New outlets provide initiative for narrative-driven music

With the luxury of downloading, which enables music-lovers to purchase only an artist’s best songs, it’s remarkable to find an album that can be played from start to finish. As though they understand how the market works, record companies use radio and music videos to enthuse audiences about one or two hit songs before releasing an album that is otherwise unpromising.

But new outlets may change that mentality. Because of Broadway’s and Hollywood’s fresh demand for narrative-driven songs and albums —or music that tells a story with consistency in sound and quality— the music world may find itself focusing on artists with the vocal or songwriting skills to outlast brief radio time.

Using talented artists for new stories seems to recall old ideas of former success. The West End in London, for example, was highly successful with its production of Mamma Mia!, which featured hit ABBA songs combined into a single story-line. Since its opening in 1999, the production has earned over 2 billion dollars, some of which is the result of a profitable film of the same name as well as an additional production in New York.

Now it seems as though Broadway is attempting to capitalize on this previously lucrative scheme. With recent shows like Once, a musical based on the soundtrack from the 2006 film and American Idiot, a rock musical based off of the 2004 Green Day album of the same name, Broadway combines the theater and the music worlds, which provides for more than twice the success of a regular album, much less a single download. In addition to the usual financial gains from concert tickets, T-shirts and other memorabilia, a CD that has been adapted for the stage has the added bonus of making money from cast-recorded albums, musical fashion and additional theater ticket sales —all possessing strong potential to increase a music empire.

This ideology extends to the film industry. With original film soundtracks garnering as much popularity as regular albums, it’s easy to understand why Hollywood would attempt to incorporate more music into the medium. Take, for instance, the 2007 film Across the Universe, which strung together a plot based on Beatles songs. The movie grossed $29 million worldwide, not including soundtrack sales.

But what Green Day, ABBA and the Beatles really have in common is not their influences in different art fields, but the common bond of an audience willing to listen to tried-and-true songs in a different medium. Somehow, with songs possessing a wider range of topics than partying and sex, these artists find their hard work timeless as well as financially successful.

Who knows? Perhaps the Adeles and Mary J. Bliges of today will venture out into these new artistic arenas and force their less-talented competition to try and keep up —if only for monetary gain.