Out with the old...

I doubt this week is going to be a big one in terms of blog reading, but I post nonetheless. Let me start out by wishing you all a joyous 2007. Actually, some of my readers are evil and to those people I wish a crappy 2007. But for the majority of you, I hope for you all the happiness possible.

Instead of continuing my list of stories of 2006, as I had planned to do originally, I am going to do something a little different. After all, you know the stories of 2006. So I want to discuss my answer to the question of 2006: Is the jukebox musical back?

With the success of Jersey Boys, all types of industry folks were heard saying "The jukebox musical is back." (They didn't stop saying this when Hot Feet and The Times They Are A-Changin' opened and closed because those were just considered crap.) This was odd for me to hear because, to the best of my knowledge, it never left. It's not like the movie musical. Jukebox musicals were never gone. Even as Good Vibrations and All Shook Up crashed and burned on Broadway, more were being announced and Mamma Mia! was still going strong. I am sure Jersey Boys made producers less nervous about their upcoming jukebox project, but to say the show had a huge effect on the industry is to give it too much credit. (Those who are going to post a comment or email and tell me that Jersey Boys opened on Broadway in 2005, please resist the urge. I know it opened in 2005, but its long-standing success was not 100% guaranteed until 2006.)

Even if 200 jukebox musicals fail in a row, someone will always be trying to create one, I fear. Because while it's easy to say every year, "Out with the old, in with the new," it's hard to create the new. And most people are lazy. They'll be that way in 2007 and forever.