Anyone involved in the musical theatre world has heard about Lin-Manuel Miranda’s “Hamilton” taking Broadway by storm this past year. For those wanting to know why the show has been selling out, they need not buy expensive tickets to see it in New York; they can just purchase the original cast recording on CD.

National Public Radio released “Hamilton” for free online streaming on Sept. 21, it was released by Atlantic Records digitaly on Sept. 25, and physical copies were released on Oct. 16, 2015. The album debuted as number 12 on the Billboard 200 album chart and went on to be number 1 on the Billboard Rap albums chart.

The CD is not a secondary experience to seeing the show; it provides just as good of an experience.

Most musicals only appeal to people who like Broadway tunes; however, “Hamilton” appeals to many people.

With a mixture of both traditional Broadway tunes and rap, “Hamilton” is one of the first of its kind. Creator and star of the show, Lin-Manuel Miranda also wrote and starred in “In the Heights,” a musical about a neighborhood in Washington Heights, New York.

“Hamilton,” based on the biography “Alexander Hamilton” written by Ron Chernow, follows Hamilton’s life from his start in New York City to his final duel with Aaron Burr.

I saw “Hamilton” two days before it officially opened on Broadway this past August. My family are long-time fans of Miranda and seeing the show was a must. As soon as it became available, we purchased the album.

Because of there being barely any dialogue in the show, people listening to the album are never lost in the plot.

Miranda as Alexander Hamilton is outstanding. Miranda’s voice is not the most trained, but he can rap with such emotion that the audience forgets that his voice isn’t quite the best.

The rhymes that Miranda wrote go together with such ease that the listener can hear them smoothly. The line “I’m just like my country; I’m young, scrappy and hungry,” repeated many times in the soundtrack, is an example of the type of rhymes Miranda works with.

Leslie Odom, Jr. and Renée Elise Goldsberry are the real stand-outs in the album. Odom plays the antagonist in the show, Aaron Burr, and Goldsberry plays the sister of Hamilton’s wife, Angelica Schuyler.

Even though the main part of “Hamilton” is about Burr trying to always one-up Hamilton, a listener will find himself rooting for Burr to win the entire time. Odom’s voice is one of the best in the album, and his ballads caused shivers down my back every time I heard them.

Goldsberry as Angelica Schuyler is phenomenal. She raps with an intensity that I’ve never heard before and shows such emotion that the listener can feel her pain and love for Hamilton along with her.

A character who is fantastic, yet often overlooked, is Phillipa Soo, who plays Hamilton’s wife and Angelica Schuyler’s sister, Eliza Schuyler. Her ballad after Hamilton reveals he cheated on her is heartbreaking and very powerful. Her performance when I watched it was very good, yet she was over-shadowed by Miranda and Goldsberry. The power that I heard from her character came from listening to the soundtrack many times after seeing the show.

“Hamilton” is definitely a musical to listen to or even to see, especially for those who like history, rap, musical theatre or all three.