Most Broadway shows are performed in houses that are not rock venues with sound design that is so concerned with making the lyrics audible and the audience comfortable that the actual sound of real rock music is completely washed out and lost. “In the Heights” (2008) got a lot of attention from the musical theater world for being the “first rap musical.” But it didn’t get a lot of attention in the hip-hop world, because it didn’t sound anything like the hip-hop you’d hear in an actual hip-hop club. Hip-hop needs bass, way more bass than “In the Heights” had.

Probably the best music I heard on Broadway in the last five years was in “Fela!” (2008), and the reason is quite simple; the show’s house band was an actual Afrobeat band, Antibalas, and they had a fantastic sound designer, who was allowed to let the music sound like Afrobeat music. There have been other signs of hope: “Passing Strange” (2006) was built around a nontheater musician, Stew; “Once” (2011), opening on Broadway this spring, has some awfully beautiful indie rock songs performed by a stage full of string-playing actors; and of course there’s Billie Joe Armstrong. But I long for so much more. I want to hear a musical sound as unique and new as Radiohead, Björk, or the Dirty Projectors. A piece for the stage that tells a story as well and as musically compellingly as Pink Floyd’s The Wall or Danny Elfman’s “The Nightmare Before Christmas.” I want to hear a musical that’s cool.

Yeah, fuck yeah.