The Book of Mormon: Original Broadway Cast Recording

Recording and post-production

The cast recording for The Book of Mormon was recorded on March 21, 22 and 28, 2011. The two former dates were shortly before the show officially opened and the latter was days afterward. The record was recorded at Studio A in MSR Studios (formerly Right Track Recording) in New York City. The show's creators, Trey Parker, Matt Stone, and Robert Lopez, served as producers for the album, as did The Book of Mormon producers Anne Garefino and Scott Rudin. In addition, Stephen Oremus (music director for Wicked) and Kurt Deutsch (co-founder of Sh-K-Boom Records, owner of Ghostlight Records) also served as producer and executive producer, respectively.

Because of payment schedules imposed by union rules, Broadway cast recordings are traditionally recorded over a single 15-hour day, with all instruments and vocals tracked together. In addition to reducing costs, this approach enables the singers to control the tempo of the songs. But according to Frank Filipetti, who both recorded and mixed the album, The Book of Mormon's complex vocal arrangements called for a different strategy in which the instrumental tracks were recorded first, followed by a separate day dedicated to the cast. Filipetti said that the arrangements had "vocal parts within vocal parts within vocal parts. Trying to do all of that with the principal singers, rhythm section, orchestra, all in two or three takes in an all-day session wasn’t going to work." He credited Oremus and drummer Sean McDaniel for being able to anticipate the singers' phrasing. Other mixing challenges included "creating enough air and clarity for all the vocalists while still maintaining the vibrancy of [Lopez's] orchestral arrangements", as well as dealing with the score's wide range of musical styles.

Oremus and Lopez were heavily involved in the orchestra recording, whereas Stone and Parker were more invested in the vocal session. According to Filipetti, their main concern was making sure the jokes were coming across. The album was recorded to Pro Tools as to allow for multiple tracks of recordings to be present in the final cut. Mixing and mastering were done in April at Filipetti's studio in West Nyack, New York. The album was mastered by Scott Hull. Filipetti set up Source Connect to enable the core producers—Oremus, Lopez, Parker and Stone—to listen in on the session in real time from Manhattan, with Skype providing an audio/video connection between the two locations.

Track listing

All tracks written by Trey Parker, Robert Lopez, Matt Stone.

Song parody sources

In the recording's liner notes, Frank Rich wrote that The Book of Mormon "scrupulously follows the old testament of Broadway circa 1945–1965, A.D., even while fondly spoofing it". He compares "I Believe” to “I Have Confidence” from The Sound of Music, the opening number "Hello!" to “The Telephone Hour” in Bye Bye Birdie, and “Turn It Off” to “I’ll Never Be Jealous Again” from The Pajama Game. Other songs, he writes, owe much to the parodies of Tom Lehrer.

Kristin Rawls, in her critique of the score, draws several parallels to other musicals. She likens "I Believe" to "I Have Confidence" from The Sound of Music, citing similarities in their lyrics. She also makes a comparison between the Ugandans' version and presentation of Joseph Smith's story in "Joseph Smith American Moses" to "Uncle Tom's Cabin" from The King and I, as well as the recalling and overlap of previous numbers in "Man Up" to Les Misérables's "One Day More". Other observers have made other comparisons, arguing, for example, that "You and Me (But Mostly Me)" references "The Wizard and I" from Wicked, that "All-American Prophet" is a throw-back to The Music Man's "Ya Got Trouble"; and that "Hasa Diga Eebowai" spoofs "Hakuna Matata" from The Lion King.

Release

As the audio was being mixed, the musical's popularity exploded, giving the show a much higher profile than when the album was first recorded. The cast album was promoted through advertisements running during Parker and Stone's South Park on Comedy Central. A free preview of the entire recording was released on NPR starting on May 9, 2011. Excerpts from the cast recording are featured in an extended Fresh Air interview.

Commercial performance

During its first week of its iTunes Store release, the recording became "the fastest-selling Broadway cast album in iTunes history", according to representatives for the production, ranking No. 2 on its day of release on the iTunes Top 10 Chart. According to Playbill, "It's a rare occurrence for a Broadway cast album to place among the iTunes best sellers. The cast album for the Green Day musical American Idiot also ranked among the top 10 when it debuted in 2010." The album debuted at number 31 on the US Billboard 200 chart, with first-week sales of 13,000. The start for The Book of Mormon was also the best debut sales week for a cast set since The Little Mermaid cast album in 2008. The cast album also started at No. 1 on the Top Cast Albums chart – the 24th topper since the list began in 2006. After its initial success, the record fell to number 124 on the Billboard 200 with only 4,000 copies sold, and soon fell off the chart.

However, after the show's success at the 2011 Tony Awards, The Book of Mormon cast album broke sales records again when it skyrocketed up the Billboard charts back to number 3 on the Billboard 200 on June 15, making it the highest charting Broadway cast album–and first top 10–since 1969, when Hair spent 13 straight weeks at No. 1. It sold over 61,000 copies, the largest sales week for any cast album since Nielsen SoundScan began tracking data in 1991. The previous best sales week for a cast set belonged to the original London cast recording of Highlights from The Phantom of the Opera, which sold 54,000 over the Christmas week of 1992. Many news outlets attributed its chart success not only to its physical release on June 7 and publicity from the Tony Awards, but to Amazon MP3's sale pricing of the digital album. The retailer offered it at just $1.99 for three days during the sales tracking week that ended on Sunday (the night of the Tony broadcast). Amazon MP3 promoted the record aggressively through Twitter and through a commercial in the Tony Awards telecast. As a result, 85 percent of the sales were digital downloads, a much higher ratio than usual.

Critical reception

Matthew Perpetua of Rolling Stone complimented the recording's witty lyrics and memorable songs and stated the album would leave listeners "desperate to score tickets to see the actual show". David Jeffries of Allmusic stated that the music's style was vivid but traditional and the songs were "inspired" and provided a mixture of the "satirical, controversial, and the musical", but noted their coarse and blasphemic nature in his recommendation.