Review Roundup: HAMILTON Cast Album- UPDATED!

The Hamilton cast album has been out in the world for about a week and the company of the hit musical is planning to celebrate. On October 16 (3:30 PM), Lin-Manuel Miranda will take audience questions then be joined by cast members to sign the original Broadway cast recording at the Upper East Side Barnes & Noble (150 East 86th Street).

Atlantic Records released "HAMILTON (ORIGINAL BROADWAY CAST RECORDING)," digitally on September 25. It is executive produced byAhmir "Questlove" Thompson and Tariq "Black Thought" Trotter, founding members of the Grammy Award winning hip-hop band, The Roots.

Let's see what the critics had to say...

Brittany Spanos, Rolling Stone: This presentation of Hamilton is a textured labor of love, showing and not simply telling how its title character went from "young, scrappy and hungry" to "an Icarus [who's] flown too close to the sun." Miranda's music and lyrics smoothly fuse Nineties hip-hop, girl-group R&B, British Invasion pop and more into classic theatrical forms, and dramatic highlights like "My Shot," "Stay Alive" and "Ten Duel Commandments" are as stirring on record as they are onstage. Act One stunner "Satisfied" might be Miranda's finest moment, with costar Renée Elise Goldsberry dipping in and out of Nicki Minaj-style rhymes and Bernadette Peters vocal runs in a heartbreaking performance as Hamilton's sister-in-law Angelica Schuyler. Tickets to the show may be sold out until approximately forever, but this album is an excellent replacement.

Alex Gale, Billboard: 2015's best rap album isn't by Drake, Kendrick Lamar or Dr. Dre -- it's the cast recording of Hamilton, a vital companion to the most creative, most talked-about musical to hit Broadway this millennium (read Billboard's cover story on the showhere). True, an audio recording (executive-produced by The Roots' Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson and Tariq "Black Thought" Trotter) can't reproduce the subversive visual impact of seeing a predominantly black and brown cast take on America's founding fathers and mothers -- on the Great White Way, of all places. But digesting every nuance in these mostly rapped renditions of the infamously verbose title character's oratorial jousts is almost impossible without a rewind button; every listen finds a new sanguine historical detail, slick interpolation of a hip-hop classic or dizzying rhyme scheme delivered with Eminem-level intricacy.Hamilton's stage production should be required viewing for every American citizen, but this exhilarating listen is a much more practical, and every bit as enjoyable, stand-in.

Frannie Kelley, NPR: But even without choreography, the music here is stuffed with Easter eggs and asides and nods, as is much of the hip-hop canon. But the tone and taste isn't the story. Lin-Manuel Miranda's Alexander Hamilton is made recognizable by an understanding of the world in which Americans are by rights charged with making the thing that should already exist. When we see a high school production of Hamilton, then we'll know it's real.

Felipe Delerme, Pitchfork: As an educational tool, Hamilton is a new standard, a piece that will very likely do more to cement Hamilton's legacy into the consciousness of the general public than any history class ever could. Kaplan would be wise to commission volumes of these kinds of hip hop-driven biographies from Miranda and force him into some kind of lifetime contract. As an album, however, the audio removed from visual context, it's a lot to digest. It's 46 songs of verbose, intricately delivered raps, spun from a story with enough character to have already made it aNew York Times best-seller. There's a lot of ground to cover regardless of medium.

Doug Mayo, British Theatre: The Hamilton cast recording manages to audibly convey the incredible highs and lows of Hamilton's story. Miranda's performance brings the bullish, scrappy but incredibly intelligent Hamilton to life. It's an incredibly compelling performance by a man who I think has only just begun. I can't wait to see what comes next!

Jacod Judd, Inquirer: At the end of the day, "Hamilton" shouldn't be as revolutionary as it is. Hip-hop has been around for decades, dispensing lyrical density that'd make Stephen Sondheim blush. Still, not since "Hair" in 1968 has a piece of musical theater felt so fresh, relevant and ready for contemporary radio play.