the leads than the RAH album (at the expense of weaker supporting actors). It's also a tad more faithful to the original London score.

If you can, I also suggest listening to the soundboard recording of the original London production with Tommy Körberg and Elaine Paige. It's perhaps the most musically cohesive version of the show, although it does have script problems (but what version doesn't?) But it'll get all the songs you want.

This was... decent? The rock songs are pretty universally great and some of the best recordings of those songs there are. The orchestral material is where it's weakest, and the arrangements range from great to confusing and bad, but that's also a problem of the show itself. The cast is solid all around and aside from the strange decision to cut all the dialogue and some of the weirder arrangement choices, it's pretty good. Go listen to it.

Am a gay man

Am an actor

Write musicals

Study theatre theory

Have seen or listened to nearly every version of Chess

Have been the dramaturg on a production of Chess

Have spent years diving into Chess and writing revisions

Play hockey

Have had insane crushes on hockey players

Read the Game Changers series before it was adapted to TV

Have read all of Rachel Reid's other books

Have also read dozens of other hockey romance novels

Watched Heated Rivalry as it came out