Wicked and Jersey Boys Top Billboard's Cast Album Chart — Again
By Ernio Hernandez
15 Nov 2007
The first seven spots on the Billboard Top Cast Album chart are holdovers from last week: The original cast recording of Wicked again tops the list.
Last week, the constant chart-topper, Decca Broadway's Wicked, reclaimed its No. 1 position following a six-week reign by the Jersey Boys. The Rhino release (which again places No. 2) of the Four Seasons musical had marked the longest stretch on the countdown by a recording other than Stephen Schwartz's Oz-based tale.
Legally Blonde's original Broadway cast recording on Ghostlight Records holds steady at No. 3 (for a fifth week), as Decca Broadway's Mamma Mia! and Walt Disney's The Lion King round out the top five. (Decca's Spring Awakening and RCA Victor's Avenue Q place at No. 6 and 7.)
Columbia's original cast recording of Camelot — released, yes, in 1960 — slides to No. 12 after making its debut last week at No. 11 following the recent death of one of the musical's stars, Robert Goulet. The album of the Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe musical also features Richard Burton, Julie Andrews and Roddy McDowall.
Along with Wicked, Mamma Mia! and Avenue Q, the cast recording of Monty Python's Spamalot has remained on Billboard's Top Cast Album Chart for the full 98 weeks since the chart's inception.
In other movement, the "Highlights" version of the original London cast recording of The Phantom of the Opera (on Polydor) re-enters the chart at No. 14 — just ahead of its Really Useful full-CD counterpart.
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Legally Blonde recently joined the company of those that have unseated the release of Schwartz's Wicked — which has topped the chart for 82 of the 97 weeks the chart has been published. The only other recordings to topple the stronghold are Spring Awakening, the Columbia Records two-disc "Harry On Broadway" release (with Broadway's The Pajama Game revival and selections of Connick, Jr.'s Thou Shalt Not) and The Color Purple for one week each.
Billboard can be found on the web at www.billboard.com. Full charts are available by subscription at www.billboard.biz.
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