What's The Next "Sound" for Broadway?

Throat-busters with sweeping, “cinematic” orchestrations, as well as generic pop/rock anthems, like it or not.

BrodyFosse123 said: "Bro, do some history reading. Rock music was first introduced in a Broadway score in 1960 with BYE BYE BIRDIE. HAIR followed years later then JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR, etc. IN THE HEIGHTS used rap extensively prior to HAMILTON. "

Ouch! But true.

BrodyFosse123 said: "Bro, do some history reading. Rock music was first introduced in a Broadway score in 1960 with BYE BYE BIRDIE. HAIR followed years later then JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR, etc. IN THE HEIGHTS used rap extensively prior to HAMILTON."

I'm going off the shows that defined that decade, bro.

In what way is Bye Bye Birdie rock?

inception said: "Is Six done with EDM? Maybe more shows with whatever the style of music used for that show? But hopefully with a better fleshed out story, and not just one song/performer."

SIX is quite easily the most EDM-heavy musical I’ve seen on Broadway since Great Comet. KPOP has tons of electronica in its score as well, so I hear.

There is still quite a resistance to EDM from the old Broadway guard. My dream is reorchestrating a classic and I have the credentials. Just waiting for the call. To paraphrase someone I was honored to remix as a Billboard dance/club chart topping EDM record, “Broadway, can you hear me?”

So many other great artists to also pull in. Would be great if the new Cats has a true ballroom steeped MD for sure!!!

I think part of the problem too is you need diversity in the sound. It can’t just be builds to nowhere every 30 seconds and a lack of key changes. It also needs more depth than merely samples and a chorus. Without full vocals and a healthy non-house electronic track here and there, it’s a potential slog.

RippedMan said: "BrodyFosse123 said: "Bro, do some history reading. Rock music was first introduced in a Broadway score in 1960 with BYE BYE BIRDIE. HAIR followed years later then JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR, etc. IN THE HEIGHTS used rap extensively prior to HAMILTON."

I'm going off the shows that defined that decade, bro.

In what way is Bye Bye Birdie rock?"


Ignore her, she drinks.

RippedMan said:

I'm going off the shows that defined that decade, bro.

Bro, that is not how your original message reads or comes across. You literally wrote:

Every decade seems to be defined by a distinct sound. The 80s were the mega musicals, RENT introduced Bway to rock, Wicked introduced a pop/American Idol sound, and Hamilton brought rap to musical theater.

Those shows you cited did not introduce those genres of music to B'way.

I'm no music historian, so forgive me if any of this is way off base, and totally mis-characterizes the influences at play, but this is my sense:

I feel like the next "sound" is a combination of mainstream pop music, as well as an increase in genre music in general.

Musical theatre has always had an ebb-and-flow relationship with popular music styles, and I feel like we're back in a resurgence period right now.

Whereas, by contrast, I think the defining sound of the late 90s-late 2000s was a more distinctly "contemporary musical theatre" style (think Jason Robert Brown, Ahrens & Flaherty, William Finn, Andrew Lippa, etc.). I'm sure these composers had influences from outside genres, but they didn't feel as prevalent. Likewise, there were plenty of genre scores during that time period, but I don't think they were "in" as much. I guess this was the crop of composers that were most influenced by Sondheim? I don't know.

But over the past 10-15 years, I feel like we've seeing popular music styles come back in full swing.

Right now, I think the "hip," "experimental" musical theatre scene features a lot of folk, indie-pop, etc. That scene is where they're REALLY pushing the medium forward, but they've mostly stayed in the non-profit realm. Maybe shows like Hadestown will help them crossover, but I feel like more mainstream pop sounds are more likely to be the commercially fruitful path.

And I don't mean that in a bad way - I actually think the incorporation of mainstream pop into musical theatre can be very artfully, in ways that also push the form forward. And of course, it can also be very entertaining, and even emotionally stirring.

LMAO. Wicked, love it or hate it, doesn’t sound like a single thing that was performed on American Idol anywhere near the time that it opened. It has a contemporary sound, sure, but to compare to it American Idol is short-sighted and naive.

And yeah, like others have said, Rent was hardly the beginning of Rock on Broadway. What a misguided post. LOL.

KPOP sounds like, well, k-pop.

I remember first hearing Waitress with just Sara's vocals and then hearing how they "Broadway"-ed it and hating that cheesy Broadway sound. Eventually came around to loving the score, but much prefer that authentic approach to the current way the "Opening Up" sounds. I'd like to go a more singer/songwriter approach but maybe that does not work on such a large scale.

There’s a word that gets thrown around on the darker, more right-wing sides of the Internet, and in the world of nerd culture where it’s seeped in from overlap: “Lindy.”

The Lindy theory is that the classics are classic for a reason, and the sheer length of time they’ve been around means that they aren’t going anywhere. The example that lends its name is the Lindy Hop, the name enthusiasts use for social and exposition swing dancing. Despite swing falling out of the mainstream, swing dancing has never really gone away, and it keeps breaking into pop culture, fading back, breaking in. It’s become part of the cultural DNA by long exposure, so it’s always going to be there.

I don’t really like using the word, because the alt-right uses it to claim things like female submission and male authority have inevitable Lindy permanence. But this framework DOES make sense when applied to the arts: it’s nearly impossible to imagine a theatrical future completely devoid of either the sweeping melodrama of operetta or the blues, swing and jazz pop influences of Great American Songbook style musicals. Maybe the question is, what paradigm are we in now? The 1800s-1920s paradigm got merged into the 1930s-1950s paradigm and so on. Whatever comes after us will not be new and distinct and separate, it will be an outgrowth of what’s going on right now.