Oh how far Lin-Manuel Miranda will go…
On the latest Billboard 200 albums chart (dated August 25), the 38-year-old Puerto Rican composer, lyricist, playwright, rapper and actor’s soundtrack to Moana reaches a sales milestone.
The soundtrack has now surpassed 1 million copies sold in the U.S. The set, which moves 59-62 on the chart in its 91st consecutive week on the tally, sold 2,000 copies in the latest tracking week, according to Nielsen Music, bringing its total sales sum to 1.001 million.
The soundtrackfeatures songs written by Miranda, Mark Mancina and Opetaia Foa’i, with lyrics in English, Samoan, Tokelauan, and Tuvalu.
The album debuted on the Billboard 200 chart at number 16 and peaked at number 2, kept off the top spot by The Weeknd‘s Starboy. “How Far I’ll Go” was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song, and the Academy Award for Best Original Song.
Only eight albums released in the past two years (dating back to August of 2016) have sold a million copies in the U.S. No albums released in 2018have cleared a million yet. The last-released album to reach a million sold was the soundtrack to The Greatest Showman. It was released on Dec. 8, 2017, and has sold 1.252 million.
Notably, Moanais also only the third soundtrack released in the past fouryears to clear 1 million sold, following Showmanand Guardians of the Galaxy: Awesome Mix Vol. 1 (2.191 million).
The Billboard 200 chart ranks the week’s most popular albums based on their overall consumption. That overall unit figure combines pure album sales, track equivalent albums (TEA) and streaming equivalent albums (SEA).
