West Side Story (1961 soundtrack)
1961 soundtrack album by various artists / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Dear Wikiwand AI, let's keep it short by simply answering these key questions:
Can you list the top facts and stats about West Side Story (1961 soundtrack)?
Summarize this article for a 10 year old
West Side Story is the soundtrack album to the 1961 film West Side Story, featuring music by Leonard Bernstein and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. Released in 1961, the soundtrack spent 54 weeks at No. 1 on Billboard's stereo albums charts, giving it the longest run at No. 1 of any album in history,[2] although some lists instead credit Michael Jackson's Thriller, on the grounds that this run for West Side Story was on a chart for stereo albums only at a time when many albums were recorded in mono.[3] It did also spend 6 weeks at the top of the Billboard chart for mono albums. In 1962, it won a Grammy award for "Best Sound Track Album – Original Cast". In the United States, it was one of the best-selling albums of the 1960s,[4] certifying three times platinum by the RIAA on November 21, 1986.
West Side Story | |
---|---|
Soundtrack album by Various | |
Released | October 1961 |
Recorded | 1960–1961 |
Genre | Film soundtrack |
Length | 75:42 |
Label | Columbia Masterworks |
Producer | Didier Deutsch |
Though the album was released just a few years after the release of the original broadway cast recording, it is according to musical theater historian Ethan Mordden preferred by some to the earlier version both sentimentally, as the film succeeded in establishing the musical as a "popular masterpiece", and musically, as it contains "beefier orchestration".[5]