An industrial musical is a musical performed for the employees of a business, intended to create a feeling of being part of a team, and/or to educate and motivate the management and salespeople to improve sales and profit. It is a form of public relations and advertising that can be used internally within a business. Musical theater (or theatre) is a form of theatre combining music, songs, dance, and spoken dialogue. ... Employment is a contract between two parties, one being the employer and the other being the employee. ... Categories: Business | Academic disciplines | School subjects ... A team comprises any group of people or animals linked in a common purpose. ... Management (from Old French ménagement the art of conducting, directing, from Latin manu agere to lead by the hand) characterises the process of leading and directing all or part of an organization, often a business, through the deployment and manipulation of resources (human, financial, material, intellectual or intangible). ... Sales, or the activity of selling, forms an integral part of commercial activity. ... Profit is defined as the residual value gained from business operations. ... The meaning of the term Public relations (PR) is controversial. ... Generally speaking, advertising is the paid promotion of goods, services, companies and ideas by an identified sponsor. ...

Other terms for industrial musicals include the corporate musical or industrial show, but the latter can also refer to trade shows, which are publicity events organized by one or more businesses to promote their products to potential buyers. A trade fair (or trade show) is an exhibition organised so that companies in a specific industry can showcase and demonstrate their new products and services. ... Publicity is one of the variables that comprise the promotional mix. ...

Industrial musicals are not resticted to corporations or to businesses involved in industry. They should not be confused with industrial music, or with musicals produced by companies to be seen by the general public, for example, Disney's stage production of The Lion King. A corporation is a legal entity (distinct from a natural person) that often has similar rights in law to those of a Civil law systems may refer to corporations as moral persons; they may also go by the name AS (anonymous society) or something similar, depending on language (see below). ... Industrial music is a loose term for a number of different styles of electronic and experimental music. ... The Walt Disney Company (most commonly known as Disney) NYSE: DIS is one of the largest media and entertainment corporations in the world. ... The Lion King is the 32nd film in the Disney animated feature canon, and the highest-grossing traditionally animated feature film ever released in the United States. ...

History

Industrial musicals originated from company songs and anthems for promoting enthusiasm among workers. The songs were brought in by the management, as opposed to worker-created work songs. Also, during the 1920s, some companies formed internal musical groups to encourage company loyalty, keep employees happy, and to help advertise the company to the public. For example, the Larkin soap company organized community singing, had a women's drum corps, an orchestra, a ukulele club, and daily recitals on a pipe organ. An anthem is a choral composition to an English religious text sung in church services. ... Enthusiasm (Greek: enthousiasmos) originally meant inspiration or possession by a divine afflatus or by the presence of a god. ... A work song is a typically acoustic rhythmic song sung by persons who are working in likely mundane conditions. ...

At some point, a collection of company songs was extended into a full musical theater format, and the industrial musical was born. Many industrial musicals were made in North America during the economic boom that followed World War II, and this practice continued into the 1980s. Musical theater (or theatre) is a form of theatre combining music, songs, dance, and spoken dialogue. ... In economics, the term boom and bust refers to the movement of an economy through economic cycles due to changes in aggregate demand. ... World War II was a truly global conflict with many facets: immense human suffering, fierce indoctrinations, and the use of new, extremely devastating weapons such as the atom bomb World War II, also known as the Second World War, was a mid-20th-century conflict that engulfed much of the... // Events and trends The 1980s marked an abrupt shift towards more conservative lifestyles after the momentous cultural revolutions which took place in the 1960s and 1970s and the definition of the AIDS virus in 1981. ...

The earliest known industrial musicals were produced by retail and automotive companies such as Ford, General Motors, and the Marshall Field's chain of department stores. By the end of the 1950s and throughout the 1960s, other types of businesses also began to put on shows. A drawing of a self-service store Retailing services consist of the sale of goods/merchandise for personal or household consumption either from a fixed location such as a department store or kiosk, or away from a fixed location and related subordinated services. ... Automakers are companies that produce automobiles. ... The Ford Motor Company (often referred to simply as Ford; sometimes nicknamed FoMoCo, NYSE: F is an automobile maker founded by Henry Ford in Dearborn, Michigan, and incorporated on June 16, 1903. ... General Motors Corporation NYSE: GM, also known as GM, is a United States-based automobile maker with worldwide operations and brands including Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet, Daewoo, GMC, Holden, Hummer, Opel, Pontiac, Saturn, Saab, and Vauxhall. ... Marshall Field (1834 -1906) was founder of Marshall Field and Company, the Chicago based chain of department stores. ... This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality. ... // Events and trends The 1950s in Western society was marked with a sharp rise in the economy for the first time in almost 30 years and return to the 1920s-type consumer society built on credit and boom-times, as well as the height of the baby-boom from returning... The 1960s, or The Sexy Sixties, in its most obvious sense refers to the decade between 1960 and 1969, but the expression has taken on a wider meaning over the past twenty years. ...

Companies could spend a lot of money to produce shows, hiring talented Broadway composers and lyricists. The pay was very good, the task was challenging, and from the theatre's point of view, the production costs were much higher than a regular Broadway musical. Shows could have as many 30 people in the cast and a 60-piece orchestra. Composer Hank Beebe estimates that the 1957 Chevrolet musical was budgeted at over 3 million dollars (U.S.), because it cost six times the amount it took to bring My Fair Lady to the stage that same year. Broadway theatre is often considered the highest professional form of theatre in the United States. ... A composer is a person who writes music. ... A lyricist is an author of song lyrics. ... Melbourne Symphony Orchestra Melbourne Symphony Orchestra Orchestra at City Hall (Edmonton). ... 1957 was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Chevrolet Logo Chevrolet, or Chevy, is a brand of automobile, now part of the General Motors group. ... The original poster for the Broadway production of the show designed by Al Hirschfeld My Fair Lady is a 1956 musical theater production with lyrics and book by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Frederic Loewe, adapted from George Bernard Shaws Pygmalion. ...

The song performances were rarely heard outside of the companies they were written for, but sometimes the employees would be given a souvenir record album. It is largely through these albums that we know these shows existed. Some shows lasted for a limited number of nights, while others traveled from city to city for regional sales meetings. A song is a relatively short musical composition for the human voice (possibly accompanied by other musical instruments), which features words (lyrics). ... A gramophone record, (also phonograph record - often simply record) is an analog sound recording medium: a flat disc rotating at a constant angular velocity, with inscribed spiral grooves in which a stylus or needle rides. ...

By the 1980s, industrial musicals were made less and less often. Jonathan Ward, a writer and DJ who collects industrial musical albums, theorizes that the reason for the decline was partially due to rising production costs for stage shows, and the availability of low-cost video and multimedia technology. // Events and trends The 1980s marked an abrupt shift towards more conservative lifestyles after the momentous cultural revolutions which took place in the 1960s and 1970s and the definition of the AIDS virus in 1981. ... For other meanings of DJ, see DJ (disambiguation). ... This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality. ... Multimedia is the use of several different media to convey information (text, audio, graphics, animation, video, and interactivity). ...

Ward thinks another reason for the decline was a change in work attitudes. In the 1950s and 1960s, an employee might have expected to spend the majority of their working career with one company. By the 1980s, employees and the management may have been less inclined to think this way. The feelings of company loyalty and community promoted in the song lyrics would have been met with more cynicism. // Events and trends The 1950s in Western society was marked with a sharp rise in the economy for the first time in almost 30 years and return to the 1920s-type consumer society built on credit and boom-times, as well as the height of the baby-boom from returning... The 1960s, or The Sexy Sixties, in its most obvious sense refers to the decade between 1960 and 1969, but the expression has taken on a wider meaning over the past twenty years. ... Look up Career on Wiktionary, the free dictionary A career is traditionally seen as a course of successive situations that make up a persons worklife. ... // Events and trends The 1980s marked an abrupt shift towards more conservative lifestyles after the momentous cultural revolutions which took place in the 1960s and 1970s and the definition of the AIDS virus in 1981. ... A community is an amalgamation of living things that share an environment. ... Cynicism was originally the philosophy of a group of ancient Greeks called the Cynics (main article), founded by Antisthenes. ...

Despite the trends that affected industrial musicals, businesses continue to make company songs. For example, KPMG produced a corporate anthem in 2001 called "Our Vision of Global Strategy." KPMG is one of the largest professional services firms in the world. ... 2001: A Space Odyssey. ...

Titles of industrial musicals

• The Shape of Tomorrow -- Westinghouse (1958)
• Take It From Here -- Xerox (1963)
• Diesel Dazzle -- General Motors (1966)
• The Bathrooms Are Coming -- American Standard (1969)
• Got To Investigate Silicones -- General Electric (1973) (about Silicones)

Westinghouse logo (designed by Paul Rand) The Westinghouse Electric Company, headquartered in Monroeville, Pennsylvania, is an organization founded by George Westinghouse in 1886. ... 1958 was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Xerox Corporation NYSE: XRX is the worlds largest document-management company, providing the industrys broadest range of color and black-and-white printers, multifunction systems, copiers, digital production printing presses, and related consulting services and supplies. ... 1963 was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will take you to calendar). ... General Motors Corporation NYSE: GM, also known as GM, is a United States-based automobile maker with worldwide operations and brands including Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet, Daewoo, GMC, Holden, Hummer, Opel, Pontiac, Saturn, Saab, and Vauxhall. ... 1966 was a common year starting on Saturday (link goes to calendar) // Events January January 1 - In a coup, Colonel Jean-Bédel Bokassa ousts president David Dacko and takes over the Central African Republic. ... American Standard is a leading United States manufacturer of bathroom equiptment. ... 1969 was a common year starting on Wednesday For other uses, see Number 1969. ... The General Electric Company, or GE, NYSE: GE is a multinational technology and services company. ... 1973 was a common year starting on Monday. ... Silicones, or polysiloxanes, are inorganic polymers consisting of a silicon-oxygen backbone (...-Si-O-Si-O-Si-O-...) with side groups attached to the silicon atoms. ...

Composers and lyricists

• Hank Beebe
• Jerry Bock
• Michael Brown
• Sheldon Harnick
• Bill Heyer
• Kander and Ebb
• Sonny Kippe
• Lloyd Norlin
• Skip Redwine
• Raymond Scott
• Wilson Stone

Jerry Bock (born 1928) is an American musical theatre composer best known for his collaboration with lyricist Sheldon Harnick on shows such as Fiddler on the Roof. ... Michael Brown (born circa 1920 in Mexia, Texas) is a producer and writer of songs and books whose most-widely-known work might be several childrens books about Santa Mouse. ... Sheldon Harnick (born 1924) is an American lyricist best known for his collaboration with composer Jerry Bock on hit musicals such as Fiddler on the Roof. ... Kander and Ebb is the songwriting team of composer John Kander, born March 18, 1927 and lyricist Fred Ebb (April 8, 1933 - September 11, 2004). ... Raymond Scott (September 10, 1908 - February 8, 1994), was a composer, bandleader, and inventor. ...

Quotations

• "It's an easy thing to write a song about love. It's hard to write a song about spark plugs." -- Wilson Stone.
• "Do I really want to approach General Electric's army of lawyers with hat in hand and say, 'Would you mind if we put out your in-house propaganda as a kind of funny little project?' I think they would see red flags all over that." -- Steve Young, on the possibility of making a commercially-available compilation of songs.

The heart, a symbol of love Love has many meanings in English, from something that gives a little pleasure (I loved that meal) to something one would die for (patriotism, pairbonding). ... This article or section should include material from Spark gap A spark plug is an electrical device that fits into the cylinder head of some internal combustion engines and ignites compressed aerosol gasoline by means of an electric spark. ... North Korean propaganda showing a soldier destroying the United States Capitol building. ...

Related topics

• musical theater
• advertising

Musical theater (or theatre) is a form of theatre combining music, songs, dance, and spoken dialogue. ... Generally speaking, advertising is the paid promotion of goods, services, companies and ideas by an identified sponsor. ...

References

• Doane, Rex, et al. (2001). Corporate anthems. WNYC's Apr. 7, 2001 broadcast of their radio show, On the Media. An interview with collector Steve Young and others.
• Ebenkamp, Becky (2001). Corporate America sings: musical shows about company products. Brandweek, Apr. 23.
• Kalish, Jon (2005). Industrial musicals offer odes to tractors, toilets. (Circulated to many newspapers via Reuters and Internet news sites in March of 2005.)
• McLaren, Carrie & Prelinger, Rick (1998). Salesnoise: a timeline of music & advertising. Stay Free 15, 14-23.
• Ward, Jonathan (2002). Recruit, train and motivate: the history of the industrial musical. Retrieved April 15, 2005.
• Ward, Jonathan (2004). Top 5 musicals produced by the oil industry

External links

• A Chevrolet sales convention musical, a film in the Prelinger archives.
• The 365 Days Project contains a number of music samples:
  • American Standard - My bathroom is a private kind of place. Scroll down to entry #232 (Aug. 20).
  • Xerox - Take it from here. Scroll down to entry #104 (Apr. 14).
  • General Electric's Silicone Products Division - Sand. Scroll down to entry #196 (July 15).
  • Oldsmobile - Gotta get a car. Scroll down to entry #247 (Sept. 5) (about Oldsmobile)
  • Hamm's Beer - The young adults. Scroll down to entry #191 (July 10)
  • Cole National Corporation - National hooray. Scroll down to entry #248 (Sept. 6)
• That agency thing, a musical promoting advertising agencies.
• Corporate and IT anthems, collected by Peter Judge at Zdnet.
• The 1931 IBM Songbook