I am a music guy. I guess that's one of the reasons I spent fifteen years as an on air talent in the radio biz. I was born in 1956, so grew up loving the music of the 60s,70s,80s and the Country Music of those years. I distinctly remember this date in 1964, not for the date, but for a song. This song:
It was forty years ago today (are we really that old?) , January 25, 1964 that four lads from Liverpool, England had thier first Number 1 Hit in Billboard Magazine. I think it's safe to say that the world was never the same. John, Paul, Goerge and Ringo set the music world on fire like nobody except Elvis had ever done. I Wanna Hold Your Hand started Beatlemania. These guys blew into the United States like a hurricane and the British Invasion was on. I can't recall the exact number off the top of my head, but one week on Billboard's Hot 100 chart, the Beatles had something like twelve songs! If I didn't know this as fact, I would've had said that someone was smokin' something good.
Young folks today who just think that their favorite music act is the best ever, have never sen footage of what it was like when the Beatles came to the USA. I mean these guys could fart in their hotel room and the world knew about real quick. Everything the Beatles did was an event. It was wild. You want to see how wild? I found a clip of the Beatles doing a concert at Shea Stadium in New York in 1965. This is Beatlemania. Un-frakkin'-believeable. I have a question for the younger readers of this blog. Can you name me one band that will still be relevant fifty years from now? I didn't think so. It's been forty-seven years since the Beatles came to the states and every time a Beatles compilation CD or something similar is released, it shoots up the charts like a rocket.
Wikipedia has a list of some of the honors and awards bestowed upon the Beatles: "In 1965, Queen Elizabeth II appointed the four Beatles Members of the Order of the British Empire (MBE).[97] The Beatles film Let It Be (1970) won the 1971 Academy Award for Best Original Song Score.[190] The Beatles have received 7 Grammy Awards[6] and 15 Ivor Novello Awards.[7] They have been awarded 6 Diamond albums, as well as 24 Multi-Platinum albums, 39 Platinum albums and 45 Gold albums in the United States,[198][270] while in the UK they have 4 Multi-Platinum albums, 4 Platinum albums, 8 Gold albums and 1 Silver album.[199] The group were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1988. In 2008, Billboard magazine released a list of the all-time top-selling Hot 100 artists to celebrate the US singles chart's fiftieth anniversary—the Beatles ranked number one.[5] In 2009, the Recording Industry Association of America certified that The Beatles have sold more albums in the US than any other artist.[4] The Beatles have had more number one albums, 15, on the UK charts and held down the top spot longer, 174 weeks, than any other musical act.[3] The Beatles were collectively included in Time magazine's compilation of the 20th century's 100 most influential people.[8] Keep in mind that that is a short list of such recognition.
This post is already getting long, so I'll pass this link along to you and let you see for yourself what a extraordinary phenomenon these four guys were. Maybe some time soon, I can do a week of posts about the Beatles and the influence they had and still have on music today. John, Paul, George and Ringo came to the USA and set in motion a musical Revolution.
The Beatles. The best then. The best still.
Because Toby said so.
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