The Beatles Achievements (Partial List)
"* The Beatles are the best-selling musical group of all time, estimated by EMI to have over one billion discs and tapes sold worldwide.
* The Beatles have notched up the most multi-platinum selling albums for any artist or musical group (thirteen in the U.S. alone).
* The Beatles have had more number one singles than any other musical group (23 in Australia, 23 in The Netherlands, 22 in Canada, 21 in Norway, 20 in the U.S., and 18 in Sweden). Ironically, the Beatles could easily have had even more number ones, because they were often competing with their own singles. For example, the Beatles' "Penny Lane" and "Strawberry Fields Forever" were released as a "double A"-sided single, which caused sales and airplay to be divided between the two songs instead of being counted collectively. Even so, they reached number two with the singles.
* The Beatles have had more number one albums than any other group (19 in the U.S. and 15 in the United Kingdom).
* The Beatles spent the highest number of weeks at number one in the albums chart (174 in the UK and 132 in the U.S.).
* The most successful first week of sales for a double album (The Beatles Anthology Volume 1, which sold 855,473 copies in the U.S. from 21 November to 28 November 1995).
* In terms of charting positions, Lennon and McCartney are the most successful songwriters in history, with 32 number one singles in the U.S. for McCartney, and 26 for Lennon (23 of which were written together). Lennon was responsible for 29 Number One singles in the UK, and McCartney was responsible for 28 (25 of which were written together).
* During the week of 4 April 1964, The Beatles held the top five positions on the Billboard singles chart. No one had ever done anything like this before, and it is doubtful that the conditions will ever exist for anyone to do it again. The songs were "Can't Buy Me Love", "Twist and Shout", "She Loves You", "I Want to Hold Your Hand", and "Please Please Me".
The next week, 11 April 1964, the Beatles held fourteen positions on the Billboard Hot 100. Before the Beatles, the highest number of concurrent singles by one artist on the Hot 100 was nine (by Elvis Presley, 19 December 1956).
* The Beatles are the only artist to have 'back-to-back-to-back' number one singles on Billboard's Hot 100. Boyz II Men and Elvis Presley have succeeded themselves on the chart, but the Beatles are the only artist to 'three-peat'.
* The Beatles' "Yesterday" is the most covered song in history, appearing in the Guinness Book of Records with over three thousand recorded versions.
* The Beatles even had their own stamp commissioned, featuring a tribute to Yellow Submarine.The Beatles had the fastest selling single of all time with "I Want To Hold Your Hand". The song sold 250,000 units within three days in the U.S., one million in 2 weeks. (Additionally, it sold 10,000 copies per hour in New York City alone for the first 20 days.)
* The Beatles have the fastest selling CD of all time with 1. It sold over 13 million copies in four weeks.
* The largest number of advance orders for a single, at 2.1 million copies in the U.S. for "Can't Buy Me Love" (it sold 940,225 copies on its first day of release in the U.S. alone).
* Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band is the best selling album of all time in the UK (over 4.5 million copies sold).
* With their performance at Shea Stadium in 1965, The Beatles set new world records for concert attendance (55,600+) and revenue.
* The Beatles broke television ratings records in the U.S. with their first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show.
* On 12 June 1965, the Beatles were made Members of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) by the Queen.
* On 30 June 1966, the Beatles became the first musical group to perform at the Nippon Budokan Hall in Tokyo. They performed five times in three days gathering audiences of about 10,000 per performance.
* The Beatles appear five times in the top 100 best-selling singles in the UK. No other group appears more than twice."
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