Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton is making its mark on the music charts…
The original Broadway cast recording for the hit musical soars into the top three of the Billboard 200 chart, following its big night at the Tony Awards.
The set’s rise from No. 13 to No. 3 makes it just one of only three cast recordings to reach the top 10 in the last 50 years, and the highest charting in five years, since The Book of Mormon also peaked at No. 3.
The Billboard 200 chart ranks the most popular albums of the week in the U.S. based on multi-metric consumption, which includes traditional album sales, track equivalent albums (TEA) and streaming equivalent albums (SEA). The new July 2-dated chart (where Hamilton races to No. 3) will be posted in full to Billboard’s websites on Tuesday, June 21.
Hamilton moved 62,000 units in the week ending June 16 (up 119 percent) with 45,000 of that figure in traditional album sales — up 164 percent.
Hamilton debuted at No. 12 last year and previously peaked at No. 11.
Hamilton won 11 Tony Awards, including best musical, and performed a number of times on the CBS broadcast of the awards. Hamilton equals the chart high of The Book of Mormon, which also reached No. 3 after its multiple Tony Award wins back in 2011.
Hamilton and The Book of Mormon are the highest charting cast recordings since 1969, when Hair spent 13 weeks at No. 1. They are the only cast albums to reach the top 10 in the past 50 years.
Hamilton’s sales haul of 45,000 copies sold is the biggest sales week for a cast recording since The Book of Mormon back in 2011. After the Tony Awards, Mormon sold 61,000 copies — fueled in part by a $1.99 sale price in the Amazon MP3 store. That said, Hamilton didn’t escape the sale pricing last week: it was marked down to $3.99 in the Google Play store for a portion of the tracking week.
Mormon’s 61,000 sales week continues to be the largest for a cast recording since Nielsen Music began tracking sales in 1991.
So far, Hamilton has sold 489,000 copies in the U.S. It is the No. 13 biggest selling cast recording since Nielsen Music began tracking sales in 1991.