Mamma Mia's Effect on the Music Charts

[broadwayjim42]

Posted: 7/23/08 at 11:56am

From Billboard Chart Alert:

• The "Mamma Mia!" soundtrack jumps to No. 3 with an 89% increase in sales, shifting 91,000 this week. The film bowed in U.S. theaters last Friday (July 1 and earned the highest-grossing weekend opening for a musical. The film of course is based on the stage musical "Mamma Mia!" and the music of ABBA. The group's presence is very much felt all over the charts this week thanks to the movie's boffo bow. The act's "Gold -- Greatest Hits" rises to No. 1 for the first time on Top Pop Catalog (15,000; up 96%) while the group is also at Nos. 13 and 24 with two more compilations. Additionally, the original cast recording of "Mamma Mia" zooms 47-8 on Top Pop Catalog (6,000; up 92%) and is a mere handful of units away from the No. 1 slot on Top Cast Albums.

[jacobsnchz14]

Posted: 7/23/08 at 11:59am

Mamma Mia! probably would have stayed number one, too... if Miley Cyrus' CD wouldn't have been released yesterday.

[broadwayjim42]

Posted: 7/23/08 at 12:13pm

Miley's won't chart until next week and "Mamma Mia" has yet to be #1 (in the US at least) except on the Soundtracks chart. #1 and #2 on the Top 200 are NAS and Lil Wayne.

Still kinda happy that "ABBA Gold" finally made it to the top of the catalog charts...it only took 15 years.

[Eagleman]

Posted: 7/23/08 at 5:54pm

It doesn't matter whether the music hits the top of the charts or not.
Benny and Bjorn have another card to play and now that the 15-year
civil suit has been settles, "Mamma Mia" the movie is in the can, and
Herbert Kretzmer has finished his work on "Marguerite", Benny and
Bjorn can kick back for a little bit and put the final touches on "Kristina'.

Check out these blurbs:

"It is by far the most accomplished piece of writing for the music theatre for a decade. I mean it is completely sensational!"
--Trevor Nunn

"Kristina, available on swedish CD, is not only the first substantial piece that Andersson and Ulvaeus have written in their native language, it's one of the most ambitious swatches of musical theater (39 songs!) since Gershwin's 1935 Porgy and Bess, with one of the most serious, lyrically seductive scores since Rodgers and Hammerstein were creating their midcentury, midcult epics. Kristina boasts dozens of gorgeous numbers: folk tunes, marches, love songs, rage-against-the-midwinter-night songs and, of course, anthems — Benny's done more of them than Francis Scott Key and Irving Berlin put together. Don't wait for Kristina to come to Broadway or the leather-bar juke box. Don't even wait for Kretzmer to translate it for the West End... . Buy the CD and dive into the musical rapture. "

--Richard Corliss, Time Magazine

Updated On: 7/23/08 at 05:54 PM

[broadwayjim42]

Posted: 7/24/08 at 7:05am

On this one, I completely agree with you. "Kristina" is amazing and I hope one day it finally makes it to Broadway.

I heard there's supposed to be a concert version this fall...any more word on that?

[Eagleman]

Posted: 7/24/08 at 11:00am

I think they've been run so ragged the past 15 years with the civil suit, the show, and the film, that they may just take a breather (I'm just guessing here. On the other hand, who knows? When you have more money than Moses, may be it's because you have
extra juice in your DNA.)

They are shrewd business people and maybe they'll have the good sense to let Billy Elliot land in the fall (when they were thinking concert) and when theater space opens up in early summer or the fall of 2009 and the hysteria around Bill Elliot dies down, they'll launch.

I cannot imagine any backers, after having observed the mania around "Mamma Mia"
and the additional evidence of B & B's popularity by the revved up record sales around the world of all their music thinking the show would not have a huge built-in audience that would cross continents to see this thing.

And since Alice Ripley has been signed for the part of Ulrika, some gears must be grinding away. I can't believe any human being would willingly engage in 15 years of civil suits merely on the basis of principle. They've been working on this show for
more than 15 years and took it to Minnesota as a concert. It played to a million people in Sweden. (The poster "Jackl" is an actor/singer/dancer abroad who has seen it twice in Stockholme (and almost eveything else) and it tops his list.)

I cannot imagine--well, I guess I can--the critical responses. It is so sublime B & By will be accused by some critics or "borrowing from Wagner, Dvorak, Vigil Thompson, Aaron Copeland, and of course, Abba!

I've never heard anything like it. It's in a class of it's own and almost seems as if some muse said, "Let's see them call this 'trite' and more from "Europe's Archies".
Updated On: 7/24/08 at 11:00 AM

[Jim Colyer]

Posted: 7/24/08 at 5:00pm

Just returned from seeing Mamma Mia! I laughed and cried for nearly 2 hours. The audience responded well to the high-energy ABBA songs. As I exited the theater, some girls were in a circle singing Dancing Queen. I may go to a karaoke bar tonight and sing it myself. Meryl Streep and Pierce Brosnan were great. I understand why Streep is called a great actress.

Meryl Streep sings Money Money Money
http://youtube.com/watch?v=YDjw4mpEwU8



Jim Colyer Updated On: 7/24/08 at 05:00 PM