No. 13. “Satisfied” (Hamilton, 2015)

By Lin-Manuel Miranda (music, books, and lyrics).

Believe it or not, Hamilton celebrates its 10th Broadway-versary this July. A LOT has happened in those ten years, and I for one am nostalgic for a time when we had time as a country to collectively obsess over a musical. It was considered a “game changer” at the time, mostly because of its diverse casting and the fact that it got the olds locked in to rap music. But I think it’s legacy goes back to Lin-Manuel Miranda’s earlier Broadway outing, In the Heights. A leading narrative at the time was his use of programs like Garage Band to record melodies and build numbers with layers and loops, as opposed to sitting down and composing at a piano. Hamilton took this to higher level of sophistication, both musically and dramaturgically. And "Satisfied," which replays events you just saw from an entirely different point of view, is a perfect showcase for this evolution.

Hamilton showed that this toolbox could tackle epic themes. It’s also something that one person could do alone without a lot of fancy equipment, and a younger generation of self-taught composers is coming up and reaching new audiences on untraditional platforms. (See Six, Epic: The Musical, The Unoffical Bridgerton Musical, or anything considered a TikTok musical.)

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