Theatre Songs You CAN Hear On The Radio

I'm really excited that Green Day's 2004 album, American Idiot, now has a stage version--that's been generating a lot of buzz as it starts performances at Berkeley Rep. I admittedly haven't listened to the album, though I was mildly obsessed with Green Day in middle school (I still know all the words to all the songs on Dookie and Nimrod), but I'm just happy that a band that's so much a part of popular culture is taking musical theatre so seriously. Green Day's albums have always felt cohesive to me, and the juxtaposition between happy, upbeat music and lyrics ranging from bitter to angry to resigned has always been my favorite thing about the band. Letting the music say one thing and the lyrics another is also very characteristic of musical theatre. Between that and their use of specific imagery in very character-driven lyrics, a concept album like American Idiot seemed inevitable to me.

I also really like the idea that musical theatre is something that anyone with a story to tell can create. Having legitimate rock stars like Green Day and Bono, who's composing Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark, put the time, energy, and hard work into musical theatre helps undermine the notion that musical theatre is exclusively jazz hands and overwrought ballads. (And I love jazz hands and overwrought ballads, but I would NOT love an art form that consisted of nothing else.) Even if American Idiot were a smash hit on Broadway, it won't make musical theatre as popular as it once was, and it won't make a nation of 16 year olds consider it cool. But it absolutely will make some people--adults as well as teenagers--give theatre a chance.

Most importantly, however, the Green Day guys all seem to have respect for the art form. It's not something they're doing just to be huge in another medium or a seemingly easy way to make some more cash. According to this New York Times article, lead singer Billie Joe Armstrong actually grew up with musicals--which is more than I can say, and I have musical theatre degree! The fact that American Idiot is a concept album, like The Who's Tommy, also makes me believe that they're doing this project because they have a story, and they feel this is the best way to tell it. I'd be more apprehensive if they were trying to make a musical out of their radio hits, say.

I'm going to listen to American Idiot as soon as I can get a copy, and I'm definitely excited to see what comes of the show. With Elton John currently having two musicals on Broadway, Duncan Sheik and Steven Slater's Spring Awakening practically sweeping the Tonys two years ago, and Regina Spektor working on a Broadway-bound musical, the term "theatre music" is beginning to expand. The rock Next to Normal and hip-hop infused In the Heights--both Tony winners for Best Score, both currently on Broadway, and both written by writers who are very much of the theatre--are evidence of that. As a former metalhead who can recite the score of Sunset Boulevard, contemporary rock and pop music on Broadway is something I'm thrilled to see. Just so long as artists from other genres give musical theatre the respect it deserves.