This is exactly what I wanted LMM’s next concept album / major solo project to be. I like seeing Lin leaning more into Hip-Hop with a musical theatre influence in storytelling. Instead of a musical that uses his contemporary hip-hop influences, it’s a concept album that uses musical theatre storytelling to harness an aspect of the opera/concept album art form. It’s fresh, but still has his flare. It’s why I was excited for this album. I wanted to see where Lin went with his next major “solo” project away from working with Disney and being second fiddle to other great composers that he’s worked with since Hamilton. I didn’t want to see Lin try to make Hamilton but even bigger, I wanted to see if Lin had a couple more tricks up his sleeve while still feeling like it’s his own and not him forcing himself to reinvent the wheel. This is exactly that and I mean that in the nicest way possible.
On the album as a whole: The most important thing to remember is that this was designed to be a cohesive story, told in 26 songs. As you know, lots of musicals have started out as concept albums, and there are other examples of albums (I believe Lin cites Green Day's American Idiot, for one) that were meant to be listened to straight through. On your initial analysis: You may have reached some different conclusions if you'd learned more about the movie and the idea behind the concept album prior to listening (although I do understand and respect the fact that you set out to react to it in real time for a reason). You might feel differently after diving into the background of the movie and what Lin and EISA (caps to emphasize that the second letter is "i" -- it's pronounced the same way Issa Rae's name is) set out to do with the album. On the key change in Call Me Mercy: At one point in the video you talk about the conventions of musical theatre writing and how this album breaks *a lot* of them (by design: again, they're not *necessarily* intending to turn it into a stage show). Yes, the key change is abrupt, but Lin's MO as a writer is that he calculates e v e r y t h i n g. I think the key change serves a very specific narrative purpose: at its core, Call Me Mercy is an "I want" song. She starts out wistfully, just admiring these women for their strength, but feeling unsure about what to do. To me the key change represents a split-second decision, which would have been undercut by building up to it. I loved watching you get hyped about some of (what I consider to be) the most fun songs. I hope you end up falling in love with the album as a whole, because there really is a lot of strategy and intentionality in the decisions Lin and Eisa made on it.
@@MusicTheatreTheory To be fair, I thought it was Elsa at first, too, and then for a while I was pronouncing it "eye-sa"...it took hearing someone else say it to get there. 😆
The Hurricanes are actually a group from the warriors prior to this project. Now they do have a moment of screen time (like 5 seconds) in the the film. In the Rockstart movie tie in game, they’re actually shown and expanded as the Latin based gang in the world of the warriors. The Turnbull AC’s are actually like a denim wearing biker/skin head group, so I believe that was a change by Lin based on the location in the story. And a fun fact: James Remar, the cat-caller in the park, is Ajax in both the Film and game.
Interestingly enough, I think some of your gripes might come from the fact that this is adopted from the 1979 movie. The film version is very straightforward and features the Warriors just fighting off a bunch of gangs and is very action-based and vulgar. The plot is also incredibly straightforward but the script at complications because behind the scenes drama led to the actor behind Fox being fired thus causing him to be abruptly killed out of nowhere. They had to reconstruct a lot of points here to make it work which is likely why everything is tied specifically to Cyrus and their speech. I definitely think Hamilton is the more complex story but I think that's because that deals with politics and the men behind Legends while the Warriors is sort of a 1970s popcorn movie
I argue the theme of the Warriors has a lot to do with survival, unity, and fighting for what you represent. The original film has that as well but it's kind of coated in a very toxic masculinity that kind of undercuts it. The Boroughs in the beginning are basically there to not only rap on the behalf of their cities but foreshadow what's about to happen throughout the plot. From them we learn just how dangerous this world is, that Cyrus is well respected, and that's the police are constantly swarming around like vultures. I think having them pop up to tell us a story kind of runs the risk of the musical turning into a Tarzan situation. It would kind of undercut the need for the characters to be there. I think the main and probably the most important number that kind of sums up the big theme is Cyrus's song. Cyrus is trying to tell the other gang members that United they can be a force I could but in a very MLK kind of way she ends up getting killed by Luther which causes her message to be lost among the crowd and everything turns into chaos. The irony is that the Warriors are the only ones that stuck to her message despite everybody trying to take them down over a crime that they never committed. There's definitely a lot of modern-day parallels to what's going on
Honestly i think it works the album as an Audio proyect. I just notice how they use the main plot with some moments to dig more, because i think there's a lot of moments where you can add some scenes just of the warriors to talking to know more of them, unlike hamilton where we have this "speaking moments" where we can learn more of whats going on. Like this little scenes where we see Hamilton and Burr talking showing us their relationship and how each one path meet. I love how they adapat some many things from the original movie that it feels different in a way that you can laern other perspective withouth changing what the warriors is. Love your video, i hope they make a stage version so maybe we can see how this warriors evolve.
Grew up in NYC, and I’m an older dude, so I still remember pre-Ghouliani/Doomberg NYC. Love The Warriors film, and grew up with the movie. I think your analysis of the album is great, because it acknowledges a lot of the problems I had with the adaptation. (I found this right after listening to the album for the first time). The boroughs rappers are musicians I grew up on, and I think Miranda misses the point of their work and the movie, to some extent. In the same way that Hamilton is a pretty good musical, but pretty historically selective, I felt like this piece was similar in my pluses and minuses. Sometimes a little too pandering, often making unnecessary changes in order to make us root for a character by sacrificing their complexity, but catchy as all hell with a good cast. Honestly, I would love to see you review the film and compare and contrast the two.
I think the idea is that each part of the album almost represents a different style of music. The rapper featured in the first number represent that gangster rap aspect of NYC but they're not really meant to be the encompassing voice of the entire piece. I think the changes made to the Warriors themselves is more so a case that originally they're supposed to be viewed as a social experiment as to what gang culture does to the youth. Nobody wants to be a part of this sort of culture, what systemic oppression forces people to join up in order to unite under the name of survival. That's why the main antagonists here above all else are the police
Interesting commentary, I love how much I learn from your analyses =D Personally I liked the Warriors concept album, personally knowing very little about the material it's based on, but I didn't love it in the way Hamilton and In the Heights were immediate obsessions (in 2015 when the Hamilton cast recording came out my two most listened to albums on Spotify were Hamilton and Waitress and Waitress were like 33 listenings and Hamilton more than 300, so that says something). With that said I did find the music catchy for the most part and I have a few songs I absolutely loved. For my sake I absolutely loved Call me Mercy (it's my favorite song on the album), even if it does sound way to similar to Burn, and for me a lot of the reason is Julia Harriman's vocals on it, it sounds absolutely amazing.
Did you get a new camera or something? This looks great! I thought I'd love the album because I've always loved the movie and I love Hamilton (AND Lauryn Hill I mean...!) but it does sound like a generic Spotify-Top-10 at times tbh. Not a fan of the Blink 182/Green Day parts of this, nor do I understand the random System of a Down Toxicity cover on 'Going Down' LMAO The cast killed it though, I want Colman Domingo in everything. (Also I think I read Lin confirmed that this is just going to be the album, there's not going to be a production. He said the point of the album is just to follow the movie)
Going Down is in that style because Luther is so very different from the other gangs. Lin found rap too rhythmic and organized for the chaos that Luther represents, but found metal to be more appropriately chaotic.
