The
Billboard magazine publishes a weekly
chart that ranks the best-selling
albums in the United States. The chart nowadays known as the
Billboard 200 was titled
Best Selling Pop Albums in 1951. Starting with the issue dated July 22, 1950, Billboard decided to split the popular albums chart between the two common
album formats at the time–33 1/3
rpm and 45 rpm, because the versions of the albums were often not released simultaneously and larger retailers had issues filling out Billboards questionnaire.
The cast recording of the 1949 musical South Pacific, composed by
Richard Rodgers and mainly recorded by
Ezio Pinza and
Mary Martin, spent nineteen combined weeks on top between January and April. The most dominant individual artist in 1951 was
Mario Lanza. Three albums recorded by Lanza topped the charts for thirty combined weeks. The first of which, the soundtrack to the 1950 film The Toast of New Orleans, in which Lanza starred in topped the 45 rpm chart for six weeks in February and March.[1] The
soundtrack to his follow-up film The Great Caruso reigned atop each of the charts for ten consecutive weeks. The album sold more than 100,000 copies before the film was released and became the first LP to sell more than one million copies in the US.[2]
Finally, Lanza's
christmas albumMario Lanza Sings Christmas Songs was number one for the final two weeks of the year on both charts. This made 1951 the first year since the charts inception in 1945, that
Bing Crosby's Merry Christmas did not reach number one in December.[A]Billboard did not issue a year-end chart for albums in 1951. The women's album that reigned at the top of the Billboard was
The Voice of Xtabay of
Yma Sumac in which he remained at the top for 6 weeks.
^Bing Crosby's Merry Christmas first reached the top of the album chart in the issue dated December 8, 1945.[3] It spent at least one week atop the chart, every
christmas season until January 1951. In December 1951, it peaked at number four on both charts, in the last issue.[4]