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Welcome to Hit Parade, a podcast of Popchart History from Slate Magazine, about the hits from coast to coast.

I'm Chris Malanfi, chart analyst, pop critic, and writer of Slate's Why Is the Song Number

1 series. On today's show, 60 years ago in 1959, a stage musical by the legendary team

of Richard Rogers and Oscar Hammerstein made its debut on Broadway. Within a few months, in January of 1960,

its original cast recording was the number one album in America.

To this day, this recording of The Sound of Music, led by Broadway star Mary Martin, remains the best charting cast album of a stage musical in Billboard history, having spent 16 weeks on top of the album charts.

And this song, My Favorite Things, is one of its most indelible standards.

Indeed, the song is so well known by the general public that, six decades later,

pop megastar Ariana Grande built a number one smash out of it.

Yeah.

Yeah. built a number one smash out of it. The chart topping seven rings is a knowing homage to my favorite things.

Its use of the sound of music song is so overpowering that, reportedly, the estate of Rogers

and Hammerstein wound up taking the majority of the Ariana Grande song's publishing rights.

This is the closest that Broadway music gets to the top of the charts in the 21st century,

even when a Broadway show is utterly massive.

Hamilton, the Broadway blockbuster of the 2010s, composed by and starring Lin-Manuel Miranda,

has generated gold and platinum albums filled with a blend of modern hip-hop and show tunes.

But you won't hear its acclaimed songs on the airwaves.

Of course, to be fair, original cast Broadway music

has long been a hard fit on Top 40 radio.

But in the mid-20th century,

...