The best original Broadway cast recordings of the 21st century

Composer Steven Lutvak’s inspired and ingenious score draws on Gilbert & Sullivan operetta and the English music hall for this extremely silly comedy of bloody-minded manners. Our impoverished hero (Bryce Pinkham) discovers he’s ninth in line to an earldom, and decides to kill his way to the top. Lutvak and his co-lyricist, Robert L. Freedman, glide through classical song types—waltz, barcarole, polonaise—infusing the genuinely pretty music with witty, mischievous lyrics. Opera soprano Lauren Worsham is heavenly as the innocent Phoebe and Jefferson Mays steals the recording, as he did the show, with a rogues’ gallery of aristocratic twits, ogres and harridans.—David Cote
Favorite tracks: “I Don’t Understand the Poor,” “Poison in My Pocket” “I’ve Decided to Marry You,” “Looking Down the Barrel of a Gun”

Opening nine days after September 11, Urinetown might easily have closed and been lamented (like Sondheim’s Assassins in 1991) as a victim of bad timing. But New Yorkers are tougher than that. They and critics embraced this dystopian fantasy about a future society where you have to pay to pee. Featuring plenty of self-referential jokes about the conventions of musical-theater, this Fringe-born show became a cult hit. The musical style of Mark Hollman’s score is primarily Brecht-Weill vamps and snarling jazz, but there are also excursions into mock-Rodgers & Hammerstein bromides (“Follow Your Heart”) and gospel (“Run, Freedom, Run!”). Among pee-themed satirical shows that end with a salute to Malthus (theorist of population control), Urinetown is #1.—David Cote
Favorite tracks: “It’s a Privilege to Pee,” “Cop Song,” “Don’t Be the Bunny,” “Run, Freedom, Run!”

Is it heretical to say that the classic pop tunes of the Four Seasons sound even better on the Broadway cast album of Jersey Boys than they did on their original recordings? Produced by original Four Seasons member Bob Gaudio, who cowrote most of the songs, the album takes advantage of advances in audio technology to capture the group’s signature vocal blend with pristine fullness; as falsetto king Frankie Valli, John Lloyd Young soars above his costars—Daniel Reichard, Christian Hoff and J. Robert Spencer—without overshadowing them. Snippets of narration provide a sense of the musical’s biodrama approach, but the album’s best cuts are those that leave the hits intact: nostalgia polished to a dazzling gleam.—Adam Feldman
Favorite tracks: “Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You,” “Walk Like a Man,” “Working My Way Back to You,” “Medley: Stay / Let's Hang On / Opus 17 (Don't You Worry 'Bout Me) / Bye, Bye, Baby”

Bobby Lopez (Avenue Q) joined forces with Trey Parker and Matt Stone (South Park) for this blasphemous hit, probably the only Broadway musical with the lyric “Fuck you God in the ass, mouth and cunt.” Obscene and sweet at the same time, it’s the story of two Mormon missionaries (Andrew Rannells, Josh Gad) who are sent to Uganda to convert the natives. Tunes parodying Wicked, The Lion King and older classics (“The Small House Of Uncle Thomas” from The King and I) are on the nose but still quite funny. And Gad is nerdtastic in the mock-rockin’ Act I finale, “Man Up.” The Book of Mormon makes a joyful noise with a devilish message.—David Cote
Favorite tracks: “Man Up," “Turn It Off,” “I Believe,” "Hasa Diga Eebowai!”