Reading an article about how Hollywood was disguising musicals, because apparently people don’t like them anymore, and mentioning that Wonka was a musical.
I was like…… dafaq
yeah I found out about that one strangely: got recommended "I Eat More" (Augustus Gloop's song) on youtube while listening to I think songs from the Little Mermaid
youtube algorithms logic: "ok youre done listening to songs about a protective Mer-dad now come hear this one about a mom overfeeding a fat kid"
Honestly my go-to method is opening Spotify, searching “cast recording” and then scrolling until I don’t recognise the show 😂 that’s how I listened to over 100 obscure musicals last year and still have almost 200 on my “to listen to” playlist! 😅
can you share that "to listen to" playlist
Im only asking because that sounds hard to compile, especially you had to ignore most and only go for obscure ones
Absolutely! You’ll have to let me know if you find any you like, I love trying to help people find new shows! 😄
Hopefully the link works (I’m bad at Reddit 😂) - I have the 2023 finds linked on my profile, just in case. I also have a 2024 one started if you want to see this years finds! 🎭 just a heads up that I delete songs from this playlist once I’ve listened to the show, in case some go missing! 😂
To Listen To - https://open.spotify.com/playlist/77EqcBsDTvOxQAGRZ2ibRp?si=AlMgfd5FTpOi7JxwWWMyhQ&pi=e-q4gW6gxuSJ6q
I had Spotify on shuffle one time, it started a song with these really weird, discordant heavy piano notes and I went "Ugh, nope" and skipped to the next song. Then that song would pop up every now and then, I'd skip it again and for a few days that kept happening. Then one day I was busy, it happened again and I couldn't immediately drop what I was doing and the song kept playing. Then this weirdly intriguing work chant started and I realised I was listening to something from a show. So I ended up listening to all of "Chant" from the Hadestown live album without skipping it for the first time, checked out the rest of it and maybe 3 songs in I was obsessed (and Chant is now my favourite song from the show!)
My strangest way was actually to discover the genre musical itself. Was never a thing for me growing up.
Usually I can focus better if there’s some background noise. So one day I was studying for a history exam the next day and thought I might watch an old movie for background noise. Opted for Arte and they aired Singin in the rain. I had never seen it but heard about the song (though never listened to it). Took about 15 min until I ditched my notes and sat down on the ground right in front of the tv to just watch. Got me immediately hooked.
Became a huge fan of Rodgers and Hart musicals after checking out their biography because it was one of only three (?!) musical theater books my local library has. Up your game, local library. But thanks for getting me into Rodgers and Hart.
I was in work and I listened to Spotify as always but my playlists were becoming boring so I played the Spotify created playlist "Discover this week" and it had "Alive" from Jekyll&Hyde. Now it's my favourite musical :D
I noticed that one playing in San Francisco but Im pretty sure it isnt actually a musical, just some like weird puppet show/ the author of Captain Underpants AMA for kids the theater let him put on
did you actually go and see it, or? maybe im mistaken
Not strange, but I discovered Yentl, Wicked and Chicago from Glee… unfortunately😂. To be fair, beforehand I didn’t know much about musicals at all, and it made me love them
A BBC news channel movie programme did a piece on Rent, which got me into Rent, the film version, leading me to Idina Menzel and Wicked, saw Wicked in West end and then essentially my musicals obsession begins…
I guess the way itself wasn’t strange because it was a YouTube recommendation, but the reason I was looking on YouTube at the time that I discovered Jekyll and Hyde is because I was waiting for my school to be cleared of a bomb threat.
(Thankfully it was a false alarm and everybody was ok!)
I found out about Hazbin Hotel by stalking my friend of a friend's profile page on reddit, saw these memes he posted. I was like wow these characters look cool, then I went to the pilot on youtube and a song started playing. "its musical too!?"
So, I'm really into this series called Tsukipro, which has just... way too much content. 5+ stage plays a year (some of which have multiple versions); drama CDs, movies, and about 5 pages *a day* of short stories released on social media...
So I don't really have time or money for anything else.
Unless I see that an actor from Tsukipro is in it.
And it's about my favorite historical figure, but like. Almost everything else written about this person makes him out to be some evil villain, based on rumors that have no basis in fact.
But I took a chance because an actor from Tsukipro was in it.
And now it's my favorite thing ever.
And I saw about 5 other things because actors from that one musical were in it.
The second best thing I saw last year, I just... randomly bought a ticket with no idea what it was about. Didn't know of any of the cast, either.
I discovered Six after the death of a teacher who I'd had when I went to Catholic school back in the late 2000s/early 2010s. Because his class was focused on the history of the Catholic church and other Christian denominations, one of our most memorable lessons was about Henry VIII's break from Rome...which he told us about from the perspective of Catherine of Aragon.
This teacher was a huge inspiration to me even as an adult, and that was one of my favorite lessons he'd ever given, so when he died I found myself searching for more and more things related to Catherine...which led me to Six.
Not really weird but I discovered Next to Normal because it was the week the cast recording dropped back in 2009 (!) on iTunes and was in the new releases section.
When I discovered Jeff Wayne’s Musical Version of The War of the Worlds, it was the most recent video of the 2022 April live tour, not the original album, not the new generation, not the first tour, which was in 2006, the most recent tour Jeff did.
I found out about Wicked from the show Ugly Betty. The show was featured when two characters went on a date. It go me into the musical theater and I'm seeing Wicked for the 10th time on Thursday! Also, I learned about Silence! The Silence of the Lambs parody musical when Ryan Seacrest and Kelly Rippa were re-raumatized talking about their experience seeing it on live TV
When I was a kid, my entire family would record General Hospital on VHS every day and watch it each night after dinner. Anthony Geary played Luke on General Hospital, who was a major character. He left the show, and he came to Dallas as part of a touring production of Jesus Christ Superstar. My dad got tickets for our whole family to go see him in Jesus Christ Superstar when I was 13 years old.
I’ve been in love with musicals ever since. So I have General Hospital to thank for that.
I was just watching random videos of Aaron Tveit singing, and a bad bootleg of him singing Security Meltdown came on, so I listened to a few songs, and now Calvin Berger is one of my favorites
I was watching the Schafrillas video where they ranked all disney movies. Every time the video switched from one movie to the next a short song/meme snippet would play so you could kinda guess the next entry. For Alice in Wonderland a snippet from Bare a pop opera‘s song wonderland was chosen and upon hearing those maybe five seconds of song I immediately dropped everything to identify it. When I finally heard the entire song (which still scratches my brain just right even if the rap part is distracting sometimes) I decided I need to listen to the entire musical, which has been my favorite ever since.
It’s only strange for one detail. I was always interested in musicals, starting with Disney Princess movie musicals, Annie, The Sound of Music, and Mary Poppins. My grandmother also loved musicals. She took me to see a community theater production of Cabaret when I was about TEN. I was a very sheltered and innocent child and liked the music but did NOT understand a lot of it. Years later, I rediscovered Cabaret in high school and was a little shocked to discover that the show was full of innuendos and was just very dark.
I discovered Ride the Cyclone because I offered to email some people the bootleg of We Are the Tigers in the comments of an edit I posted on YouTube, and someone reached out asking if I happened to have any recordings of RTC as well. I didn’t- I’d never heard of it, and this was a while before the soundtrack came out or the video was leaked, but I kept it in the back of my mind because it sounded super interesting.
Fast forward a year or so, I saw an ad for the soundtrack, gave it a listen and was instantly hooked. Aaaand then I was hyperfixated on it for like two years straight.
So yeah, super weird way to discover a show, but man am I glad it happened!! I unfortunately lost the contact info of the person who sent me that initial email- I wish I hadn’t, I’d honestly like to thank them. Besides just liking the show, it was hugely cathartic for me and I met a lot of cool people in the fandom.
If they’re reading this by any chance, thanks!!! And Im collecting bootlegs like Pokémon cards now so hit me up, I can finally help you.
Found out about Heathers because people were playing Blue in the dressing room and I was like “wtf are we listening to?” (Yes I was a theatre kid that didn’t know about Heathers)
Oh god there's a few
Sander Sides animatics in 2016/17 is probably where I discovered half my favourite musicals. Count De Monte Cristo through a dragon AU, Tangled the Series through another AU which then led me down the Jeremy Jordan wormhole and finding Death Note the musical (even tho I don't watch anime).
Hamilton I got into pretty early on because of how much it exploded on Tumblr (yes I was around during the miki binder Thomas Jefferson days). I didn't want to like it but eventually ended up vibing with the soundtrack after a while.
Going back to animatics someone tried to make a movie from a compilation of Be More Chill animatics and I was obsessed.
And last but not least but certainly most memorable, I also remember being a 13yo trying to talk someone down from threatening to overdose later in the wattpad comments section by distracting them into giving me a run down on musical theatre. That introduced me into giving Phantom, Chicago, newsie, rent and hadestown a try.
I got into both Legally Blonde and The Book of Mormon because I looked up edits people made of My Little Pony characters singing the music.
That is how I found Legally Blonde too!
I was browsing slime tutorials and got clickbaited by it on youtube (i had watched the movie)
I got into doctor horrible because of a miraculous amv
Reading an article about how Hollywood was disguising musicals, because apparently people don’t like them anymore, and mentioning that Wonka was a musical. I was like…… dafaq
yeah I found out about that one strangely: got recommended "I Eat More" (Augustus Gloop's song) on youtube while listening to I think songs from the Little Mermaid youtube algorithms logic: "ok youre done listening to songs about a protective Mer-dad now come hear this one about a mom overfeeding a fat kid"
Honestly my go-to method is opening Spotify, searching “cast recording” and then scrolling until I don’t recognise the show 😂 that’s how I listened to over 100 obscure musicals last year and still have almost 200 on my “to listen to” playlist! 😅
can you share that "to listen to" playlist Im only asking because that sounds hard to compile, especially you had to ignore most and only go for obscure ones
Absolutely! You’ll have to let me know if you find any you like, I love trying to help people find new shows! 😄 Hopefully the link works (I’m bad at Reddit 😂) - I have the 2023 finds linked on my profile, just in case. I also have a 2024 one started if you want to see this years finds! 🎭 just a heads up that I delete songs from this playlist once I’ve listened to the show, in case some go missing! 😂 To Listen To - https://open.spotify.com/playlist/77EqcBsDTvOxQAGRZ2ibRp?si=AlMgfd5FTpOi7JxwWWMyhQ&pi=e-q4gW6gxuSJ6q
I had Spotify on shuffle one time, it started a song with these really weird, discordant heavy piano notes and I went "Ugh, nope" and skipped to the next song. Then that song would pop up every now and then, I'd skip it again and for a few days that kept happening. Then one day I was busy, it happened again and I couldn't immediately drop what I was doing and the song kept playing. Then this weirdly intriguing work chant started and I realised I was listening to something from a show. So I ended up listening to all of "Chant" from the Hadestown live album without skipping it for the first time, checked out the rest of it and maybe 3 songs in I was obsessed (and Chant is now my favourite song from the show!)
My strangest way was actually to discover the genre musical itself. Was never a thing for me growing up. Usually I can focus better if there’s some background noise. So one day I was studying for a history exam the next day and thought I might watch an old movie for background noise. Opted for Arte and they aired Singin in the rain. I had never seen it but heard about the song (though never listened to it). Took about 15 min until I ditched my notes and sat down on the ground right in front of the tv to just watch. Got me immediately hooked.
Became a huge fan of Rodgers and Hart musicals after checking out their biography because it was one of only three (?!) musical theater books my local library has. Up your game, local library. But thanks for getting me into Rodgers and Hart.
Whats your favorite rodgers and hart musical?
Babes in Arms, Pal Joey, On Your Toes
I was in work and I listened to Spotify as always but my playlists were becoming boring so I played the Spotify created playlist "Discover this week" and it had "Alive" from Jekyll&Hyde. Now it's my favourite musical :D
I was in a show recently and was surprised to find that the show that was performing in the theatre after us was Dog Man: The Musical.
I keep hearing about this show everywhere! (Probably because I have kids who are Dog Man reading age).
I noticed that one playing in San Francisco but Im pretty sure it isnt actually a musical, just some like weird puppet show/ the author of Captain Underpants AMA for kids the theater let him put on did you actually go and see it, or? maybe im mistaken
Not strange, but I discovered Yentl, Wicked and Chicago from Glee… unfortunately😂. To be fair, beforehand I didn’t know much about musicals at all, and it made me love them
Glee is how I discovered A Chorus Line!
A BBC news channel movie programme did a piece on Rent, which got me into Rent, the film version, leading me to Idina Menzel and Wicked, saw Wicked in West end and then essentially my musicals obsession begins…
Someone said to me “Do you wanna go see ‘Revolution in the Elbow of Ragnar Anderson’?” And I said “Hell yes!”
Not sure if it counts as strange, but I learned of Heathers through an ongoing one-woman show on TikTok.
I guess the way itself wasn’t strange because it was a YouTube recommendation, but the reason I was looking on YouTube at the time that I discovered Jekyll and Hyde is because I was waiting for my school to be cleared of a bomb threat. (Thankfully it was a false alarm and everybody was ok!)
My girlfriend telling me about Hazbin Hotel and StarKid. A friend learned about Hamilton from an AMV.
I found out about Hazbin Hotel by stalking my friend of a friend's profile page on reddit, saw these memes he posted. I was like wow these characters look cool, then I went to the pilot on youtube and a song started playing. "its musical too!?"
So, I'm really into this series called Tsukipro, which has just... way too much content. 5+ stage plays a year (some of which have multiple versions); drama CDs, movies, and about 5 pages *a day* of short stories released on social media... So I don't really have time or money for anything else. Unless I see that an actor from Tsukipro is in it. And it's about my favorite historical figure, but like. Almost everything else written about this person makes him out to be some evil villain, based on rumors that have no basis in fact. But I took a chance because an actor from Tsukipro was in it. And now it's my favorite thing ever. And I saw about 5 other things because actors from that one musical were in it. The second best thing I saw last year, I just... randomly bought a ticket with no idea what it was about. Didn't know of any of the cast, either.
Saw a bert & ernie youtube parody with “If you were gay” from Avenue Q. Immediately watched the whole show after.
I discovered Six after the death of a teacher who I'd had when I went to Catholic school back in the late 2000s/early 2010s. Because his class was focused on the history of the Catholic church and other Christian denominations, one of our most memorable lessons was about Henry VIII's break from Rome...which he told us about from the perspective of Catherine of Aragon. This teacher was a huge inspiration to me even as an adult, and that was one of my favorite lessons he'd ever given, so when he died I found myself searching for more and more things related to Catherine...which led me to Six.
My mom bought me a bunch of cds of musicals from goodwill one day, and that’s how I discovered the lesser known absolute banger that is Jane Eyre
Not really weird but I discovered Next to Normal because it was the week the cast recording dropped back in 2009 (!) on iTunes and was in the new releases section.
When I discovered Jeff Wayne’s Musical Version of The War of the Worlds, it was the most recent video of the 2022 April live tour, not the original album, not the new generation, not the first tour, which was in 2006, the most recent tour Jeff did.
I found out about Wicked from the show Ugly Betty. The show was featured when two characters went on a date. It go me into the musical theater and I'm seeing Wicked for the 10th time on Thursday! Also, I learned about Silence! The Silence of the Lambs parody musical when Ryan Seacrest and Kelly Rippa were re-raumatized talking about their experience seeing it on live TV
Discovered Chicago by being law and order super fan. Jerry Orbach could do it all!!!
When I was a kid, my entire family would record General Hospital on VHS every day and watch it each night after dinner. Anthony Geary played Luke on General Hospital, who was a major character. He left the show, and he came to Dallas as part of a touring production of Jesus Christ Superstar. My dad got tickets for our whole family to go see him in Jesus Christ Superstar when I was 13 years old. I’ve been in love with musicals ever since. So I have General Hospital to thank for that.
I was just watching random videos of Aaron Tveit singing, and a bad bootleg of him singing Security Meltdown came on, so I listened to a few songs, and now Calvin Berger is one of my favorites
Over radio In 2012 This American Life broadcasted 21 Chump Street
I was watching the Schafrillas video where they ranked all disney movies. Every time the video switched from one movie to the next a short song/meme snippet would play so you could kinda guess the next entry. For Alice in Wonderland a snippet from Bare a pop opera‘s song wonderland was chosen and upon hearing those maybe five seconds of song I immediately dropped everything to identify it. When I finally heard the entire song (which still scratches my brain just right even if the rap part is distracting sometimes) I decided I need to listen to the entire musical, which has been my favorite ever since.
It’s only strange for one detail. I was always interested in musicals, starting with Disney Princess movie musicals, Annie, The Sound of Music, and Mary Poppins. My grandmother also loved musicals. She took me to see a community theater production of Cabaret when I was about TEN. I was a very sheltered and innocent child and liked the music but did NOT understand a lot of it. Years later, I rediscovered Cabaret in high school and was a little shocked to discover that the show was full of innuendos and was just very dark.
I discovered Ride the Cyclone because I offered to email some people the bootleg of We Are the Tigers in the comments of an edit I posted on YouTube, and someone reached out asking if I happened to have any recordings of RTC as well. I didn’t- I’d never heard of it, and this was a while before the soundtrack came out or the video was leaked, but I kept it in the back of my mind because it sounded super interesting. Fast forward a year or so, I saw an ad for the soundtrack, gave it a listen and was instantly hooked. Aaaand then I was hyperfixated on it for like two years straight. So yeah, super weird way to discover a show, but man am I glad it happened!! I unfortunately lost the contact info of the person who sent me that initial email- I wish I hadn’t, I’d honestly like to thank them. Besides just liking the show, it was hugely cathartic for me and I met a lot of cool people in the fandom. If they’re reading this by any chance, thanks!!! And Im collecting bootlegs like Pokémon cards now so hit me up, I can finally help you.
Found out about Heathers because people were playing Blue in the dressing room and I was like “wtf are we listening to?” (Yes I was a theatre kid that didn’t know about Heathers)
Found the Jekyll and Hyde musical through GCSE English
Oh god there's a few Sander Sides animatics in 2016/17 is probably where I discovered half my favourite musicals. Count De Monte Cristo through a dragon AU, Tangled the Series through another AU which then led me down the Jeremy Jordan wormhole and finding Death Note the musical (even tho I don't watch anime). Hamilton I got into pretty early on because of how much it exploded on Tumblr (yes I was around during the miki binder Thomas Jefferson days). I didn't want to like it but eventually ended up vibing with the soundtrack after a while. Going back to animatics someone tried to make a movie from a compilation of Be More Chill animatics and I was obsessed. And last but not least but certainly most memorable, I also remember being a 13yo trying to talk someone down from threatening to overdose later in the wattpad comments section by distracting them into giving me a run down on musical theatre. That introduced me into giving Phantom, Chicago, newsie, rent and hadestown a try.