Make that a perfect 100 for Lin-Manuel Miranda…
The 37-year-old Puerto Rican composer, lyricist, playright and actor’s original Broadway cast recording Hamilton: An American Musical notches its 100th consecutive week on the latest Billboard 200 albums chart (dated September 9).
The cast recording, which ranks at No. 24 o the list, also surpasses the total album sales of the original Broadway cast album to Rent.
In the latest tracking week (ending August 24), Hamilton sold another 7,000 copies, bringing its total sales to 1.285 million – slightly more than the 1.284 million of Rent (released in 1996).
Hamilton is now the sixth largest selling cast album of the Nielsen Music era (which started in 1991, when the company began electronically tracking music sales).
The top selling cast album in Nielsen Music’s history is the highlights edition of the original London cast recording of The Phantom of the Opera, with 4.97 million sold. (The complete recording of The Phantom of the Opera — which is tracked and charts separately — has sold 503,000 since 1991.)
The Phantom of the Opera (Highlights) is followed by the original Broadway cast recording of Wicked (2.7 million), the original cast recording of Mamma Mia! (1.72 million), the original Broadway cast recording of Les Miserables (1.66 million), the original Broadway cast recording of Jersey Boys (1.44 million) and Hamilton.
Further, Hamilton has sold 297,000 in 2017. It is one of only two cast albums to sell 100,000 copies this year; Dear Evan Hansen, at 116,000, is the other. Those totals also make 2017 the first calendar year since 2011 where two cast albums have cleared 100,000. That year, The Book of Mormon and Wicked respectively sold 182,000 and 133,000.
The Billboard 200 chart ranks the week’s most popular albums based on their overall consumption. That overall unit figure combines pure album sales, track equivalent albums (TEA) and streaming equivalent albums (SEA).
Now, let’s take a closer look at some of the action on the latest Billboard 200 chart: