Is Parade a rock musical?

[Mattbrain]

Posted: 7/2/07 at 5:43pm

In their article about rock musicals, Wikipedia mentions Parade as a rock musical. Is there any validity to this statement? Is there some kind of musical technique that qualifies the music as rock?

[JRybka]

Posted: 7/2/07 at 5:48pm

Parade is not a rock musical.

To me rock musicals are

TOMMY, RENT, Jesus Christ Superstar

PARADE is more along the lines of Ragtime==

speaking of which.. andyone else curious what Jason Robert Brown would have done if he had done the music to Ragtime?

[Johnnytoc]

Posted: 7/2/07 at 5:50pm

No, it's not.

[bjh2114]

Posted: 7/2/07 at 5:56pm

Not even close.

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 7/2/07 at 6:03pm

Yes. Like Falsettos, it's practically the closest thing Broadway has to a Slayer concert.

[istillbelieve24601]

Posted: 7/2/07 at 6:20pm

Calling Parade a rock musical is one of the most ignorant statements I've ever heard in my life.

If you like Ragtime, you'll like Parade. I always tend to classify them together. They're both great shows. Definitely check out the music to it.

[SeanMartin]

Posted: 7/2/07 at 6:24pm

>> Calling Parade a rock musical is one of the most ignorant statements I've ever heard in my life.

Consider the source. Wikipedia is a great thing in theory, but in application it can screw up mightily because of the folks who write the entries.

[Mattbrain]

Posted: 7/2/07 at 10:35pm

Thank you, everyone!!!!!! I knew Wikipedia had screwed things up again. istillbelieve, Ragtime and Parade possess, in my book, two of the most amazing (or as Seth Rudetsky would say, amahzing) scores ever written for a Broadway musical.

[broadwaybaby86]

Posted: 7/2/07 at 10:38pm

yeah, i pretty much have 2 agree. Rock musicals have like, rock-ish tunes. Rent, Godspell, Mama Mia I'd have to say as well, those are all rock some of them might be leading along the lines of pop-musicals if you know what i mean, but yeah.

[yellibean2]

Posted: 7/2/07 at 11:59pm

anyone else curious what Jason Robert Brown would have done if he had done the music to Ragtime?

that, and wasn't Sondheim offered to do the music for Parade?

Updated On: 7/2/07 at 11:59 PM

[Roninjoey]

Posted: 7/3/07 at 12:23am

Well Hal Prince did direct it. I think Hal Prince came up with the idea too.

[Ourtime992]

Posted: 7/3/07 at 12:28am

Hal Prince and Sondheim talked about doing it for years. Sondheim ultimately passed, and because Hal knew JRB through Daisy, he tabbed him for the job.

[americanboy99]

Posted: 7/3/07 at 12:33am

Well, ALW calls PHANTOM a rock-opera.

[deadparrot]

Posted: 7/3/07 at 12:38am

I don't think I can think of even one song in PARADE that is remotely close to a rock song.

[americanboy99]

Posted: 7/3/07 at 12:45am

Well, I don't know.

Rock-opera, rock musical, and operetta can be jumbled up terms sometimes.

[SeanMartin]

Posted: 7/3/07 at 6:41am

Okay, guys, so who's going to Wikipedia to correct the entry? You can do that, you know.

[Mattbrain]

Posted: 7/3/07 at 7:03am

Done and done.

[tazber]

Posted: 7/3/07 at 7:58am

Just a side note - JRB has said that he considers himself to be a rock composer, Parade excepted of course. (I would consider him pop at most, but whatever)
Perhaps the author of the erroneous entry got confused. We all know that Parade does not use any rock idioms whatsoever, however it does have some blues influences in the numbers sung by the African Americans.

And please count me in with the admirers of this amazing score.

[me2]

Posted: 7/3/07 at 1:06pm

I loved this show, and it was a great honor to get to meet JRB when he was conducting it on tour.

The confusion over category comes from people calling shows like JANE EYRE or LES MIZ a pop opera despite that fact that they have little connection to pop music of the day.

As for Wikipedia . . . I had a student doing research on it before I knew what it was, and he learned Teddy Roosevelt lost a bid for the third term to Upton Sinclair and led America in WWI against Canada.
Broadway Blog: The Road You Didn’t Take to Broadway (the Hollywood detour debate)

[Mattbrain]

Posted: 7/3/07 at 4:48pm

^Oh my.