Indie concept albums: are they taken seriously?

[darquegk]

Posted: 10/25/25 at 12:24pm

Does an independently produced concept album for a new show and score need big names attached to be taken seriously? If the score is "pretty good but it's not the next lightning-in-a-bottle Hamilton," will having major theatre names move the needle, or is it enough to get good singers who fit the material well, and then just wait and see?

I keep thinking about EPIC. Epic was a musical with a cast and creative team of nobodies, and we all saw how big it blew up. But was it the music itself, or the animatics that got it to that point? Nobody seems to have much good to say about EPIC as a show or a score beyond "we have Lin-Manuel Miranda at home." And yet, look at how well it's done. I suppose right now I'm weighing the options of whether to try and invest in a starry cast or in multimedia and promotion. 

[raddersons]

Posted: 10/25/25 at 12:34pm

I swear to god if I have to hear a 19 year old sing Epic at my local karaoke spot one more time I’m gonna sue. 

[ErmengardeStopSniveling]

Posted: 10/25/25 at 12:52pm

Ken Davenport recently said "I won't open a new musical without releasing some of the music first" –– and a stopped clock is right twice a day.

Getting the music for a show out there in the world is essential nowadays when so much marketing happens in digital spaces. Having major Broadway talent can help to an extent, but those names have finite value. I don't know how much it moves the needle if your show has Jessica Vosk + Santino Fontana vs Replacement Elphaba #56 + Replacement King George #12.

It all comes at a cost. The most bare-bones cheap version of a 45-min album is going to cost at least $100K. If you limit it to 3-4 demo tracks and call in some favors, it could be done for less –– but there might be release limitations.

A concept recording of most of the score is also a cushion in case the show never makes it to Broadway. Because if a show has no recording, there's basically no chance of it ever getting licensed.


(Funny enough, I've never even heard of EPIC. And I consider myself pretty locked in to the goings-on of NY theatre world...so just goes to show how pockets of buzz work!!)

Updated On: 10/25/25 at 12:52 PM

[darquegk]

Posted: 10/25/25 at 1:18pm

Okay, here's my trump card that could change the circumstances a little... I've worked IN New York, but I'm not based there. My last Off-Broadway show was in 2016; it was a limited run, but it launched the careers of current Broadway mainstays like Shoba Narayan and PJ Adzima, plus gave a boost to the now-beloved Philip Taratula. My home base is actually Pittsburgh, where EVERYTHING is cheaper. I've talked to other producers who only work in NY/LA, and their jaw drops when I tell them that the last five years of development on my show (public staged concert reading, industry workshop, score orchestration/arrangement and composer demo) came in at a total of $7400, give or take. 

Being out here, you lose the convenience of being where everyone is at all times, being in the room where it happens. The meetings I take with NYC producers are phone calls or Zooms, not sit-downs with coffee, and while I'm one or two degrees of separation from lots of Broadway greats (sometimes no separation at all), I'm not where they spend most of their time. But what I lack in presence, I've made up in convenience: I have a pair of very gifted record engineers branching into producing, and they want to produce not only the concept album, but an expanded podcast audio drama (a la "Dead Outlaw") of the show, for mere fractions of what it would cost in NYC. I've also got a multimedia artist who (inspired by both EPIC and the YouTube animatics phenomenon) wants to do concept art, illustrations, animation and merch for the album. There's even a prototype of a tarot deck for the show sitting on my desk right now.

Ermengarde, your comment about how only MAJOR names can move the needle makes sense to me. I remember a decade ago, people like Patrick Page would do dozens of these little indie albums: my first exposure to Page was on the reference recording for Richard Oberacker's "The Sandman," but he's certainly not doing these now. Even during the pandemic, people like Alex Brightman would guest on tons of indie theatre projects. What REALLY stands out to me (and this is going to sound like Greek to some of you) is the pandemic era indie animation boom on YouTube, which roped in an absolute rogue's gallery of Broadway A-listers and television B-listers for almost zero-budget indie projects. The most famous of these is obviously Vivziepop's Hell universe, which has a jaw-dropping Broadway roster, but even comparatively small projects like Big Top Burger have pretty surprising casts for being an apparent shoestring budget.

Nothing's ever easy... and even when it is, nothing's ever OBVIOUS. But all signs are pointing to "quit trying to produce a regional or Off-Broadway premiere, and start raising funds to turn a scrappy indie recording into a more impressive multimedia piece."

[kdogg36]

Posted: 10/25/25 at 6:55pm

I'm totally outclassed on this thread in terms of knowledge and experience. But isn't it also the case that producing a concept album gives the creatives a chance to memorialize their own conception of their work, before having to make all sorts of compromises for the sake of commercial viability?

[ErmengardeStopSniveling]

Posted: 10/25/25 at 7:16pm

One other challenge with concept recordings is you want the most talented and biggest names you can get……..but then if they don’t do the full production, you don’t want a LEMPICKA situation where all of us show queens leave saying “yeesh, wish Cynthia Erivo had stuck with it.” We’ve seen that today in the BEAUTIFUL LITTLE FOOL thread (Jessie Mueller is not doing the production, she just did the album).

And when people do elaborate demos or concept albums without a theatrical producer involved, sometimes that’s a turnoff to the producer. “They don’t need me.”

Your situation is unique but if your show is good enough the album funding should be easily gettable, and bigger talent than the names you mention should be, too. Good luck out there.

[ErmengardeStopSniveling]

Posted: 10/25/25 at 7:22pm

kdogg36 said: "I'm totally outclassed on this thread in terms of knowledge and experience. But isn't it also the case that producing a concept album gives the creatives a chance to memorialize their own conception of their work, before having to make all sorts of compromises for the sake of commercial viability?"

Concept Album is one of those blanket phrases sort of like Concert Production that can mean many different things.

Sometimes it is basically just a studio cast recording.

Sometimes it more resembles what we traditionally know as a concept album (different arrangements & orchestrations, different people singing songs, maybe some music that doesn’t eventually end up in the show. etc)

It’s probably more interesting as the latter.

[darquegk]

Posted: 10/25/25 at 7:23pm

There are no easy answers or one size fits alls. I’m just gonna take things one day and one meeting at a time until an answer presents itself. 

[uncageg]

Posted: 10/25/25 at 11:36pm

Never heard of "EPIC" but did a search. Is it "EPIC: The Ithaca Saga"?

[darquegk]

Posted: 10/26/25 at 12:59am

Epic is a single pop-opera musical, which was released in about a dozen “episode” style EPs. I believe the finale is “The Ithaca Saga.” Not sure if they’ve restyled the entire piece as that subtitle.

[Fan123]

Posted: 10/26/25 at 2:12am

Speaking just as a fan and not as an industry expert, I used to get more excited by seeing big name performers attached to concept albums. However, as time has gone on, I've realised that the quality of names involved doesn't correlate to the quality of the show; generally the actors are just fulfilling a paid job, not necessarily endorsing or committing to the project beyond that (and fair enough). So the names might move the needle slightly for me, but probably not enough to translate to whatever monetary premium would be required to get them onto an album in the place of lesser-known talent. If anything, just hire one big name, and then the press release can say "[Show Name] album released featuring [Big Name] and more".

[g.d.e.l.g.i.]

Posted: 10/26/25 at 9:01am

Fan123 said: "Speaking just as a fan and not as an industry expert, I used to get more excited by seeing big name performers attached to concept albums. However, as time has gone on, I've realised that the quality of names involved doesn't correlate to the quality of the show; generally the actors are just fulfilling a paid job, not necessarily endorsing or committing to the project beyond that (and fair enough)."

Case in point: Norm Lewis and the other people who got suckered into scratch demos for that Undead Valley nonsense.

[darquegk]

Posted: 10/26/25 at 11:36am

That’s the last thing I want: if worst comes to worst, I’d rather say it was a fun thing I did for a while with friends, than be remembered as a shady boondoggle.