Are bio musicals also jukebox musicals?

It's a square/rectangle situation. Not all Jukebox Musicals are bio-musicals, but almost all bio-musicals (that is, musicals that are biographies of a specific musical artist) are Jukebox Musicals.

I do not feel a BioMusical is a jukebox musical. They are their own category.

CreatureKitchen said: "That's exactly what I thought!

But this person was extremely adamant that musical theatre songs could never be used in a jukebox musical. I used the example that Cole Porter bio musicals have been made before, using his musical theater songs, and she said it didn't count because it was a bio musical."

You can tell your friend that a lot of musical theatre songs used to be played on the radio and in jukeboxes as well. Even though today they're not thought of as "popular music", they were absolutely crashing the billboard charts, especially back in the 30s and 40s. So yes, by that definition, Cole Porter would qualify as jukebox. But like others have said, it's very much open for interpretation as to what exactly defines a jukebox musical. Personally, I'd say anything that is a collection of songs not specifically written for this specific piece of theatre you're creating counts as jukebox. But others would surely disagree.

Updated On: 6/2/22 at 05:06 PM

But, then, there are "revues" - such as Ain't Misbehavin', Smokey Joe's Cafe, and however you want to categorize Dancin' or Fosee! or Jerome Robbins' Broadway.

MAMMA MIA! uses the music of ABBA and has nothing to do with ABBA. Is it a jukebox musical? Absolutely. Is it a bio musical? Absolutely not. A jukebox musical is a musical using existing music of artists. Could be a band, artist, or several bands/artists. A bio musical is basically a jukebox musical using the music of the artist or band being portrayed - it’s their life and career story.

ALL SHOOK UP used the music of Elvis Presley. Was it a bio musical? Absolutely not as it had nothing to do with Elvis Presley. THIS is a jukebox musical.

But my OPINION? A biomusical is a subset of jukebox musicals - because of the already existing music.

Interesting topic !

Here is what I can share...

Back in the late 1990s, Donna Summer was working on a Broadway bio-musical of her life, titled 'Ordinary Girl'. She wrote the book and original music for the show - she wasn't depending on her hit singles or previously released music. This was going to be mostly, if not all, original music to tell her life story. She shared some of the songs during her live concerts that year, mostly to gauge a reaction from fans (and if the songs were well-received, she would keep them in the show). IIRC, she performed two of the songs in 1999 for her VH1 special "Live and More: Encore". She was hoping to get her musical up and running during the 2001 -02 season, and then 9-11 happened and she shelved the project, hoping it would get to Broadway some day.

To me, that's truly a bio-musical since she had written the book and brand new music for the show. She wasn't going to rely on her 'hits' to tell her story, since she didn't write those songs to tell her story, in the first place.



Of course, what we got 20 years later was something completely different, since they didn't produce the musical she wrote. Instead we got an (awful) jukebox musical, with snippets of her catalog thrown in randomly throughout the show.

JBroadway said: "This use of the term “bio-musicals” in this context doesn’t account for the biographical musicals with original scores (Evita, Hamilton, etc)."

...and that's just one reason why biomusicals cannot be considered a subset of jukebox musicals. By definition, a subset must contain every and *only* characteristics that are also contained in the larger parent set. Having an original score is not a characteristic of a jukebox musical, so bio musicals cannot be a subset of jukebox musicals.

Another element is how a playlist is used within the context of the book. In bio musicals, the playlist is meant to be directly associated with an artist; integrated with the artist's reality/history. In jukebox musicals, the playlist is meant to be disassociated from its historical/reality context and reimagined within the context of pretense/fiction.

@John Adams

My point was that we shouldn’t even be using the word “bio-musical” in this thread in the first place. Because it’s not actually an accurate description of what we’re talking about.

And your response proves my point; because it confuses the issue with irrelevant factors.

The question at hand is whether Jersey Boys (and shows like it) can be called a jukebox musical. The relevant detail being that their scores are not original, but the unoriginal score is used biographically. So the question we’re discussing is whether or not the biographical use of the music excludes it from being considered a “jukebox” musical.

So my point was that using the broad term “bio musical” in this thread would yield responses that weren’t actually relevant to the question at hand, because not all bio-musicals have unoriginal scores.

So you and I agree that “bio-musicals” are not a subset of jukebox musicals; but I’m using that to argue against the TERM “bio-musical” in this context: the term “bio-musical” shouldn’t be used to describe Jersey Boys in this particular thread, because the term is too broad to indicate the key variable that’s relevant to this discussion (the unoriginal score).

Instead, I posited that shows like Jersey Boys could be called “bio-jukebox musicals” - and in fact this is the term I use in everyday life to describe them. Because that term differentiates shows like Jersey Boys from shows like Hamilton. If you object to the “jukebox” part of the term “bio-jukebox,” that’s fair enough - as long as we agree that we’re talking about the same thing: biographical shows with unoriginal scores, NOT biographical shows with original scores.

As for your last paraphrase, this is where you and I understand each other, but we simply disagree on the fundamental question at hand - which is fine. That’s not a matter of confusion, just of semantically opinion. I stated my reasons for mine in my earlier post.

Updated On: 6/4/22 at 12:07 PM

CreatureKitchen said: "That's exactly what I thought!

But this person was extremely adamant that musical theatre songs could never be used in a jukebox musical. I used the example that Cole Porter bio musicals have been made before, using his musical theater songs, and she said it didn't count because it was a bio musical."

I thought the bolded sentence above was what raised the question. Maybe not. IMO, bio musicals can also be jukebox musicals, but not all bio musicals are jukebox musicals as some have original scores.

This:



But not this:

This thread gave me a major headache.

The charts included was the last straw…

Way much too much over thinking going on around here.

@John Adams,

Again, as I said in my last post:

Literally nobody in this thread is arguing that a biographical musical with an original score (Hamilton, Evita, etc.) could be considered a jukebox musical. This offshoot of the debate is entirely a red herring - I guess it stemmed from my initial comment about the term "biomusical," but again I was just being semantical about the term itself, not trying to create this confusion.