These guys were really smart.
First they made a concept album.
Then they made a stage show.
Then they made a movie.
40 years later, the stage show is still going strong, and they're still raking in the cash.
Has anybody else ever done it this way? Or tried to do it this way?
"...And far away in his cage, the monkey smiled with his all-seeing eyes."
The Who's Tommy?
--
"Who's scruffy lookin'?"
Yeah, that occurred to me too, after I finished the post. Somehow it seems like a different thing to me if it's done by an established band. So let's disqualify The Who's "Tommy," and GreenDay's "American Idiot."
"...And far away in his cage, the monkey smiled with his all-seeing eyes."
Haha, yeah, let's disqualify anything that doesn't proof my point.
Would it be so bad if it shared that position with another musical?
Well, what drove the question originally was, "Has anybody else launched a career this way?" The Who and Greenday already had a career when they did their concept albums. Rice & Weber didn't.
"...And far away in his cage, the monkey smiled with his all-seeing eyes."
Hair?
--
"Who's scruffy lookin'?"
Was that an album first, or a stage play first?
"...And far away in his cage, the monkey smiled with his all-seeing eyes."
I thought of "Hair," too, but in fact it opened off-Broadway in 1967, and the first soundtrack recording issued was by that cast, so, no, it didn't follow the trajectory described - the album didn't come first.
shareLloyd Webber and Rice repeated that trajectory with Evita, and Rice did it with those ABBA guys with Chess but without (so far, anyway) a "studio" film. Of course, if you're adding the "not already established" requirement, I guess you won't allow those.
shareGodspell.
shareNone that I know of.
Schrodinger's cat walks into a bar and doesn't.