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Lin-Manuel Miranda’s “Hamilton” Soundtrack Reaches No. 2 on Billboard 200 Chart

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Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton is proving its endurance…

The original Broadway cast recording of the 40-year-old Puerto Rican Broadway star’s Hamilton: An American Musical has surged to a new peak on the Billboard 200 albums chart, as the set rises from No. 14 to No. 2 in the wake of the show’s Disney+ premiere on July 3. 

Lin-Manuel Miranda's final Hamilton curtain call

The Grammy-winning album earned 102,000 equivalent album units (up 294 percent) in the U.S. in the week ending July 9, according to Nielsen Music/MRC Data. Of that sum, 32,000 are in album sales (up 592 percent).

The last cast recording to reach the top two on the chart was the original cast album of Hair, which spent 13 weeks at No. 1 in 1969.

Until this week, Hamilton was tied with the original Broadway cast recording of The Book of Mormon as the highest charting cast album since 1969, as Mormonpeaked at No. 3 in 2011.

The set previously peaked at No. 3 on the July 2, 2016-dated chart, following the 2016 Tony Awards, where the musical won 11 prizes, including best musical.

Hamilton Cast Recording

The Billboard 200 chart ranks the most popular albums of the week in the U.S. based on multi-metric consumption as measured in equivalent album units. Units comprise album sales, track equivalent albums (TEA) and streaming equivalent albums (SEA). The new July 18-dated chart will be posted in full on Billboard‘s website on July 14.

Of Hamilton’s unit haul of 102,000 for the week, 67,000 are in SEA units (equating to 90.41 million on-demand streams for the set’s tracks – easily the biggest streaming week ever for a cast recording), 32,000 are in album sales, and 4,000 are in TEA units.

Hamiltoncelebrates its 250th week on the Billboard 200 chart. The set has never left the tally since its debut at No. 12 on the October 17, 2015-dated list. That’s the longest run by any cast album since the highlights edition of the original London cast recording of The Phantom of the Opera, which has logged 331 weeks on the list between 1990 and 1996.

With 102,000 equivalent album units earned, Hamilton tallies the biggest week for any cast recording since Billboard and Nielsen Music/MRC Data began tracking albums by units in December 2014. Hamilton beats its own record, as it previously held the biggest week, by units, for a cast album since December 2014 – when it net 62,000 units on the July 2, 2016-dated chart.

So far, Hamilton has sold 1.97 million copies in the U.S. After being certified 6 times platinum by the RIAA in 2019, Hamilton became the best-selling cast album of all time. It won the Grammy for Best Musical Theater Album.

Lin-Manuel Miranda’s “Hamilton” Musical Cast Recording Notches 100th Week on Billboard 200

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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).

Lin-Manuel Miranda's final Hamilton curtain call

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:

Miranda’s “Hamilton” Ends Year as Broadway’s Box Office Star

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Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton is the new king of the jungle…

The 36-year-old Puerto Rican actor, playwright, composer, rapper and writer’s Broadway musical nudged past Disney blockbuster The Lion King to top the Broadway box office end of the year chart.

Lin-Manuel Miranda's final Hamilton curtain call

Hamilton ended the year earning $105.5 million, besting The Lion King ($103.2 million) by a nose.

The show’s hugely profitable year comes as little surprise given the ultra-high demand for tickets and the rising prices of premium seats.

Over Thanksgiving, Hamilton became the first Broadway show to earn more than $3 million in a single eight-performance week.

Although Broadway bookkeeping mostly follows a season calendar that begins and ends in May, the year-end box office tallies nonetheless provide a good mid-season snapshot of the health of the Broadway industry. With box office measured in weekly increments that run Monday through Sunday, bookkeepers at the Broadway League are counting the week ending December 25 as the end of the 52-week year, with the 2017 calendar year beginning this week.

Hamilton and the 19-year-old Lion King, which had been the biggest earner on the street for the previous three calendar years, were the only two shows to earn more than $100 million in 2016.

Another of Broadway’s consistent hot tickets, Wicked ($89 million), followed them on the chart, with Disney’s Aladdin ($78.2 million) and The Book of Mormon ($70.6 million) rounding out the Top 5.