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The Top MusicalsOriginally posted 5/22/2022. January 22, 2019 marked the 10-year anniversary of the DMDB blog. To honor that, Dave’s Music Database announced its own Hall of Fame. This month marks the fourteenth group of album inductees. These are the top musicals of all time, excluding previous inductees South Pacific, My Fair Lady, The Sound of Music, Porgy and Bess, and Camelot. |
Jerry Bock (music), Sheldon Harnick (lyrics) Fiddler on the Roof (1964)Inducted May 2022 as “Top Musicals.” |
| Fiddler on the Roof tells the story of a Jewish family trying to hold on to their simple values in the shadow of the impending Russian revolution. With more than 3000 performances, it was the most successful musical up to its time and gave us standards like “Sunrise, Sunset” and “If I Were a Rich Man.” It won a Tony for Best Musical and the cast album is in the Grammy Hall of Fame and National Recording Registry. Read more. |  |
Galt MacDermot (music) with Gerome Ragni & James Rado (lyrics) Hair (1967)Inducted May 2022 as “Top Musicals.” |
| Hair threw away the conventional approach to musical theater in favor of a musical that catered to the hippie vibe of the late ‘60s. The cast album reached #1 and sold five million copies in the United States. It is in the Grammy Hall of Fame and National Recording Registry. It won a Grammy for Best Musical Theater Album and was named one of the top albums of the 20th century by the Recording Industry Association of America. Read more. |  |
Lin-Manuel Miranda (music & lyrics) Hamilton (2015)Inducted May 2022 as “Top Musicals.” |
| Inspired by Ron Chernow’s 2004 biography Alexander Hamilton, Lin-Manuel Miranda wrote a musical that combined the traditional style of show tunes with hip-hop, R&B, pop, and soul in a move that seemed destined for derision, but it became one of the most successful musicals of the 21st century. Hamilton won a Tony for Best Musical, a Grammy for Best Musical Theater Album, and a Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Read more. |  |
Andrew Lloyd Webber (music) & Tim Rice (lyrics) Jesus Christ Superstar (1971)Inducted May 2022 as “Top Musicals.” |
| When Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice couldn’t get funding for a stage production of their rock-music infused, controversial modernization of the Christ story, they released a studio album. Its success (including being named Billboard magazine’s album of the year) led to an eventual run on Broadway and an eight-year run in England, making it the country’s longest-running musical at the time. Read more. |  |
Cole Porter (music & lyrics) Kiss Me, Kate (1949)Inducted May 2022 as “Top Musicals.” |
| Kiss Me, Kate was the most successful Broadway musical of Cole Porter’s career, winning the Tony for Best Musical. It came at a time when he was thought to be in decline. Patti Page, Gordon MacRae, and Dinah Shore all had top 20 hits with the show’s song “So in Love.” The cast album spent 10 weeks at #1 in the U.S. and has been added to the Grammy Hall of Fame and National Recording Registry. Read more. |  |
Meredith Willson (music & lyrics) The Music Man (1957)Inducted May 2022 as “Top Musicals.” |
| The Music Man was a story of a con man trying to swindle the people in a small Iowa farm town. It won the Tony for Best Musical. The cast album sold a million copies and spent 12 weeks at #1 in the U.S. The album is in the Grammy Hall of Fame. “Till There Was You” and “Seventy Six Trombones” were the show’s best known songs. Read more. |  |
Richard Rodgers (music) & Oscar Hammerstein II (lyrics) Oklahoma! (1943)Inducted May 2022 as “Top Musicals.” |
| This was the first show written by the team of Rodgers and Hammerstein. It was a ground-breaking musical, taking the unusual approach of actually having the songs grow out of the characters’ situations. The cast album reached #4 and sold 3 million copies in the U.S. It is in the Grammy Hall of Fame and the National Recording Registry. The 1955 soundtrack topped the charts in the U.S. and U.K. and sold two million copies in the states. Bing Crosby has top-five hits with his recordings of the show’s “People Will Say We’re in Love” and “Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin’.” Read more. |  |
Andrew Lloyd Webber (music) with Charles Hart & Richard Stilgoe (lyrics) Phantom of the Opera (1986)Inducted May 2022 as “Top Musicals.” |
| The Phantom of the Opera was based on a 1911 French gothic mystery novel. The story is about a disfigured, musical genius who becomes obsessed with a beautiful soprano singer. The show became the longest-running Broadway musical of all time. It is estimated that the show has played to more than 100 million people in 125 cities in 25 countries. The cast album sold 4 million copies in the U.S. It won both the Tony and Laurence Oliver awards for best musical. Read more. |  |
Jerome Kern (music) & Oscar Hammerstein II (lyrics) Show Boat (1927)Inducted May 2022 as “Top Musicals.” |
| Show Boat is generally considered the first true American musical play. It broke tradition from the typical musical revues by telling an actual story accompanied by music. Kern and Hammerstein based the show on Ednar Ferber’s 1926 novel of the same name. The show’s best known songs are “Ol’ Man River” and “Can’t Help Lovin’ Dat Man.” The cast album is in the Grammy Hall of Fame and National Recording Registry. Read more. |  |
Leonard Bernstein (music) & Stephen Sondheim (lyrics) West Side Story (1957)Inducted May 2022 as “Top Musicals.” |
| Romeo and Juliet gets an update in West Side Story as a conflict between rival gangs in 1950s’ New York. The cast album hit #5 and sold more than 3 million copies worldwide, but was eclipsed by the monstrous success of the 1961 soundtrack, which spent 54 weeks at #1 in the U.S. where it sold 8 million copies. The cast album is in the Grammy Hall of Fame, won a Grammy for Best Musical album, and was named Billboard’s album of the year. “Somewhere,” “Tonight,” and “Maria” are among the show’s best known songs. Read more. |  |
