Tag: wicked

Broadway’s Broadening Appeal

June 10, 2019

There’s a certain magic involved with attending a Broadway show—whether it be a Rodgers and Hammerstein revival, or a brand-new production from Anaïs Mitchell. And now, due to streaming, fans can experience that Broadway magic from the comfort of their headphones.

In fact, as streaming on Spotify has become more widespread, there’s also been an increase in streaming of the Broadway genre. From 2012 to 2018, we’ve seen an 81% surge. People are taking to Spotify to prep themselves for highly anticipated shows, re-live their favorites, or experience musicals they might not have gotten a chance to see.

Additionally, showtunes listeners complete Broadway albums in the prescribed song order at 124% higher a rate than that of people who complete non-soundtrack albums. There’s truly something to be said about experiencing a musical’s story the way the writers and composers intended.

In honor of the 73rd Tony Awards this past weekend, we looked into streaming of musicals over the last 90 days to see which performances have that everlasting Broadway magic.

Stream Hadestown, the Tony Award-winning best musical of 2019, below.

 

After 15 Years, ‘Wicked’ Continues to ‘Defy Gravity’

October 31, 2018

Ever since the curtain first rose on “Wicked’s” giant, mechanical dragon clock and the dancing citizens of Emerald City, Broadway has been changed “For Good.”

The untold story of the witches of Oz—Elphaba and Glinda—first captured the world’s imagination in Gregory Maguire’s 1995 novel “Wicked,” in which he envisioned a story where the two witches at the center of L. Frank Baum’s “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” were not enemies, but best friends. (Fun fact: Maguire created Elphaba’s name out of the first sounds of L. Frank Baum’s name—“El,” “Fa,” and “Ba”—to create “Elphaba.”)

In October 2003, a song-and-dance-filled retelling of “Wicked” emerged on Broadway at Gershwin Theatre, with music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz and script by Winnie Holzman. Idina Menzel, previously of “Rent” fame (and eventually to be known as Elsa in “Frozen”), starred as Elphaba alongside Kristin Chenoweth’s Glinda. The combination of pop-inspired show tunes, a unique yet familiar story, and powerful voices marked “Wicked” as a show that longtime theater aficionados and newcomers alike would soon come to love.

Add 15 years, and the streams of the Original Cast Recording show that love for “Wicked” continues to defy gravity.

Read into this: The top 3,000-plus “Wicked” superfans on Spotify are currently ages 20-29, but they would have been between 5 and 14 when the musical first premiered—an age of open imagination, ripe for the magic of Oz to take hold. Following them are the superfans in the 30-39 range, the 15-24-year-olds of 2003—those who might have even spent their own money to see the show. The next set of superfans are ages 13-19, emphasizing the timelessness of the show and the hold it now has on a new generation of “Wicked” lovers.

“Wicked” superfans also stay on top of the newest, hottest Broadway shows, listening in high frequencies to other Great White Way soundtracks like “Hamilton,” “Dear Evan Hansen,” and “Mean Girls,” and even movie soundtracks like “A Star is Born,” “The Greatest Showman,” and “Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again” in the past month. They also stream Ariana Grande and Taylor Swift when they’re looking for something a little less dramatic.

These superfans keep the “Wicked” star shining brightly on our constellation map of the top Broadway soundtracks on Spotify.

In this map, our data visualizer, Skyler Johnson, sorted each musical into constellations based on the connections between its top stars and the other singers with whom they share songs. In the “Wicked” constellation, Kristin Chenoweth and Idina Menzel steal the stage, accompanied by Norbert Leo Butz (who danced through life as Fiyero), Joel Grey (the Wonderful Wizard), and Christopher Fitzgerald’s Boq, (now Ogie Anhorn in “Waitress”).

After 15 years of near-nightly performances, world tours, and general Broadway magic, “Wicked’s” superfans have ensured that the musical remains as “Popular” as ever.

Five Artists That Can Help Us Decipher the Curious Language of Emoji

July 17, 2018

Early civilizations used pictures—hieroglyphs being the best known—to convey thoughts and ideas, stories and histories. Today, humans continue to communicate through pictures, though this time, it’s with a new, highly popular language known as “emoji.”

All joking aside, we as a society have come to use emojis anytime and anywhere. We use them to show when we’re happy, sad, or in love. We use them to punctuate what we’re thinking about or what team we’re rooting for. We use them in texts, emails, and on social media. We even use them in the titles of our Spotify playlists.

Yep, that’s right—more and more, we’re seeing that Spotify listeners have put this year’s new emojis in the titles of thousands of their playlists—1,267,463 to be precise. And what we’re noticing is that some emojis are being used much more frequently with certain artists. Why? That’s what we’re setting out to interpret.

From the typical to the completely unexpected, check out five examples of new emojis most uniquely associated with a certain singer or band, and our translations for just what this new language might be saying.

We’ll start with an obvious one—the songs most associated with the fountain soda cup emoji come from the cast of Glee, who were hit with it numerous times throughout the show. One of their album covers also has a blue slushee. Case closed. Some mysteries just beg to be solved.

Though Idina Menzel is known these days as the powerhouse behind Elsa from Disney’s Frozen, she’s left more of a… wicked legacy on the emoji world after originating the role of Elphaba in the Broadway game-changer Wicked.

Whether this emoji comes out of Biggie Smalls’ well-known cross-country fight with Tupac Shakur, or for the resulting song “What’s Beef?” could be anyone’s guess. Needless to say, the artist has left his emoji legacy.

This one’s a little harder. What does FOB have to do with rock climbing? Our first guess is the band’s classification as alternative rock. What fascinated us was that Portugal. The Man, Imagine Dragons, and Coldplay, also bands classified as alternative rock, were the next top artists associated with the climber.

Since songs from “The Greatest Showman Soundtrack” are most used alongside the pretzel, it’s pretty clear what snack circus-goers (and movie-goers?) are looking forward to. Plus, number two and three for this emoji are Hugh Jackman and Keala Settle, two singers on the soundtrack. (Also, circus-folk can contort themselves, kinda like pretzels.)

Check out our full list of emojis and artists below:

One more thing: If you’re curious about all the emojis used across Spotify (not just the new ones), check out our findings from last year .