''Wicked'' is a

cast recording A cast recording is a recording of a stage musical that is intended to document the songs as they were performed in the show and experienced by the audience. An original cast recording or OCR, as the name implies, features the voices of the sho ...

containing the majority of the songs from the

Tony Award The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Broadway Theatre, more commonly known as the Tony Award, recognizes excellence in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual ce ...

-winning Broadway musical ''Wicked'', with music and lyrics by composer

Stephen Schwartz Stephen Lawrence Schwartz (born March 6, 1948) is an American musical theatre lyricist and composer. In a career spanning over five decades, Schwartz has written such hit musicals as ''Godspell'' (1971), ''Pippin'' (1972), and ''Wicked'' (20 ...

and a book by writer

Winnie Holzman Winnie Holzman (born August 18, 1954 in Manhattan) is an American dramatist, screenwriter, and poet. She is known for having created the ABC television series ''My So-Called Life'', which led to a nomination for a scriptwriting Emmy Award in 199 ...

. Released on December 16, 2003 by

Decca Broadway Decca Broadway is an American record label specializing in musical theater recordings founded in 1999 by Decca Records and is a unit of Universal Music Group. Decca Broadway issued both new original cast albums as well as reissues of classic mus ...

both in physical and digital releases. The former contains a foreword and a short synopsis, provided by

Gregory Maguire Gregory Maguire (born June 9, 1954) is an American novelist. He is the author of '' Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West'', '' Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister'', and several dozen other novels for adults and children. Many ...

, who wrote the 1995 novel on which the musical is based, in addition to lyrics to those songs included. Composer and lyricist of ''Wicked'', Stephen Schwartz, produced the album aided by

Frank Filipetti Frank Filipetti is an American record producer, audio engineer and mixer, who was born in Bristol, Connecticut, United States. Filipetti has seven Grammy Awards and ten nominations for his work on ''The Color Purple'', ''The Book of Mormon'', ''W ...

, Jill Dell'Abate, Jason Spears, Justin Shturtz, Jason Stasium and

Ted Jensen Ted Jensen (born September 19, 1954) is an American mastering engineer, known for having mastered many recordings, including the Eagles' ''Hotel California'', Green Day's '' American Idiot'' and Norah Jones' ''Come Away with Me''. Biography T ...

. The original cast album of ''Wicked'' was recorded on November 10, 2003, with the full cast and orchestra, at then-

Right Track Studios Sound on Sound Studios, formerly known as MSR Studios (Manhattan Sound Recordings) is a photography and movie producing company recording facility in Montclair, New Jersey. Its forebear, MSR Studios, was located in Manhattan, just outside Times Sq ...

and mastered at Sterling Sound in New York City. The cast recording has received positive reviews and has received substantial commercial success. It received the 2005

Grammy Award for Best Musical Show Album The Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album has been awarded since 1959. The award is generally given to the album producer, principal vocalist(s), and the composer and lyricist if they have written a new score which comprises 51% or more play ...

in 2005 and although initially peaking at number 125 on the ''Billboard'' 200 in 2003, has since reached the new peak of 66 in 2013. The album was certified

platinum Platinum is a chemical element with the symbol Pt and atomic number 78. It is a dense, malleable, ductile, highly unreactive, precious, silverish-white transition metal. Its name originates from Spanish , a diminutive of "silver". Pla ...

on November 30, 2006 by the RIAA, but has since been certified double platinum, four years later, on November 8, 2010. It has sold 2,670,000 copies in the U.S. as of January 2017.

Track listing

Notes

*The reprise of "No One Mourns the Wicked" is attached to the beginning of "Thank Goodness". *"The Wicked Witch of the East", sung by Nessarose, Elphaba, and Boq, is missing from the album. Producers deemed it too difficult to arrange for the album and thought the song would give too much of the plot away to an audience who had never seen ''Wicked'' before. *Short reprises of "The Wizard and I" and "A Sentimental Man", that appear in Act I and II respectively, are not included. This is mainly because they are not technically considered full musical numbers.

Fifth anniversary special edition

A fifth anniversary special edition of the original Broadway cast recording was released on October 28, 2008, with a bonus CD including tracks "Dancing Through Life", "Popular", "As Long As You're Mine" and "No Good Deed" from the Japanese and German cast recordings of ''Wicked'', "I'm Not That Girl" by

Kerry Ellis Kerry Jane Ellis (born 6 May 1979) is an English actress and singer who is best known for her work in musical theatre and subsequent crossover into music. Born and raised in Suffolk, Ellis began performing at an early age before training at La ...

, "Making Good" – a song that never made the final show – by Stephanie J. Block, Menzel's dance mix of "Defying Gravity" and "For Good" sung by LeAnn Rimes and Delta Goodrem.

Track listing

Deluxe edition

The set of two CDs included new deluxe packaging featuring the show's tenth anniversary artwork, and a booklet with new essays by composer and lyricist

, and

, the author of ''Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West'', the novel on which the musical is based.

Track listing

German language recording

In 2007, the original Stuttgart cast rerecorded the ''Wicked'' album in German, ahead of the opening of the German production in Stuttgart that year. The title of this album was ''Wicked Das Musical - Die Hexen von Oz''. The German lyrics are by Michael Kunze and German dialogue by Ruth Deny, conducted by Sebastian de Domenico. The orchestral music conducted by Stephen Oremus and has identical musician credits—presumably the cast simply sung to the original orchestral recording.

Personnel

Cast *

Willemijn Verkaik Willemijn Verkaik (; born 16 June 1975) is a Dutch singer and actress. She is best known for her stage roles in '' Wicked'' and '' Elisabeth'', and for providing the singing voice for Elsa in both the German and Dutch versions of Disney's '' F ...

– Elphaba * Lucy Scherer – Galinda, later Glinda *Mark Seibert –

Fiyero ''Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West'' is an American novel published in 1995, written by Gregory Maguire with illustrations by Douglas Smith. It is the first in ''The Wicked Years'' series, and was followed by ''Son of a ...

*Carlo Lauber – Der Zauberer von Oz *Angelika Wedekind – Madame Akaber *Nicole Radeschnig –

Nessarose ''Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West'' is an American novel published in 1995, written by Gregory Maguire with illustrations by Douglas Smith. It is the first in ''The Wicked Years'' series, and was followed by '' Son of ...

*Stefan Stara – Moq *Michael Günther – Dr. Dillamonth Alternates *Sabrina Weckerlin – Elphaba *Jana Stelley – Glinda Ensemble vocals *Cosimo de Bartolomeo *Paul Boereboom *Alan Byland *Heather Carino *Alessandro Cococcia *Ben Cox *Matthias Dressel *Belinda Jean Edwards *Marco Fahrland *Rhys George *Maria Graciano *Sam Hale *Kisha Howard *Emma Hunter *Michael Kargus *Jessica Lantto *Jimmy Laremore *Valerie Link *Artur Molin *Jens Simon Petersen *Stefan Poslovski *Rey Rodriguez *Barbara Schmid *Lanie Sumalinog *Maike Switzer *Francesca Taverni * Roberta Valentini

15th anniversary special edition

The album was re-released on February 8, 2019, with four bonus tracks. These tracks were taken from live performances on the show ''A Very Wicked Halloween: Celebrating 15 Years On Broadway'', which was broadcast by

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are l ...

on October 29, 2018.

Track listing

Singles

In 2007,

Idina Menzel Idina Kim Menzel ( ; ; born May 30, 1971) is an American actress and singer. Particularly known for her work in musicals on the Broadway stage and having achieved mainstream success across stage, film and music, Menzel has garnered the honori ...

re-recorded " Defying Gravity" as a solo version and released it as a single.

recorded rock versions of the songs " Defying Gravity" and "I'm Not That Girl" for her 2008 album ''

Wicked in Rock ''Wicked in Rock'' is an EP by actress and singer Kerry Ellis. It was arranged, produced and accompanied on guitar by Brian May and features Taylor Hawkins on drums. A 60+ piece orchestra, conducted by Steve Sidwell, was also used. The album ha ...

'', produced by

Queen Queen or QUEEN may refer to: Monarchy * Queen regnant, a female monarch of a Kingdom ** List of queens regnant * Queen consort, the wife of a reigning king * Queen dowager, the widow of a king * Queen mother, a queen dowager who is the mother ...

's guitarist,

Brian May Brian Harold May (born 19 July 1947) is an English guitarist, singer, songwriter, and astrophysicist, who achieved worldwide fame as the lead guitarist of the rock band Queen. May was a co-founder of Queen with lead singer Freddie Mercury and ...

. Julia Murney recorded "I'm Not That Girl" for her album, ''I'm Not Waiting'' (2006). She recorded this particular song because she deemed it one song of the entire musical "that had nothing to do with flying or wizards".Gans, Andre
"Diva Talk: Chatting with Wicked's Julia Murney Plus News of Peters and Skinner"
playbill.com, March 17, 2006

Charts

Year-end charts

Certifications

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wicked (Musical Album) 2003 soundtrack albums Cast recordings Decca Records soundtracks Musicals based on The Wizard of Oz The Wicked Years Theatre soundtracks