Interesting article by Isherwood in sunday NY Times about the future of rock on boradway

[winston89]

Posted: 6/24/07 at 3:32am

Due to the fact that my family gets home delivary of the times I get the sunday paper on saturdays. This allowed me to just read an intersting article by Isherwood about the future of rock in musical theatre. He does a great job talking about how the world of pop/rock is changing and how there are rock song writers that might be able to make a better carrear if they write for the stage. He talks about how with things such as iTunes more people are buying a single song or two as oppose to an entier album if there is only one or two songs from a given album they want. He went on to talk about how many broadway shows these days are all just triubetes to the Gershwins or Rogers and Hamerstine.

He also went on to say that Spring Awakening is the first true rock musical to hit broaway. he defends his statemnt by saying that Hair is pop and not rock and RENT although rock flows much more like a tridational broadway scroe as oppose to rock and role. He also went on to talk about how Spring Awakening was the first rock musical to get cridical acclame other the The Who's Tommy. However, he threw Tommy to the side noting thatt it was a rock opera ( the first recording ever to be billed as a rock opera. A term created by Pete Townshend) that came out in 1969. Then almost ten years later Ken Russell did a film version of the Album. All in all, great article and worth a read.


http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/24/theater/24ishe.html?_r=1&ref=theater&oref=slogin

[Clara's Pony]

Posted: 6/24/07 at 7:18am

Not sure I entirely agree with his argument, but interesting reading.

[Wanna Be A Foster]

Posted: 6/24/07 at 12:37pm

Very interesting article.

[jrb_actor]

Posted: 6/24/07 at 12:57pm

I wish Hedwig and the Angry Inch had been included in the article. Rolling Stone called that show "the first rock musical that rocks".

[winston89]

Posted: 6/24/07 at 5:16pm

As much as I love the rolling stone I wouldn't alwasy call them the be all and end all of rock. I wouldn't reallyh cosndier hedwig a rock musical that much. It flowed more like a typical musical.


And, i do love how Isherwood commented that Spring Awakening was the first real rock musical and that Tommy didn't count. I don't think Tommy should even be considered a rock musical I don't even think that the album should have turned into a broadway show to begin with.

[TWSFan4Ever]

Posted: 6/24/07 at 5:19pm

Interesting article. And strangely when I opened it on the side was an advertisement from Yahoo! Broadway advertising to buy tickets for "The Pirate Queen"...

[Caroline-Q-or-TBoo]

Posted: 6/24/07 at 5:32pm

I do think Hedwig's music is easily the most "rock" sounding though. Or, at least, more so than Spring Awakening's "soft rock"ish sound

[Weez]

Posted: 6/24/07 at 5:33pm

The thing is... I don't know how much I agree that 'Spring Awakening' is a rock musical. Folk-rock, sure. But rock? Not especially. XP

[winston89]

Posted: 6/24/07 at 8:57pm

The thing is, Spring Awakening has been billing themselves as an alt rock musical. A title which I think is pretty accurate. If you look at the huge catalouge of alt rock stuff Spring Awakening easilly fits there. I wouldn't do anythinkg like call it classic rock but if you look at the acts out there the music on the album does firt int ot the MTV sound that is out there.