Miley, Elton John & More Artists With Billboard 200-Topping Album Titles That Included Names of Musical Instruments

By entering the Billboard 200 at No. 1 on the list dated Oct. 3, Miley’s Bass Persuades joins a short list of No. 1 albums that include the names of musical instruments in their titles.

Miley’s album is the first with the word “bass” in its title to top the chart. Meghan Trainor’s debut album, which contained her breakthrough smash “All About That Bass,” was titled Title. “All About That Bass” topped the Billboard Hot 100 for eight consecutive weeks in 2014 and went on to receive Grammy nods for record and song of the year.

Improbably, another album on this list has a variation of the word “Persuades” in its title. That’s Terry Snyder and the All-Stars’ Persuasive Percussion, which topped the Billboard 200 for 13 weeks in 1960.

This list also includes a classical album that became a phenomenon, an album that served as the soundtrack to an Oscar-nominated film and albums by two of the best-selling album acts in history: Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass and Elton John.

As Billboard reported on Sept. 28, Bass Persuades is Miley’s first No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 in more than a decade, since Bangerz in 2013. That album, which spawned the hits “We Can’t Stop” and “Wrecking Ball,” the latter her first Hot 100 No. 1, firmly positioned Cyrus as a contemporary pop star and brought her her first Grammy nomination, for best pop vocal album.

Here’s a full list of albums that topped the Billboard 200 whose titles include names of musical instruments. They are listed in chronological order.

• Van Cliburn, Tchaikovsky: Piano Concerto No. 1

  Date Hit No. 1: Aug. 11, 1958

  Weeks at No. 1: seven

  Notes: This album received a Grammy nod for album of the year at the inaugural Grammy Awards in 1959. It won for best classical performance – instrumentalist (with concerto scale accompaniment). The classical pianist made the Billboard 200 with four piano concertos between 1958 and 1962. This album was followed by concertos composed by Rachmaninoff, Schumann and Brahms.

• Original Broadway Cast, Flower Drum Song

  Date Hit No. 1: Feb. 2, 1959

  Weeks at No. 1: three

  Notes: This was the first Rodgers and Hammerstein musical to spawn a Billboard 200-topping Broadway cast album. (Note: The chart originated in 1956, which was after some of the legendary team’s biggest hits, such as Oklahoma! and The King and I.) Their next and final musical was The Sound of Music. (Hammerstein died of stomach cancer on Aug. 23, 1960, at age 65, nine months after The Sound of Music opened on Broadway.) Flower Drum Song received a Grammy nod for best original cast album (Broadway or TV). The most famous song from the show was “I Enjoy Being a Girl,” which was a mainstay on Miss America pageants of the 1960s.

• Terry Snyder and the All-Stars, Persuasive Percussion

  Date Hit No. 1: April 25, 1960

  Weeks at No. 1: 13

  Notes: Terry Snyder and the All-Stars was one of several pseudonyms used by conductor Enoch Light. He also released hit albums as Enoch Light & the Light Brigade, The Command All-Stars and Enoch Light & the Command All-Stars. Five Persuasive Percussion albums made the Billboard 200. The first three of them made the top five. Two Provocative Percussion albums also charted. Both made the top five.

• Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass, The Beat of the Brass

  Date Hit No. 1: July 27, 1968

  Weeks at No. 1: two

  Notes: This was the fifth and final Billboard 200-topping album by Alpert and the TJB, one of the best-selling acts of the 1960s. It includes Herb’s solo vocal hit “This Guy’s in Love With You,” which was the first No. 1 Hot 100 hit for Alpert, for songwriters Burt Bacharach & Hal David and for A&M Records. The Brass also made the Billboard 200 with The Brass Are Comin’ in 1969 and Solid Brass in 1972. As a solo artist, Alpert charted in 1983 with Blow Your Own Horn.

• Elton John, Don’t Shoot Me I’m Only the Piano Player

  Date Hit No. 1: March 3, 1973

  Weeks at No. 1: two

  Notes: This was John’s second No. 1 album on the Billboard 200, following Honky Chateau. Five more would follow by the end of 1975. Don’t Shoot Me spawned John’s first No. 1 Hot 100 hit, “Crocodile Rock,” and it very nearly generated his second: “Daniel” rose to No. 2 and went on to receive a Grammy nod for best pop vocal performance, male.

• Eric Weissberg & Steve Mandell, Dueling Banjos

  Date Hit No. 1: March 17, 1973

  Weeks at No. 1: three

  Notes: Dueling Banjos replaced Don’t Shoot Me I’m Only the Piano Player at No. 1, the only time that albums with the names of instruments in their titles were No. 1 back-to-back. “Dueling Banjos” was featured in the hit film Deliverance, which was nominated for an Oscar as the best picture of 1972. The title song logged four weeks at No. 2 on the Hot 100 (behind Roberta Flack’s letter-perfect “Killing Me Softly With His Song”) and went on to win a Grammy for best country instrumental performance.

• Kanye West, 808s and Heartbreak

  Date Hit No. 1: Dec. 13, 2008

  Weeks at No. 1: one

  Notes: The title referred both to West’s use of the Roland TR-808 drum machine on the album and pain in his personal life at the time. West conceived 808s & Heartbreak following the death of his mother Donda in November 2007 and his breakup with his then-fiancée Alexis Phifer in April 2008. The album spawned a pair of top five Hot 100 hits, “Love Lockdown” and “Heartless.”

• Miley, Bass Persuades

  Date Hit No. 1: Oct. 3, 2026

  Weeks at No. 1: one (so far)

  Notes: This is Miley’s sixth No. 1 album; her third that was strictly a solo album, following Breakout (2008) and Bangerz (2013). She also reached No. 1 with a Hannah Montana TV soundtrack, a Hannah Montana film soundtrack and a double-disk album, Hannah Montana 2/Meet Miley Cyrus, that was a hybrid TV soundtrack and solo album.