Best Selling Musical Cast Recordings of All Time

[broadwaysfguy]

Posted: 5/20/15 at 1:33am

hey all

I couldnt find it so i built it-the best selling musical cast recordings of all time list.  These numbers are based on RIAA certified shipments, or other third party industry data in a few cases (like an article by the guy who ran musical cast recordings for decca for 11 years). The most contested number is for Phantom of the Opera, where numbers in excess of 40 million units sold have been claimed. These are the stage cast recordings, not for movie cast recordings (different list).  

I know the very knowledgeable members of this group have their own favorite gold or platinum cast recordings that have been left off this list, so please share your additions or corrections. 

Enjoy the list!

 

Phantom of the Opera     13.8M

Les Mis                            3M

My Fair Lady                    3M

Wicked                            3M

A Chorus Line                  2M

Fiddler on the Roof          2M

Rent                               2M

Mamma Mia                   1.7M

Jersey Boys                   1.5M

Annie                            1.0M

Cats                              1.0M

Evita                             1.0M

The Lion King                 1.0M

Miss Saigon                   1.0M

The Music Man               1.0M

Oklahoma                      1.0M 

All these are certified gold at 500K+ copies:

 

Aida

Beauty and the Beast

Camelot

Chicago

Dreamgirls

Flower Drum Song

Funny Girl

Hair!

Jesus Christ Superstar

Mame

Man of La Mancha

Oliver

South Pacific

The Sound of Music

West Side Story

La Cage

The Wiz

Peter Pan

Hello, Dolly

 

Updated On: 5/21/15 at 01:33 AM

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 5/20/15 at 9:39am

These days, you have to factor in digital downloads as well.  I imagine that would give some of these numbers quite a significant boost, particularly with Wicked.

[tazber]

Posted: 5/20/15 at 10:51am

Yea, Book of Mormon has at least gone gold with 85% of its sales from digital outlets.

[ErinDillyFan]

Posted: 5/20/15 at 10:52am

I don't believe "the Sound of Music" numbers.  

Best selling LP of 1960 has less than 1M?

[tazber]

Posted: 5/20/15 at 10:55am

You might be thinking of the soundtrack.

 

[broadwaysfguy]

Posted: 5/20/15 at 11:56am

sound of music 1960 cast album-i agree with you it was #1 on billboard for 16 weeks in 1960...

the sound of music movie soundtrack has estimated 10Million+ sales!!!!!

I figured Book of Mormon must be gold by now- i just cant find any stats to support it

RIAA has started integrating downloads into gold and plat awards but are woefully behind the technology....

 

Its still stunning to me and not believable that there are only 15 plat or multi plat cast recordings in the history of broadway....there HAVE to be more than that!!!!

 

 

 

 

 

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 5/20/15 at 12:01pm

Yeah, I would have assumed Hair and Hello, Dolly! would be on the platinum list.

[Fantod]

Posted: 5/20/15 at 12:09pm

Is the My Fair Lady one from Broadway or London?

[jkstheatrescene]

Posted: 5/20/15 at 12:12pm

Hello, Dolly! was certified gold on June 2, 1964.

[broadwaysfguy]

Posted: 5/20/15 at 1:52pm

thanks JKStheatrescene

great addition!

[broadwaysfguy]

Posted: 5/20/15 at 1:54pm

hi Fantod

the release date for My Fair Lady on the 3x platinum version is 1959 so i would assume its the london cast album. there is limited info on the RIAA database....

 

[Fantod]

Posted: 5/20/15 at 2:28pm

That's strange. I would have thought it was the Original Broadway Cast, though I personally like the London cast better.

[ErinDillyFan]

Posted: 5/20/15 at 3:20pm

The POTO 40 million comes from total albums sales includes all versions, in umpteen languages, various single CD condensed albums, the movie soundtrack.  It is also closing in on $4B in ticket sales worldwide.  ALW is a very rich man, being both composer and producer. Really Useful indeed!

Tazber: No, the SOM soundtrack didn't come out until after the movie in 1965.

Updated On: 5/20/15 at 03:20 PM

[broadwaysfguy]

Posted: 5/20/15 at 8:03pm

Adding original cast recording of Oklahoma 

in 1943 

read multiple reports of 1million plus sales of original lp. I think it predates riaa

also revising phantom to 13.8 million based of certified copies info of uk us highlights and major country certified copies-I think the 40 m number is marketing and not real....

Will post top sales of movie musical soundtracks friday

what do you think is The number 1 selling movie musical soundtrack Of all time? 

[Mr. Nowack]

Posted: 5/21/15 at 12:17am

Wasn't the WEST SIDE STORY soundtrack listed by some as one of the highest selling albums of all time, bar none?

[tazber]

Posted: 5/21/15 at 4:08am

Here are some rough costs of producing a cast album:

Most Broadway shows make cast recordings because they are such good marketing tools although few are likely to recover the $400,000 cost a former record company executive said.

Brian Drutman, former vice president of Decca Broadway, said new technology has made the recording process very easy although union rules, which require actors to be paid one week of salary for each day spent recording, keep the cost high.

Still, the price is a “drop in the bucket to a theater producer” who commonly raises about $15 million to put on a Broadway show, said Drutman, whose talk Saturday was part of a Festival of New Musicals at Goodspeed Opera House in East Haddam, Conn.

And “without a cast recording, a show dies,” pointed out a member of the audience.

Drutman said a cast recording is considered successful if it sells about 100,000 copies.

 

WSJ - The Economics of Bway Cast Rexcordings

Updated On: 5/21/15 at 04:08 AM

[Mr. Nowack]

Posted: 5/21/15 at 4:52am

“without a cast recording, a show dies,”

So very true. With no recording how can a new show generate interest in performers and theater companies to keep being put on?

[Junior Babcock]

Posted: 5/21/15 at 6:51am

I think that the MY FAIR LADY London cast was in Stereo, whereas the American cast was Mono. I remember buying the American cast album on 45 RPM then buying the London cast  album on LP because it was in Stereophonic Sound.

[tazber]

Posted: 5/21/15 at 7:39am

That sounds right. I recall when they re-mastered it for CD they chose the LCR as it had much better sound quality.

[broadwaysfguy]

Posted: 5/21/15 at 8:53am

thanks Tazber, Brian's article was one of the reasons I started this research project and I've communicatd with Brian about it and shared my findings so far.

I did not know about the union rules for paying a weeks salary per day of recording.  Is that in exchange for foregoing any royalties from the recording, or do all cast members get royalties from sales?

Do stars and leads get different royalty rates? How much does Idina Menzel for example make from the Wicked CD and download sales?

 

[ErinDillyFan]

Posted: 5/21/15 at 10:13am

Oklahoma cast recording pre-dates the LP which was introduced in 1948.  So, a cast recording of Oklahoma would have been sold as a set of 4 to 6 78's.  

[broadwaysfguy]

Posted: 5/21/15 at 11:16am

thats right erindillyfan-you know your stuff!

which makes it even more incredible that it sold over a million copies at initial release....

here's what wikipedia says:

Most of the songs from Oklahoma! were released on a record album by Decca Records in 1943 containing six 10-inch double-sided discs in 78 RPM format. It was the first U.S. cast album featuring the original Broadway cast of a musical. It sold over a million copies, prompting the label to call the cast back into the studio to record three additional selections that had been left out of the first set. These were issued as Oklahoma! Volume Two. In 1949, Decca re-released the first set on LP but not the second set, which soon became a very rare collectors' item. All subsequent LP releases were similarly incomplete. Finally in 2000, Decca Broadway went back to the original glass masters to generate a new high fidelity transfer of the complete song program and released it on CD, utilizing the original 78 album artwork.^[69]

[thommg]

Posted: 5/21/15 at 11:54am

"Most of the songs from Oklahoma! were released on a record album by Decca Records in 1943 containing six 10-inch double-sided discs in 78 RPM format. It was the first U.S. cast album featuring the original Broadway cast of a musical. It sold over a million copies, prompting the label to call the cast back into the studio to record three additional selections that had been left out of the first set. These were issued as Oklahoma! Volume Two. In 1949, Decca re-released the first set on LP but not the second set, which soon became a very rare collectors' item. All subsequent LP releases were similarly incomplete. Finally in 2000, Decca Broadway went back to the original glass masters to generate a new high fidelity transfer of the complete song program and released it on CD, utilizing the original 78 album artwork.^[69]"

 I didn't realize this. I have the 78 set that was released for Annie Get Your Gun but never saw the one for Oklahoma.

 

[Fantod]

Posted: 5/21/15 at 12:29pm

I have both My Fair Lady recordings on CD. The London one is from Masterworks Broadway and the Broadway one is from Sony Classical. They are both remastered. Neither recording is particularly great sounding, however.

It's always funny to me that the two recordings that I consider to have the nicest sound were released right at the dawn of stereo recordings - West Side Story Original Broadway Cast and Candide Original Broadway Cast. (I think Candide might even be mono, but I can't find any info on it).

I'm surprised by how expensive it is to produce a cast recording, considering how many off-Broadway shows get recordings. I wonder if that figure is just for large scale Broadway shows and if smaller shows cost less to record, especially with equity requiring less pay for off-Broadway performers.

[CarlosAlberto]

Posted: 5/21/15 at 12:36pm

According to Wikish!tea:

 

WEST SIDE STORY - Motion Picture Soundtrack Recording 

Released in 1961, the soundtrack spent 54 weeks at No. 1 on Billboard's album charts, giving it the longest run at No. 1 of any album in history,although some lists instead credit Michael Jackson's Thriller, on the grounds that West Side Story was listed on a chart for stereo albums only at a time when many albums were recorded in mono

Updated On: 5/21/15 at 12:36 PM