Rock Musical

The rock musical is the strain of stage musical theatre built on rock and pop music rather than the traditional Broadway score: amplified bands, belted singing and scores that function as rock albums. It began in 1967 with 'Hair', whose tribal love-rock score carried its anti-war story onto Broadway, and was consolidated by *Andrew Lloyd Webber* and *Tim Rice*, whose "Jesus Christ Superstar" reached the stage by way of a best-selling concept album. Later works, from "Rent" to "Spring Awakening" and 'Hedwig and the Angry Inch', renewed the form for successive generations, and original cast recordings keep rock musicals in dialogue with the album charts.