Although, as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, live performances with an in-person audience at Broadway’s Richard Rodgers Theatre have been shut down for more than a year, since March 12, 2020, Lin-Manuel Miranda’s brilliant sold-out award-sweeping hit musical Hamilton, about America’s “young, scrappy, and hungry” founding father, has continued entertaining and inspiring fans everywhere.
World Theatre Day is celebrated annually on March 27, and with theaters still closed around most of the world, Money.co.uk wanted to find out which musical soundtracks listeners have been streaming the most at home. So they began by pooling a list of the fifteen top-grossing musicals, and found the official original cast album for each show on Spotify. Then they ordered the data to find the number of streams for each soundtrack in total, and as an average for each streamed song, to see which musicals fans love to listen to over and over again.
It comes as no surprise that Hamilton – recipient of Tony, Grammy, and Olivier Awards, the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, and an unprecedented special citation from the Kennedy Center Honors – is, deservedly, the most streamed musical, with a whopping 3,989,500,087 (yes, billion!) streams for all of its songs on Spotify, and five of its numbers make the top-ten list (or half) of the most streamed songs. Hamilton’s highest ranking song is its classic opening number “Alexander Hamilton,” which has been streamed 184,576,667 times so far.
Here is the compiled list of the fifteen most streamed musical soundtracks on Spotify and the number of streams per musical:
- Hamilton – 3,989,500,087
- Lion King – 936,182,474
- Mamma Mia! – 876,263,885
- Aladdin – 629,469,027
- Les Misérables – 488,183,051
- Beauty and the Beast – 446,156,212
- Wicked – 396,708,225
- Jersey Boys – 349,355,887
- Mary Poppins – 220,871,539
- Book of Mormon – 188,890,381
- Phantom of the Opera – 178,560,515
- Chicago – 125,575,757
- Kinky Boots – 45,484,482
- Cats – 15,750,274
- Miss Saigon – 3,492,379
And Spotify’s top ten most streamed songs from the musicals are:
- Aladdin, “A Whole New World” – 236,991,593
- Jersey Boys, “December, 1963 (Oh What A Night)” – 229,992,892
- Hamilton, “Alexander Hamilton” – 184,576,667
- The Lion King, “I Just Can’t Wait To Be King” – 167,763,615
- The Lion King, “Can You Feel The Love Tonight” – 163,951,301
- Hamilton, “My Shot” – 158,715,705
- Hamilton, “Satisfied” – 156,912,143
- The Lion King, “Hakuna Matata” – 148,906,294
- Hamilton, “The Schuyler Sisters” – 147,708,751
- Hamilton, “You’ll Be Back” – 143,368,118
All data was collected on March 16, 2021, and is correct as of that date.
In addition to its overwhelming popularity with listeners, Hamilton has also inspired a group of doctors in Northern California, going by the name of Vax’n 8, to encourage the public to get vaccinated against COVID-19 with a music video adaptation of “My Shot” – an especially timely message now that theaters are beginning to reopen, in accordance with health and safety protocol.
The song addresses the social, scientific, and political issues currently affecting the decision to receive the vaccine. And while the doctors noted that they “completely respect everyone’s freedom of choice,” they stated that “we as a group of physicians support and encourage everyone who can to receive a vaccine based on our understanding of both the science behind its safety, and the global imperative to bring population immunity to the point where the pandemic can finally come to an end.”
You can watch the video here:
Fans of Miranda will also be happy to hear that the release date for the Warner Bros. movie version of his stage musical In the Heights has been moved up a week, from June 18 to June 11, in both theaters and on HBO Max, due to popular demand. Originally scheduled for its world premiere in June 2020, it was postponed due to the pandemic. Adapted for the screen by Quiara Alegria Hudes, the film stars Hamilton’s Anthony Ramos, and features Corey Hawkins, Leslie Grace, Melissa Barrera, Jimmy Smits, Olga Merediz, Daphne Rubin-Vega, and Stephanie Beatriz, with Miranda also making an appearance in a small role.
To view the trailer, click on the arrow below:
