The Book of Mormon: Original Broadway Cast Recording

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.[7]

Kristin Rawls, in her critique of the score, draws several parallels to other musicals. She also likens "I Believe" to "I Have Confidence" from The Sound of Music, citing similarities in their lyrics, and 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".[8]

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.[13] 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."[14] 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.[9] 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.[15]

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.[15] 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.[16] 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.[17] 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.[15] As a result, 85 percent of the sales were digital downloads, a much higher ratio than usual.[18]

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".[19] 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.[20]