Musicals such as Green Day’s American Idiot the musical, raise the question of how a concept album’s integration into the Broadway musical form both conforms to and alters the traditional Broadway numbers. Because little academic research...
moreMusicals such as Green Day’s American Idiot the musical, raise the question of how a concept album’s integration into the Broadway musical form both conforms to and alters the traditional Broadway numbers. Because little academic research currently exists of American punk rock music, Green Day, and punk rock infused with other venues of live stage performance, a more varied and interdisciplinary approach must be taken to answer the question at hand. First, it is necessary to observe how Lehman Engel and his book, The Making of a Musical, not only discusses but defines the characteristics and function of traditional Broadway numbers. Second, in comparing his work with that of Allison House’s dissertation, Narrative Music and the Concept Album: A Case Study of Nine Inch Nails, The Downward Spiral, it can be concluded that the concept album and musical share similar musical and narrative relationships. describes the relationship between music and narrative within a concept album. This necessitates the analysis of the concept album as a separate entity.
By analyzing other forms of concept albums like The Who’s Tommy as discussed by Martina Elicker in “Essays in Honor of Steven Paul Scher on Cultural Identity and the Musical Stage Edited by S.M. Lodato, S. Aspden and W. Bernhart,” a comparison can be drawn of how influential the concept album is on the traditional numbers or vice versa. Finally, it is pertinent to include information related to performance practices both within these traditional Broadway scenes (as discussed by Jean Louise Balch in “Intersections of theatre theories of spectatorship and musical theatre practices and production”) and the non-traditional methods which relate more to live concert punk performance practices. Through these methodologies, it can be concluded that the concept album can utilize the function of traditional Broadway numbers but within its own terms.
Although difficult to categorize as either opera or musical theater, American Idiot stands as a distinctive work of art, fusing aspects of various types of musical theater with a type of music seldom heard on Broadway. The show includes several of the types of numbers found in many musicals, such as a ballad, an “I want” song, a couple’s duet, a dream ballet, and others. An example of the provocative subject matter, such as in the dream ballet where two dancers are injecting heroin, is what truly demonstrates Armstrong's punk roots. American Idiot also includes musical scenes of "30 second songs" that drive the plot forward and help delineate four main character’s journeys. The show’s definitive embrace of the punk rock ethos, sound, and musical style make American Idiot one of the more unusual examples of the catholicity of musical tastes now heard on Broadway.
