Theatre Gays! The Most Streamed Broadway Musical Albums!

June 25, 2024
ALEXANDER

The Most Streamed Broadway Musical Albums

Truth be told, some of us theatre gays were listening to Broadway musicals while the rest of you were listening to Billboard's Top 10. We know every inflection, every cadence, every lyric, every belt, and every note of most of the musicals out there. Call us theatre nerds, we don't care! We'll just pop in Wicked and listen to "Defying Gravity" for the umpteen time. KingCasino Bonus put together data from Spotify, analyzing the play count for each official album recording and sorting them out from highest to lowest average streams per song. Some of these took us by surprise.

At number one, not surprisingly, is Lin-Manuel Miranda's 2015 Hamilton. It became a huge hit and a pop culture phenomenon. Even people not into musical theatre went to see Hamilton. It won 11 Tony Awards. Some say it revived audiences' interest in Broadway musicals and the streaming filmed version on Disney+ was a huge hit during COVID. On Spotify, it averages around a whopping 145 million average plays per song, with 6.4 billion total streams over its 44 song cast recording. The most streamed with 303 million plays is the title song, "Alexander Hamilton."

Second place surprised us. Broadway's 2017 show SIX averaged 55.6 million plays per song. It was a fun show, but number two? It is a retelling of the stories of the six wives of Henry VIII using contemporary style in its presentation. The Broadway cast album has nine songs and has over 500 million streams. The most popular song is "Don't Lose Ur Head" at 101 million streams.

We know that Wicked would be on this list. It comes in at number 3 with 27 million average streams per song. The show is 20 years old and seems to be touring longer than Cher's farewell tours. It is getting a healthy boost from the marketing for the two-part movie adaptation starring Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo. The number one streamed song on the album is (no surprise) "Defying Gravity" with 148 million streams. The total album has 26 songs.

Coming in at fourth place is The Book of Mormon. This 2011 hit Broadway musical was created by the masterminds of South Park and centers around two missionaries of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as the attempt to preach in a foreign land. This cast album garners 16.6 million average streams per song with "Hello" being the most streamed with 42 million plays.

Fifth place surprised us with Hadestown taking the spot with 9.5 million average streams per song. The show opened on Broadway in 2019 and received 14 nominations (the most for the evening) and won eight of them, including Best Musical and Best Original Score. The musical is a telling of the ancient Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice.