2 days Ago By Parul Sharma
It’s not just The Beatles’ musical brilliance that underscores their success; it’s also their lasting and unparalleled cultural impact on the world of music. But when words fail, it’s the numbers that speak for themselves. The four-member band is deemed the most successful band ever, with a staggering 600 million albums sold worldwide.
With 20 chart-topping hits on the Billboard Hot 100, the Fab Four's groundbreaking music transformed the industry and rewrote the annals of music history. The Beatles, without a doubt , are one of the most influential and successful bands to exist, having ruled the 1960s and shaping music lore for all the generations that came after that. However most of the band’s success was in the era before digital streaming.
The Beatles were masters of vinyl records , cassette tapes, CDs, and radio airplay, long before new-age streaming platforms came along and became the primary ways to consume music. Despite this, and to no one’s surprise, The Beatles continue to flourish in the modern streaming age, with their songs accumulating hundreds of millions – and in some cases, billions – of streams. As per Spotify – one of the world’s leading music streaming platforms – there is one Beatles song that has a staggering 1.
5 billion streams, comfortably cementing its place as the legendary band’s most streamed song. The cincher? The song doesn’t even feature Beatles frontman John Lennon. With 1.
549 billion streams (yes, you’re reading that right) Here Comes The Sun takes the top spot as The Beatles’ most popular song. Penned and vocalised by George Harrison, the song was written in the garden of another music legend, Eric Clapton. Over the years, Here Comes the Sun has earned widespread praise from music critics.
Along with his other iconic track on Abbey Road, Something, it elevated George Harrison to a level of recognition as a songwriter that was once only reserved for his fellow bandmates, John Lennon and Paul McCartney. In May 2023, it made history as the first Beatles song to surpass one billion streams on Spotify. The song was never released as a single in the UK, much like Paul McCartney’s brainchild Yesterday.
The track appeared as the first song on The Beatles’ second side of their 1969 LP Abbey Road, and is one of the rare tracks by the band which doesn’t feature John Lennon at all. In the early months of 1969, George was going through a difficult period in his life, having temporarily quit The Beatles, getting his tonsils removed and also getting arrested for marijuana possession. In his autobiography I, Me, Mine, George revealed the atmosphere surrounding The Beatles at the time, as a reaction to which the song was penned: Here Comes the Sun was written at the time when Apple was getting like school, where we had to go and be businessmen: 'Sign this' and 'sign that.
' Anyway, it seems as if winter in England goes on forever, by the time spring comes you really deserve it. “So one day I decided I was going to sag off Apple and I went over to Eric Clapton's house. The relief of not having to go see all those dopey accountants was wonderful, and I walked around the garden with one of Eric's acoustic guitars and wrote Here Comes the Sun.
” Speaking about his friend and his songwriting process in Martin Scorsese's 2011 documentary George Harrison: Living in the Material World, Eric Clapton shared: "He was just a magical guy and he would show up, get out of the car with his guitar and come in and start playing ...
I just watched this thing come to life. I felt very proud that it was my garden that was inspiring it.".
