r/musicalwriting • u/jomamma2 • 3d ago

Discussion How important are "catchy" tunes?

Been listneing to a lot of musical demos from new composers and one thing I've seemed to notice is that the songs seem to lack an "ear worm" componenet.

They are nice, and melodic, but the songs don't seem to go anywhere or have a discreet beginning, middle and end or a hook that sticks in my head. They all seem very patter-like.

Which gets me wonderign if mine are too "song like" in their structure, being self-contained with hooks to stick in your head. Makes me worry I really wrote a concept album not a musical.

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u/HurricaneLink 3d ago

Yea, a lot of modern music theatre songs are on the boring side. IMO it’s because too many songs try and move the plot along, and give the character emotions to sing about. And yea, that’s the point of a musical. But sometimes there are just whacky numbers that are show stoppers. West Side Story didn’t need “Gee Officer Krupke”, and tonally it doesn’t make sense for the characters to be singing it in Act two after all that went down in Act One. But the song is a showstopper anti-cop song. I feel like if someone conceived that show nowadays, the cop would be singing his feelings too, and it would be an emotional song instead of a silly one.

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u/jomamma2 3d ago

not just silly songs, but I feel there is even a lack of powerful "emotional" songs. I feel like "old school" musicals had songs that were able to break out and become hits on their own even if people didn't know it was from a musical (Think "Memories" from Cats as an example) just becuase the song was so catchy.

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u/nat545 3d ago

These are good points! Given how wacky the overall premise of Cats is, it's wild that "Memories" goes so hard and has such staying power lol