@Lukas Roy

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There’s nothing quite like the pomp and spectacle of a good musical. And given how popular they’ve remained, it’s amazing how little their essence has changed: character, voice, a feeling too strong to convey merely through speech. This playlist highlights the best of the tradition, whether modern or classic, from stage to screen, big and small. Our editors change things up here now and then, so if you hear something you like, remember to add it to your library.

In the late 20th century, musical theater began a substantial evolution, with shows such as <I>The Lion King</I>’s high-concept stage adaptation and the grunge-ified <I>La Bohème</I> rework <I>Rent</I> marrying present-day ideas with tried-and-true tropes. The Great White Way has since featured a wide variety of songs performed by an expansive cast: profane puppets in <I>Avenue Q</I>, existentially troubled missionaries in <I>The Book of Mormon</I>, rapping forefathers in <I>Hamilton</I>, singers living out the songs of jukebox-musical heroes Alanis Morissette and Tina Turner, and even classic characters from modern-minded updates of shows like <I>Oklahoma!</I>

Movie musicals are home to magically charmed moments of magnificent song. <I>Singin' in the Rain</I> set the gold standard in 1952 with exuberant reimaginings of earlier film tunes. No musical, however, marked pop culture as colorfully or tunefully as <I>The Wizard of Oz</I>, which spun off <I>The Wiz</I>, a soulful all-Black reimagining set in the inner, rather than Emerald, city. Latin American culture, meanwhile, enjoyed its first prime-time musical moment with <I>West Side Story</I>. Rock inevitably became part of the musical's palette, first in the orgiastic <I>Rocky Horror Picture Show</I> and later in the softer, more surreal songs of <I>Popeye</I>.

As filmmaking evolved in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, so did the idea of the movie musical. While Disney remained at the forefront of the field with animated mini-epics like <I>The Lion King</I> and <I>Frozen</I>, other players entered the game to thrilling results. New adaptations of Broadway sensations like <I>Cats</I> and <I>Rent</I> introduced chestnuts like “Memory” and “Seasons of Love” to brand-new audiences; <I>Mamma Mia!</I> and other jukebox musicals allowed A-listers like Cher to put their stamp on pop classics; and <I>Once</I> and <I>La La Land</I> were among the movies that melded musical numbers with indie-film ideals.