Trying to explain music from Broadway

Hello everyone !
I have a question for you, and all opinions are welcome....
The other day, I was watching a show on tv with friends of my own age (early 20s who are not even remotely interested in musical theater btw) and the show was the french version of "The voice" (yup, I'm french), and all I was thinking was "Oh my god... this is so bad, they don't even mean a single word they're singing..." and so forth.... and I was trying to explain to my friends what it was about this kind of "entertainment" that was so different from the kind of entertainment I (and all of us on this message board) enjoy.... and I never was able to really give a proper explanation. I was talking about craft, quality, intent... but none of my arguments seemed to leave an impression.
Now, I'm sure many of you have gone through a similar experience.... How do you explain to people around you what makes music from Broadway so much better than "pop" music ?

^ Yeah, what she said. Every song, no matter the genre, is about telling the story effectively. Period.

I'm constantly struggling with the same issue, from my experience there's not nothing you could do to change people's mind about Broadway, specially if they consider themselves "cool and hip." My theory is that there is a musical for everyone, while it was virtually impossible for one of my friends to remotely like the sound of Liza's voice in Cabaret, she really liked Heather Headley's The Gods Love Nubia.

Unfortunately our generation is so attached to synthesizers and auto-tune, that real music is boring to them, and sometimes find Broadway legends to be screaming instead of singing, my mom included! It's extremely frustrating but it's the truth, at least that's what I've gathered from the people around me.

The recent Les Mis film was a exception to this phenomenon, it was the first time since HSM that I saw so many of my friends excited about a musical and singing it's songs constantly. Of course, after I played them Patti's version of I dreamed a dream they couldn't believe "how ugly that old witch sounded and how dared she sing Anne's song," and after they heard the Original One Day More, couldn't bear to listen to "such a horrendous Cosstte, Eponnine and Javert.

That's why I think what shows like Glee and SMASH are doing is so remarkable, introducing young people to songs which they normally wouldn't be caught dead listening to.

Updated On: 4/27/13 at 05:46 PM

I agree with you Eric, but dance music is almost a different animal altogether. Though the disco years have produced songs with great music and lyrics, most of the music in nightclubs nowadays is based on beats, electro and so forth... when you think about it, it's quite "lifeless" if that makes sense...
I don't know, maybe it's an acquired taste?

Updated On: 4/27/13 at 06:21 PM

Synthesizers were just an example, is not that I'm against them, as I love pop music as well as rock and techno, but that doesn't mean I shouldn't appreciate music with legit voices and full orchestras.

My taste in music is very varied. Apart from the showtunes, my iPod is filled with 80's and 90's pop and rock, 70's disco, Disney, Michael Jackson, Madonna, Lady Gaga who I'm obsessed with, Ricky Martin, Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra, Lionel Ritchie, Beyonce, Pink, and many many more...

The only music I don't like is Hip Hop, and metal, although I can stand the latter.

Updated On: 4/27/13 at 06:31 PM

"There are songs out there with lyrics that barely make any sense, and singers who don't seem to "live" their song, and yet they're very popular"

My own answer to that is simply because in a lot of pop music, the lyrics aren't meaningful to me and/or I can't understand what the Hell they're saying any way. I'm attracted to the melody and the tempo of a song and I don't care about the lyrics.

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If there is one thing I detest is uppity theater snobs that swear up and down the Broadway songs are superior to any other type of music.

Everyone is entitled to their own opinion but to tout an opinion as fact is obnoxious.

I love Broadway, I love theater, I love musical theater but I pride myself in loving a wide variety of music, singers, genres.

For the record, my favorite music is R&B/Soul music.

I think we're missing the point of this thread, the OP didn't asked us to compare Broadway and popular music, she asked for advice for a situation, which unless you only surround yourself with theatre people, most of us have been through. It's not about trashing contemporary music, is about the frustration one feels when one likes something that no one likes or understand.

Pop has always been my favorite music until I discovered Broadway, but I only like good pop, artists like Lady Gaga, Adele and Beyonce, who deserve all the recognition they can get, but there are only a few like them out there today. People also forget the fact that once Liza Minnelli and Barbra Streisand were considered pop stars.

Updated On: 4/27/13 at 08:06 PM

People really like to lump theatrical music into one big clump when it's so much bigger than that. Musical theatre uses music to heighten emotion...it's about emotion. It's bigger than just the genre of music (whether classical, hip hop, rock, whatever). The music is there to tell a story. That's what a lot of people don't get. Musical theatre/broadway music tells a story and is as vast as the pop music catalog and beyond because it can incorporate any genre to help express its message.
I think that's why it's not appreciated by some people...they can't grasp that this music is not going to be just a groove or a small sentiment. Every lyric, every composition works together to express something. And a lot of people's attention spans are not that long, they don't want to sit and listen and put the pieces together. They want something they can just dance or rock out to.

And notice I said some people. There are a lot of people who do appreciate this type of expression. And even if they say they don't, they still love Disney movies like Lion King, Little Mermaid, Pocahontas...while cartoons still are basically musical theatre.

@ Valastairekelly: I didn't mean to say you specifically were doing that.

Oh Eric, I'd love to read that article by Camille Paglia! Seems really interesting !

I like words as much as music, which is why I think showtunes have such an appeal for me- the lyrics, by the nature of the medium, are as equally important and must be up to par with the music. Sometimes, they may even need to be better.

How many popular songwriters are praised for their lyrics anymore? How many are even good lyricists? It's about the music- how well-performed, how catchy, how well it can be danced to. Even pop artists I do like, I wouldn't say are great lyricists- they have typically have easy rhymes and are fairly banal. But then again, some would say the same for many modern theatre composers.

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Dramamama, that's true.

But I have seen people who's taste in music drastically changed over the years as they learned more about it. What impressed them before did not satisfy them later on. Their taste, their "musical insights" grew/evolved.

Updated On: 4/28/13 at 09:28 AM