You dumdums haven't polled the delight cast recording of Hamilton yet; let me help

I think the show plays with a lot of these ideas---like having JL rap "I'm John Lawrence in the place to be" like he was Barney Rubble. But then contrasting that with Hamilton and Jefferson who have a Jay-Z vs Nas level rivalry.

My baby does the A-l-e-x-a-n-d-e-r part all the time now

Oh man I'd love to walk past a pool party of drunks shouting Hamilton lyrics

lin-manuel said having the rap get more complex and move from old school to more complex rapping was a characterization move!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wboCdgzLHg

I'm the A-l, e-x,
a-n-d-e-r
every other day I buy a brand new carriage

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8aqAgtwqcU

has there ever been an in-depth study of the "...and I'm here to say" trope and how it spread as a corny "rap" trope in pop culture...I think saw it in a Geico commercial this year still

not in-depth exactly but
http://www.villagevoice.com/music/the-history-of-raps-oldest-cliche-6625926

http://www.feralaudio.com/2-try-n-raps/

Also not in-depth, but pretty fun

thanks for both those links!

"this rhyme has become the default archetype for how people who don't listen to rap think rap begins."

I would say it's how people who listen to rap think people who don't listen to rap think rap begins

https://www.currentaffairs.org/2016/07/you-should-be-terrified-that-people-who-like-hamilton-run-our-country

is he more upset by loads of ppl liking something or a rapping musical, i can't tell

seems like a fun dude

I'm seeing "Hamilton" tomorrow night, and have tried to stay in the dark, but am already a tiny bit sick of it, because my kids (and everyone) are constantly playing the music, or talking about the music, or blah blah blah. I just want to see it, as a person, and enjoy it without feeling like I'm the last on the block to see it, when in fact I'm getting to see it here the first week and obviously the vast majority of people will literally never get a chance to see it. So weird to feel lucky and late to the game at the same time.

Anyway. I was complaining about its overexposure (not its fault for apparently being great) and my wife pointed out how unusual it is for a Broadway production to cross over into the broader pop culture, and to an extent, she's right. I went through the last couple of decades, and it seems at least for the '80s, '90s and '00s there are really only one or two musicals per whose songs crossed over and remain, to some extent, prevalent. Les Mis, Wicked, Rent, um, Book of Mormon (maybe?) Hamilton, a couple of others. That said, an overwhelming number of hit musicals are either revivals, jukebox musicals or adaptations of movie musicals, so they've kind of had a head start on the ubiquity front. Which makes the breakthrough of original (enough) stuff like, well, Rent, or Wicked, or especially Hamilton more impressive.

totally!! i'm excited for u - i love what i have seen of the new chicago castmembers, i bet it will be great

you left out Rock of Ages, Jersey Boys etc.

(xp)

Well, Jersey Boys is jukebox musical, right? Rock of Ages, do kids sing along with that stuff? I'm not sure I've heard a song from it.

it was a big enough hit to get a shitty movie made from it

Rock of Ages is hair metal jukebox

I guess I'm unclear on the definition of jukebox musical tbh

I don't think Rock of Ages had original songs, unlike Hamilton etc.

Haven't heard jukebox musical but I would use the term "revue" = existing songs pasted together with some plot. Like Moulin Rouge.

Everything in Hamilton was written to be in Hamilton.

ah. yeah seems like the big hits from original material are p few and far between these days.

The last pop hit I can think of that came from an original musical was "One Night in Bangkok."

wasn't Avenue Q a big hit? seems like it was around for awhile. I never heard/saw it or any of the material as it seemed like an aggressively lame ripoff of Meet the Feebles

My wife loves all those recent rock(ish) musicals - Rent, Passing Strange, Avenue Q, Hamilton, American Idiot, Book of Mormon.

As a result I have seen or listened to those, and I am generally lukewarm (at best) about them. Hamilton strikes me as the least flabby of that lot, with comparatively little American Idol-style melismatic wankery.

For me, "musicals" invokes more mid-20th-century stuff. Rodgers & Hammerstein-ish. Sound of Music, King and I, My Fair Lady, Oklahoma. I like Guys & Dolls, Gigi, Damn Yankees. I like Godspell okay but start to lose the plot with Jesus Christ Superstar. Once Sondheim and Lloyd Weber get their fucking mitts on the genre I tune out. The Miserable Cats of the Opera can just fuck right off as I'm concerned. So it takes A LOT to get me to New York or into a theater these days.

All that said, we'll probably see Hamilton in DC, despite my lukewarmth.

I know a lot of people went to Jersey Boys, Avenue Q, etc., but I have never heard anyone mention these except in the literal context of "I was in New York so I went to xxxxx." I think this level of cultural footprint is Les Miserables, Rent, and Hamilton, and that's it. Cats, probably yes, Phantom of the Opera, probably no.

My partner is a high school teacher, and had to accompany a class trip to see Jersey Boys. I made her a bet that there'd be a line in the show "A lot was changing in the '60s...and the Four Seasons had to change, too." I won the bet.

(thought, to be fair, she didn't strenuously disagree about the possibility of such a line)

Avenue q, which is imo garbage as a whole, has the "everyone's a little bit racist" song that seemed to have a life outside of the show, so I'd count that as a non-broadway impact

Taking a trip to Chicago specifically sto see Hamilton for my wife's birthday this weekend, it's pretty exciting. Never seen a lavish musical in anything even close to the "early" part of its run, just seen, like, national touring companies in Tempe Arizona. I'm assuming this will be better!

Get dinner at Revival, around the corner!!! http://revivalfoodhall.com

I think this level of cultural footprint is Les Miserables, Rent, and Hamilton, and that's it. Cats, probably yes, Phantom of the Opera, probably no.

And "Wicked."

^^Yeah, "Defying Gravity" has become a standard in the theater kids world.

Les Miserables, Rent, and Hamilton

bodes well

Theater kids world, gah. I did enough HS theater stuff to be intimately familiar with this type, even though I had and have my reservations about full participation in all the folkways.

If you ever ran through the halls of your high school singing something from "Hair" or "Rent" I have intensely mixed feelings about you. If you had a jean jacket with a glow-in-the-dark Phantom logo I probably hate you a little bit, but you were also pretty much the only people who didn't stuff me in a locker or beat me up for fun.

So you were basically my tribe by default. There is a chart somewhere of fandom snobbery (Trekkies regard themselves as less geeky than furries; furries regard themselves as less geeky than people who write Star Trek fanfiction in which all the characters are furries, and so on and so forth). I think about this sometimes: in my high school the theater kids were called drama queers or DQs; band fags were overlapping but slightly lower on the food chain. The only way to go lower was to ride the short bus.

Our local middle school has a huge and hugely lauded theater program that keeps winning various national awards. I've seen several of their productions, which have been excellent, not just by middle school standards but full stop 100 people choreographed and singing and dancing excellent. Just great stuff. Damn if they aren't all such total theatre kids, but nothing compared to this national wannabe "Up With People" crew I just saw there (who did, among other things, selections from Hamilton, not too long after their selection of great songs - John Denver, Billy Joel, James Taylor, "American Pie" and other shit that no kids want to hear):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9CW6HJ7W_s

the weird thing for me is I have always dug/got along with theater people on a personal level, their eagerness for art projects/crafty stuff, good design sense, ability to improvise solutions to things, partying, sense of humor/drama, etc. but when it comes to like actual Broadway theater I'm like gtfo. I do enjoy small theater productions, have fond memories of seeing friends put on goofy zombie musicals, fake game shows.

Maybe things have changed since 1985 - hard for me to imagine Biff Tannen-style jocks stuffing Lin-Manuel Miranda into a locker. But what do I know, I'm like a thousand years old.

I'm willing to bet jocks are still assholes, and that teenagers are assholes is general

I was obviously not a theater kid (and I didn't go full-band kid, quit after one year) I was more of a garden-variety nerd/outcast

I know a lot of people went to Jersey Boys, Avenue Q, etc., but I have never heard anyone mention these except in the literal context of "I was in New York so I went to xxxxx." I think this level of cultural footprint is Les Miserables, Rent, and Hamilton, and that's it. Cats, probably yes, Phantom of the Opera, probably no.

― Guayaquil (eephus!), Thursday, September 29, 2016 2:08 PM (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

shows that have come to my city, sometimes multiple times, and sold out at the very least the weekend evenings:

- Phantom of the Opera (three times maybe?)
- Cats (fucking ALW)
- Book of Mormon (twice?)
- Avenue Q
- Les Miserables
- Rent
- Wicked

There are a handful of others that are big w/original music but these are the ones that I either heard about repeatedly or was dragged to by family/friends. Even the musical true believer friends hate crap like "Mamma Mia!" and the other "let's create a musical out of a handful of pop songs" crap. There's some Beatles tribute thing coming through, too.

Oh yeah, Jersey Boys falls somewhere in there, too. I know people who have made the "I was in NY so I went to.." claim but all the stuff I listed played really well in Des Moines (literally)

people are hyped as fuck for Hamilton

I got dragged to Book of Mormon and I'm probably done with musicals for another few years

Huh, I thought Book of Mormon was great.

jeez louise you musical haters need your own thread lol

my australian sister in law came to visit for a weekend a while back & i successfuly got her hooked on hamilton in a mere TWO days
#gooblegobbleoneofus

I thought it was fine, I just don't really like musicals! And I have too much familiarity with too many of them!

One of the characters straight-up being Cartman was some lazy scripting

i'm in-and-out of theater-world: i work at one so often do tech work for this or that; i rly love doing shakespeare (as documented in a shakespeare thread) and last christmas was a slacker seven-year-old (named "herb" -- much backstage mirth) in a kids' show; there are musicals i would try out for; but all the friends i've made through this stuff do it much more consistently than i do.

and yeah they like way more musicals than i do.

like shakey tho i share their values.

musicals are gr8 for many reasons. i highly recommend d.a. miller's place for us as an exploration of one of the dimensions of why.