Theatre Songs and Pop Songs and Electrical Appliances

In this Dischord podcast (Soapbox #2 Danger, High Voltage), musical theatre man Adam Lenson compares theatre songs and pop songs and asks, what's the diff?

His answer is that musical theatre songs tend to contain more 'information' and, for modern pop listeners, getting such 'high voltage' information in their songs tends to blow their electrical appliances. Musically speaking, that is. And maybe that's why some audiences get put off musical theatre songs.

To demonstrate the point, he runs through a selection of pop and theatre songs and considers the amount of information they are conveying in terms of tone, character and narrative. He gives a score for each category out of 100 and tots up the results. So every song gets a Lensonian 'voltage' rating out of a possible 300. 

Now I cannot tell you how much I love, love, love this idea. I mean, why wouldn't you? Isn't this how everyone thinks about songs? My only disappointment is that a spreadsheet was not made available.

So take a song like "Ya Got Trouble" from The Music Man. This is packed with information - details of character, story references and so on - and scores high on the voltage scale (voltage rating = 225). Whereas a song like "Falling Slowly" from Once is more generic and scores low (voltage = 75). Although they're both from musicals, the former is more of a traditional theatre song, the latter is more of a pop song. 

And this proves to be the general rule. Pop tends towards the 0-100 range, whilst musical theatre songs tend towards 200-300 territory. There are exceptions. A song like Ben Fold's "Fred Jones"  is pretty high (250) and a lot of pre-Golden Age theatre songs, like Cole Porter's "Easy to Love", are low (although, arguably they were more like the pop songs of the day rather than integrated theatre songs). But, generally speaking, pop songs are low information and theatre songs are high information.

So how can theatre reach out and appeal to pop audiences? So what can musicals do about this information gap between theatre and pop? Well you could (i) lower the voltage of theatre songs or (ii) use pop styles (country or hip-hop, say) that tend to be more high voltage or (iii) you could aim for a balance, something in the 100-200 mid range.

This makes a whole lot of sense. And it's a fascinating way to analyse songs.

Here are some thoughts to add.

INFORMATION AND MUSIC

I wonder if using 'information' as a metric puts too much emphasis on the words. It's easier to discern the 'information' conveyed by a lyric, whereas music is trickier. Musical 'information' is more emotional, more abstract, more open to interpretation. Perhaps the metric should be something more like or 'aural thought-feel data points' or 'sonic emoji-ness'? On second thoughts, let's stick with 'information'. But remember that the music is conveying information too.

BRIDGING THE GAP

On bridging the gap between theatre songs and pop songs, it's also worth considering the advice of the old-time musical theatre lyricist (can't remember which one, think it was Alan Jay Lerner) who suggested that, if you're going to reference specific details of the story, save those for the song's intro. Keep the main part of the song more general and multi-purpose, which then makes it easier to have a life outside of the show. Could also be a way to achieve that 100-200 mid-range sweet spot.

NEEDING TO HEAR THE WORDS

There could be a simpler explanation for the difference between theatre songs and pop songs going back to the days of early rock 'n' roll when the theatre/pop divide really began. Early rock music was basically something for young people to dance to. It's meant to get you moving, whereas theatre songs are meant to be listened to. So in rock music, and pop music more generally, there's usually a heavier beat. The problem for theatre is that, if the beat's too heavy, then you start to lose the lyric. And theatre lyrics need to be heard and understood in a way that pop lyrics don't. Maybe that's why, when theatre songs use pop styles, they sometimes feel like 'gentrified' versions of the real thing.

ACCENTS

I'll admit, this is a well-beaten drum of mine. I still think it's a big issue. For modern pop audiences, the norm is still to hear songs sung in American English. That's a problem for theatre writers. 

I once sat on a bus listening to a group of young girls behind me happily singing along to the latest pop songs on their i-phones. Then, as a joke, one of them said, "Wait a minute, what about this one?". And she started singing the old scouts' favourite "Kumbaya" ("Kumbaya, my Lord, Kumbaya..."). At least, she tried. She started, then stopped. She tried again. She was struggling because she was trying to sing in the same American English as her pop songs and she couldn't get the accent to fit the song.

Now, as it happens, "Kumbaya", despite being African-American in origin, sings very easily in an English accent. But the girl on the bus was so used to hearing songs in American English that she was struggling to sing in any other accent, even her own. She couldn't naturally move from her speaking voice to a singing voice without changing accents. 

To me, it's an amazing thing. We're so used to hearing songs in an American accent that it actually feels unusual and awkward when we try to sing in our own non-American accents. That's not such a problem for pop writers but it is for theatre writers who need to move from speech to song.

Anyways, enough drumming.

Listen to the podcast. Brilliant, brilliant thoughts on a really important topic for musicals.

And we definitely need that spreadsheet.