Way back in MusicalTalk episode 328 Comedy Thos was mulling rhythmically (around the 43 minute mark).
The Thos Thesis is that the 1950s saw the beginning of the dominance of the backbeat in popular music. This inevitably had an adverse affect on the lyrics. The insistent rhythm left no room for singers to fully get across the meaning and inflection of the words. Lyrics became mere ornaments to decorate a song rather than an essential part of it.
But in musical theatre, lyrics are essential. Lyrics explain and reveal the what and the why of stories and characters. They cannot be subordinated. So over the following decades a gradual but inevitable split developed between theatre music and chart music, a tragedy from which the civilized world has yet to recover.
I exaggerate a little.
Exhibit A in this thesis is two versions of the song "Tonight You Belong to Me". The first is from 1920s crooner, Gene Austin; the second is from the 1950s sister hit-sters, Patience and Prudence (Spotify 'em for a listen). The Austin recording has the full verse and chorus and enough rhythmic flexibility to allow the singer to bring out all the nuances of the lyric. The sisters, on the other hand, drop the verse which confuses the meaning of the chorus and the singers are straight-jacketed by a fixed and dominating rhythm. The different approaches demonstrate how the lyric has lost its significance in chart music. And frankly m'lud, it's the backbeat wot done it.
If you have a listen, it's certainly a well-judged example.
And Thos is in good company. Richard Rodgers was none too keen on the newly-enhanced backbeat in pop music. I can't now find the reference but I'm sure I remember reading about a letter to a newspaper that Rodgers once wrote complaining about the latest hit parade and how he was taught that music was about melody, harmony and rhythm and why reduce it to just the latter.
And yet, and yet. There is a case to be made for the defence:
1. Most chart music doesn't subordinate the lyric with a backbeat. Even where the backbeat is absolutely fixed, the singer will still sing the melody in a very flexible manner, anticipating the beat fractionally (as is done in Latin music) or delaying it (as in swing music). The inflexible interpretation of Prudence and Patience is really an exception, not the rule.
2. Even if the rhythm is inflexible and dominating that doesn't necessarily make it unsuitable for musical theatre. Let's say that we re-wrote the King and I so that, in an expected plot twist, Yul Bryner and the entire court of Siam are mercilessly wiped out by a Terminator robot sent back from the future to kill Anna. And if Richard Rodgers were writing the Terminator's big number towards the end of Act II, I suspect he'd want a song with an inflexible and dominating rhythm to express the robotic and unrelenting aspect of its character (and to compliment Arnie's general acting range). It's not the musical style that makes a song a theatre song, it's the context.
Despite these objections I'd say that the Thos Thesis is basically sound. The predominance of rhythm will inevitably diminish the importance of the lyric which is problematic for musical writers (although I'd say it's not the only reason why lyrics are less important in chart music).
Then again I can't help but wonder if this is less to do with rhythm and more to do with the difference between a romantic and a modern sensibility. There's an interesting parallel in classical music which (very, very broadly speaking) moved from the nineteenth century romantic focus on melody (e.g. Tchaikovsky) and harmony (e.g. Wagner) to a twentieth-century focus on rhythm. Just as musical theatre has always been a bit uneasy about the heavy backbeats of rock music, it has also never really tried to adopt the cross-rhythms of Stravinsky or the minimalism of Steve Reich.
Perhaps that's because musical theatre is essentially a romantic form. Or perhaps there's just never been a truly modern musical.
Yet.
As the song says, eventually the rhythm's gonna get ya.
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