The Pop Musical

Sweat, Tears, and Tarnished Utopias

Add to my list

by Alberto Mira

Type

Studies

Subject

Genre > Musicals

Keywords

musicals, rock

Publishing date

2021

Publisher

Wallflower Press

Collection

Short Cuts

Language

English

Relative size

Physical desc.

Paperback • 160 pages
5 ¼ x 8 ¼ inches (13.5 x 21 cm)

ISBN

978-0-231-19123-4

User Ratings

(0 vote)

X

Average rating:

0	rating	= We can do without
0	rating	= Good book
0	rating	= Excellent book
0	rating	= Unique / a reference

Your rating: -

Book Presentation:
After Hollywood and Tin Pan Alley’s iron grip on the movie musical began to slip in the face of pop’s cultural dominance, many believed that the musical genre entered a terminal decline and finally wore itself out by the 1980s. Though the industrial model of the musical was disrupted by the emergence of pop, the Hollywood musical has not gone extinct. Many Hollywood productions from the 1960s to the present have revisited the forms and conventions of the classic musical―except instead of drawing from showtunes and jazz standards, they employ the styles and iconography of pop.

Alberto Mira offers a new account of how pop music revolutionized the Hollywood musical. He shows that while the Hollywood system ceased producing large-scale traditional musicals, different pop strains―disco, rock ’n’ roll, doo-wop, glam, and hip-hop―renewed the genre, giving it a new life. While the classical musical presented a world light on conflict, defined by theatricality and where effortless talent can shine through, the introduction of pop spurred musicals to address contemporary social and political conditions. Mira traces the emergence of a new set of themes―such as the painful hard work depicted in Dirty Dancing (1987); the double-edged fandom of Velvet Goldmine (1998); and the racial politics of Dreamgirls (2006)―to explore why the Hollywood musical has found renewed relevance.

About the Author:
Alberto Mira is reader in film studies at Oxford Brookes University. He is the editor of The Cinema of Spain and Portugal (Wallflower, 2005) and the author of the Historical Dictionary of Spanish Cinema, second edition (2019), as well as several Spanish-language books.

Press Reviews:
Alberto Mira’s timely volume superbly fills a gap in writing on the musical, focusing with originality, flair and thorough scholarship on a significant variant of the genre. He demonstrates how the Pop musical has taken the genre into new directions, for instance making it even more socially aware, revising its folk discourse, and exploring questions of sexual identity. In his analysis of the star qualities of Ann-Margret, the changing impact of Elvis Presley, re-appraisal of films like Bye Bye Birdie and The Rocky Horror Picture Show or, more generally, the way Pop musicals draw on and diversify the traditions of the classical musical, Mira ensures that this exciting volume will be essential reading for devotees as well as for scholars of the film musical, and the aesthetics, cultural and socio-political contexts of popular cinema. -- Peter William Evans, Queen Mary University of London

While much has been written on the change in the musical's cinematic language in the postclassical period, the "pop musical" itself has not been sufficiently identified, theorized, or historicized. In The Pop Musical, Alberto Mira addresses this gap, insisting that the genre’s unique relationship with pop music plays a determining role in how these films make meaning. -- Desirée Garcia, author of The Movie Musical

See the publisher website: Wallflower Press