"Mean Girls" and our malice towards musical theater
Why do musicals provoke such strong reactions??
Musical madness
I love musicals. I always have. My parents named me after Nathan Detroit, the character from Guys and Dolls. I sang showtunes all around the house growing up. I bawl every time I hear “Sunday” from Sunday in the Park with George. I’ve written two musicals myself. And yet, I “get the ick” when I hear certain shows (*cough, Wicked), and I recognize that for some, that ickiness is part of every musical theater experience.
This phenomenon has been in evidence with the recent release of the Mean Girls movie musical, which has been advertised as…not a musical. Some viewers audibly groaned in the theatre when they realized they would have to endure belting and “I want” songs. So why do musicals elicit such intense reactions of love and hate?
On this week’s episode of Switched on Pop we tackled this topic in depth with the help of two experts: Bridger Winegar, comedian and host of the ridiculously funny podcast I Said No Gifts!; and Jimmy Smagula, Broadway actor currently appearing in Spamalot, and one time voice teacher of our very own Songwriter Charlie Harding.
We listened together to a variety of musical genres: The pop/rock musical, as represented by Spring Awakening; the operatic musical (Les Miserables); the old school musical (Oklahoma); and the Sondheim musical, which we decided merits its own category (Sweeney Todd). Some made us grin, some made us grimace, and we tried to unpack why for each case. As Bridger succinctly put it: “People have a lot of emotions tied up in music.” Musical theater tends brings them all to the surface.
What to listen to
Reanna Cruz, producer: “Give my all” by Astrid Sonnne.
Over the past few weeks, I’ve been keeping my ears to the ground and doing a lot of new music listening. I haven’t been disappointed: there’s been really great singles from the Adrianne Lenker album, Megan Thee Stallion’s “Hiss” has been culture-dominating, and electronic music has been delivering so far with stellar tracks from Four Tet and Silva Bumpa. Recently, though, I’ve been getting a lot out of the new Astrid Sonne album, Great Doubt. The record is very spacious yet tactile – delicate soundscapes are peppered with viola and synthesizer patches. It results in a nine-track sensory experience, evoking similar textures as last year’s Suntub by ML Buch. Highly recommend.
Charlie Harding, host: “I’m On Fire” by Bruce Springsteen
I’ve been revisiting Bruce Springsteen for my pop music history course at NYU. “I’m On Fire” is one of my favorite songs of all time. The song is a lesson in restraint, as the song burns in a slow ember when you expect it to erupt into flames. I have unsuccessfully tried to cover it many times from high school a cappella to an old time string band with Nate. I went searching this week for a better version than the original. No dice. But I did stumble upon Bruce Springsteen on Broadway. Wow. What a masterclass of intimate storytelling and song. The acoustic version of “Born in the USA,” which had started as an acoustic demo for Nebraska before turning into synth pop bombast, is perhaps more thrilling better as a solo acoustic blues. Now someone find me the “I’m On Fire” that really lets loose.
Nate Sloan, host: “Los Angeles Imaginary” by Steve Lehman and Orchestre National de Jazz
This is incredible technical music (the piece starts in a time signature of 2/4+2/4+2/4+2/4+2/4+5/16 - ouch) but also rich with groove, fiery improvisation, and dark LA noir (I like to think of this as the soundtrack to an Raymond Chandler novel—Joe Treble would be pleased). To get the full effect I recommend checking out this video of the live performance. Props to my undergrad students at USC for turning me on to this one.
Listener email of the week
During this episode I made an offhand remark about how Hollywood will inevitably make an X Men musical. Listener John wrote to inform us that, back in 2000, he wrote just that. Behold, in all its glory: