“Hello, Dolly!” and ‘Hamilton’ were the biggest Broadway blockbusters of the decades in which they first appeared.
The original Broadway cast recording of Hamilton: An American Musical logs its 29th (inconsistent) week in the top 10 on the Billboard 200 – the longest cumulative run by any cast recording since Broadway’s castway album after Hello, Dolly! was a fixture in the top 10 for 35 consecutive weeks from March 4, 1964 to October 31, 1964.
Hamilton goes over to the cast album Here, who entered the top 10 for 28 consecutive weeks in 1969.
Hello, Dolly! en Hamilton were the biggest Broadway blockbusters of the decades in which they first appeared. Hello, Dolly! opened on January 16, 1964 and ran for 2,844 performances. It was for a time the longest running Broadway musical in history. Hamilton opened on August 6, 2015 and had 1,919 performances performed on March 11, 2020 when Broadway shut down due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Hello, Dolly! won 10 Tony Awards, including best musical. Hamilton 11 swept, also best musical recorded.
De Hello, Dolly! cast album hit the Billboard 200 in June 1964, on the first card following that year’s Tony Awards (held on May 24 that year). The rise of the album to no. 1 ended a 16-week slot at the top spot by The Beatles. (That was the longest continuous hold of the Fab Four at the top.)
Hamilton has had a series of picks. It debuted at no. 12 in October 2015, reached a new height of no. 11 in May 2016 amid the buzz about her record-setting 16 Tony nominations, another new peak of no. 3 in June 2016 after the Tony Awards, and yet another new peak of No. 2 last month after Disney + premiered the film version of the Broadway show.
The title track of Hello, Dolly! became a No. 1 single on the Billboard Hot 100 in a cover version of Louis Armstrong (who was not on the Broadway show, but would have a como in the 1969 film version). ). “Hello, Dolly!” won a Grammy for Song of the Year, one of only three Broadway songs ever won in that category, along with “What Kind of Fool Am I?” fan Stop the world – I want to get away and “Send the Clowns” from A little night music.
Other well-known songs from the show include “Before the Parade Passes By,” “Put Your Sunday Clothes” and “It Only Take a Moment.”
None of the songs from Hamilton were hits in the traditional sense, although several are known, including “My Shot”, “Room Where It Happens,” “Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story” and “Yorktown (The World Turned Upside Down),” Which includes the crowd-igniting line “immigrants (we get the job done). “
Hamilton won a Grammy for Best Album for Musical Theater. Hello, Dolly!, surprisingly, not. It lost to the Funny girl cast album. This represented a reversal of fortune of the Tony Awards, where Dolly! beat Funny girl in five categories – including best musical and best actress in a musical (Carol Channing on Barbra Streisand). At the Grammys, unlike the Tonys, Streisand (who had won two gramophones for her debut album the previous year) had an advantage at home.
Neither Dolly! still Hamilton received a Grammy nomination for Album of the Year, although both albums probably came close. Dolly! was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2002. Hamilton will almost certainly participate in it as soon as it is eligible in 2040 (25 years after its release).
Lin-Manuel Miranda was 35 then Hamilton– why he wrote books, music and lyrics – opened on Broadway. Jerry Herman was even younger, just 32, then Hello, Dolly! – for which he wrote music and lyrics – opened. Both of these creative artists were born in New York City. Herman died in December 2019, aged 88 years.
As Hamilton logs six weeks more in the top 10, it will tie Dolly! for the longest run in the top 10 by a cast album since August 1963, when Billboard combined separate stereo and mono charts into one comprehensive chart.
Before that, when there were multiple album charts, several cast albums had even longer runs in the top 10. Here are three of the most prominent examples. My Fair Lady had 173 weeks in the top 10. The sound of music hie 105. The Music Man hie 66.
As a bonus, here’s a timeline of the longest running Broadway musicals since Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Oklahoma!, which revolutionized Broadway musicals when it opened in March 1943. The title of the longest-running musical in Broadway history went from Oklahoma! no My Fair Lady no Hello, Dolly! no Fiddler on the roof no Gray no A choir line no The cat to the current record holder, The ghost of the opera.
