Jukebox musical was led by the success of "Mamma Mia!", built around the music of ABBA. Reception of jukebox musicals has been divided, with the most common criticism being that there is too much focus on how many songs can be fit into the musical. Some jukebox musicals, like "Lennon" and "Good Vibrations" have been critical and financial flops. Others, like "Jersey Boys" and "All Shook Up" have been popular with both fans and critics. The term "jukebox musical" dates at least to 1962, following "Jukebox" (1939), though the general genre—motion pictures consisting largely of hit recordings—dates to the 1940s and 1950s.
Development of musical theatre draw in the audiences, leading to better profits and improved production values. The first play to achieve 500 consecutive performances was the London (non-musical) comedy "Our Boys", opening in 1875, which set an astonishing new record of 1,362 performances. This run was not equaled on the musical stage until World War I, but musical theatre soon broke the 500 performance mark in London, most notably by the series of more than a dozen long-running Gilbert and Sullivan family-friendly comic opera hits, including "H.M.S. Pinafore" in 1878 and "The Mikado" in 1885. These were sensations on both sides of the Atlantic