Author: Phil Bausch

After the official breakup of The Beatles in 1970, Paul McCartney pulled himself together and released two solo albums….McCartney & Ram.

Both albums were successful commercially, #1 and #2 respectively, and both platinum.  Crtics were a little harsh, although many opinions were revised years later.  McCartney was truly a solo album, with Paul playing all the instruments.  The main song was “Maybe I’m Amazed”.   Ram was much more heavily produced, with a lot of musicians, and a #1 single, “Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey”.  McCartney’s wife, Linda, provided background vocals, and also received co-songwriting credit.

McCartney had a problem…he wanted to perform live, but he didn’t have a band.  He also didn’t want to perform Beatles songs, because expectations would be too high.  Instead, McCartney decided to start a band, and he eventually settled on the name Wings.  It’ll be apparent soon as to whether Wings was really a band, but first here’s how it all unfolded.

Besides his wife Linda on keyboards, Paul McCartney added former Moody Blues guitarist Denny Laine, and session drummer Denny Seiwell..  Wings rushed out the album Wild Life (above left) in late 1971, and the band started playing small venues, often unannounced.  Guitarist Henry McCullough was added, and the group toured.

In 1973, the album Red Rose Speedway was released, and although it hit #1 and contained a #1 song, “My Love”, the album was also considered a critical failure.  The band then had a worldwide hit in 1973 with the James Bond movie theme “Live And Let Die” (with the help of producer/arranger George Martin).  Things started looking up as Wings was about to record their third album, but guitarist Henry McCullough and drummer Denny Seiwell quit.

And that brings us the answer to the “real band or not” question.  No, Wings was not a real band.  Not in the normal sense of a group of players coming together and being relative equals.  McCullough and Seiwell quit mostly because they felt they were low-paid sidemen.  That’s what Wings really was…Paul McCartney with musicians he hired.  The next album would prove that (in the recording studio) Wings hardly even needed musicians except McCartney.

Band On The Run was a huge success, and is the bestselling Beatles solo album.  Like on his first album, Paul McCartney played most of the instruments.  He did have some help from his wife and Denny Laine, plus overdubbed horns.  Here’s the list of all the albums released under the name Wings (or Paul McCartney & Wings) from 1971 to 1979.  McCartney returned to solo albums in 1980.

Besides the main three members, Paul, Linda, & Denny, here’s the breakdown of the other three lead guitarists & four drummers.

Now, the history of Wings is being celebrated with a new collection of songs, and a new book.  The CD’s & Vinyl Records will be out November 7th, 2025.

The book’s release date is November 4th.  It’s over 500 pages.

(The new book, and the solid touring band of Wings Over America.  Drummer Joe English, guitarist Jimmy McCulloch, guitarist Denny Laine, Paul & Linda.)

The one place Wngs became a real band was in concert.  Following Band On The Run and the next album, Venus And Mars, the Wings Over America Tour provided a great concert experience for McCartney fans, and some Beatles songs were included.

But wait, there’s more.  A new Paul McCartney documentary called Man On The Run will be released on Amazon Prime Video February 25th, 2026.  The film mostly covers from the end of The Beatles through the 1970’s Wings era.  The early reviews say it’ll be a “must see” for McCartney fans.

Extra:  The 2001 Wingspan: Hits & History collection is actually better than the new one.  As you can see from my CD booklet, nearly half of the 40 songs are solo McCartney tracks that are missing from the new set.

Before the official announcement, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr teased the release of a new set of anthologies.

There was a countdown of 1-4 which included portions of photos from the original Anthologies collection.  Of course the big news is that there is a 4th collection to go with the original three.  The first three anthologies are remastered (but not remixed), and the fourth one adds more songs and outtakes from throughout The Beatles time together.  Owners of the original set are wondering if Anthology 4 will be sold separately, but it doesn’t look that way so far.  (The track list for #4 is farther below in the article.)

The release date is November 21st.

Here’s how the sets look in The Beatles online store…the regular CD & Vinyl sets, and two slightly higher-priced sets with Photo Art Cards.

(The cards are underwhelming…$10 more with CDs, $25 with vinyl.)

As expected, the new Anthology 4 spans The Beatles career with tracks not on the previous three sets.  17 of the 36 tracks are taken from the box sets for Revolver, Sgt. Pepper, The White Album, Abbey Road, & Let It Be.

Apple’s description:

Here’s the audio for the 2025 Mix of “Free As A Bird”:

This is so much better!  John sounds like he could be in the studio, the instruments are clearer, and George’s voice sounds so good on the second break…”Whatever happened to the love that we once knew?”  If it had originally sounded this good, “Free As A Bird” might have made #1 in the U.S. the way it did in the U.K.

The video anthology, now with a new 9th episode, will be streaming  on Disney+ starting November 26th, 2025.  Looks like they’re releasing it three episodes at a time.  The video has been restored, and the music remixed.

They’re even rereleasing the Anthology book.  The only thing new is the cover, and that’s paperback.  It lists for $50, and is available October 14th.

Now we still await the release of a Rubber Soul box set.  Remixer Giles Martin originally mentioned that there were enough outtakes for the box set back in 2022.  The 60th anniversary of the album’s release is December 3rd, 2025.  But, it would take a Christmas miracle for them to release it that close to the Anthologies.

Update:  A playlist of Anthology Highlights has been released on streaming.

Here are the tracks (click to enlarge & make clear).

Other than the great new mix of “Free As A Bird”, the tracks have been released previously on the original Anthology (although remastered now), and from the extra tracks that were in the 50th Anniversary box sets.  Once the new mix of “Real Love” is released, it will probably take the place of the 1996 mix at the end of the playlist.

Extra:  Click to enlarge tracks that are on Anthologies 1, 2 & 3

Mike Campbell is one of the original members of Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers.  You’ll hear Mike playing lead guitar on all of Tom Petty’s Heartbreaker albums, solo albums, and Mudcrutch albums.

Mike Campbell’s book Heartbreaker compellingly takes us from when he first started playing guitar to how he met Tom Petty, and then gives us the details on the complete journey of Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers.

People might expect that a teenage Rock & Roll guitarist was a rebel who was so obsessed with guitar playing that he had little time for schoolwork.  So, who would have thought the reason Mike Campbell met Tom Petty was because he was a straight-A student in high school?  Those grades helped Mike get a scholarship to the University of Florida.  That move from Jacksonville to Gainesville was how he met Tom Petty and the other musicians who eventually became The Heartbreakers.  There were a lot of bands playing around Gainesville in the 70s, and Tom added Mike Campbell to his band that somehow came up with the name Mudcrutch.

The original lineup of Mudcrutch…guitarist Mike Campbell, bassist Tom Petty, guitarist Tom Leadon, and drummer Randall Marsh.  When Tom Leadon left for L.A. to join his brother Bernie (who helped form the Eagles), keyboardist Benmont Tench and bassist Ron Blair joined.  Tom Petty then switched to rhythm guitar.

The book Heartbreaker is well written, and does a great job of detailing the struggles it took for those musicians to eventually make it in the business of Rock & Roll.  There were a lot of days of doubt and living in poverty before there was success.

Eventually of course, Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers broke through in 1976 and had a career that lasted over 40-years.

Mike Campbell fills us in on so much of what it took to create all those albums.  Plus, we learn about some of the interactions they had with many of the other musicians, producers, and friends in the music industry.  That music industry tended to take advantage of young musicians, and the group had to fight for their rightful place in the business.

One of the stories about the effects of having a poor contract was that even after several successful albums, Mike Campbell and his wife, Marcie, almost lost their home.  What saved them was a song Mike had written.  He gave his instrumental demo to Don Henley.  Don added his own lyrics, and recorded what is probably his best solo hit, “The Boys Of Summer”.  The massive hit provided Mike with an enormous royalty check.

Probably not all Tom Petty fans realized that Mike Campbell was a major songwriting contributor to the success of the band.  Songs he cowrote with Tom Petty include “Rufugee”, “You Got Lucky”, “Love Is A Long Road”, “Runnin’ Down A Dream”, “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around”, and “You Wreck Me”.  Mike recorded demos of the music he wrote.  He played guitars, bass, and a drum machine onto a 4-track recorder at his home.  He’d give the recordings to Tom, who would further develop the melodies and write the lyrics.

In an unusual full circle moment, Mudcrutch was put back together.  The three Heartbreakers that were on every Tom Petty album, Mike, Benmont, and Tom, added back in Tom Leadon and Randall Marsh.  Imagine what it meant for those two to finally be in a successful band with their old friends.  The first Mudcrutch album came out in 2008, and the second in 2016.  It was the last album Tom Petty recorded.

Above are the two major collections of Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers’ best known songs.  Greatest Hits is excellent and takes us through 1992, but the  double album The Best Of Everything covers the entire career of Tom Petty, and has all of his hits.  Some of his best songwriting and recordings came after the first Greatest Hits album, with his Wildflowers album being particularly strong.

We all know the ending of The Heartbreakers came with Tom’s death at the age of 66 in 2017.  He had just completed a 40th Anniversary Tour, which he had done with a broken hip, and he died from an accidental overdose of pain killers.

Tom Petty and Mike Campbell were close.  Even when the band broke up for a while, and it looked like they wouldn’t make it in L.A., Tom kept Mike Campbell with him.  After we’ve gotten to know so much about everyone involved, the book brings us through the emotional moments surrounding Tom’s death.

Heatbreaker is obviously for Tom Petty and Mike Campbell fans, and for anyone who wants to know the behind the scenes story of a great American band.

Bonus:  Thought you guitar fans might like to see some of Mike Campbell’s instruments.  Although these photos aren’t in the book, it does include some interesting details about his guitars and how he developed his skills.

Extra note:  The book has been out for a while now, so there are some low prices available on hardback copies.  I read the digital version.

Here are the details of Taylor Swift’s new album The Life Of A Showgirl.

That’s the cover, and here are the 12 songs.

Taylor Swift says the release will only be these 12 songs, and no extra tracks will be released (as she did on her last two albums).  The big change for this album is that Swift produced it with Max Martin and Shellback.  They assisted Swift with production and co-writing on some of her biggest hits, including those from her album 1989.  Taylor says the songs capture the “infectiously joyful, wild, and dramatic energy” of her life during the Eras Tour.  She described some of the songs as “bangers” with infectious melodies.  Showgirl will be released on October 3rd, 2025.

There are actually four variations of the cover, and they will be on a very limited run of CD’s sold on her official site.

The pricing of the orange vinyl album is $29.99.  The regular CD is $12.99, and the limited Deluxe CD’s are $17.99.  (The Deluxe CD’s sold out almost instantly, but were later made available at Target for $14.99 each.)

The songs are all new except for “Father Figure”, which was a 1987 release written and performed by the late George Michael.  The difference here is that the song will have new lyrics.  Guesses are already being made as to what the songs are about.  By the way, “Ruin The Friendship” might not be about Blake Lively’s legal troubles, because the song may have been recorded prior to the problems.  Just one guest star was announced…Sabrina Carpenter (who opened for Swift on the Eras Tour and who since has become very popular) is featured on the final song & title track, “The Life Of A Showgirl”.

Above are some of the extra photos provided with the release information.  Taylor Swift amazingly recorded the album while she was in the middle of the European portion of the Eras Tour in 2024.  Between shows, she would use her days off to fly to Sweden to work with Martin and Shellback.  She said that although she was physically exhausted, she was “mentally stimulated and so excited to be creating.”

Extra:  Special versions with alternate covers and colored vinyl keep appearing and quickly selling out on the official Taylor Swift website.  Here’s an example.

It’ll be interesting to see how many vinyl copies of the album will be sold the first week (these are pre-orders).  If she can sell over a million copies, it would be a new record (from when vinyl albums began their resurgence).

Extra:  Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce are engaged.  It was announced August 26th, 2025.  Apparently the engagement actually took place a couple weeks earlier, and family members were informed.

It was a Pop/Rock moment.  Travis decided to Pop the question, and Taylor got the Rock!

Fleetwood Mac had three main eras, the late 60s Blues Era, the early 70s Pop Era, and their most famous one, the Buckingham Nicks Era.

Americans Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks (who had recorded one album using the name Buckingham Nicks) joined the British band in Los Angeles at the very beginning of 1975.  At the time, Fleetwood Mac was not well known in the United States, but that soon changed.  We’ll take a look at the music Fleetwood Mac made when five artists combined their talents…drummer Mick Fleetwood, bassist John McVie, keyboardist and singer-songwriter Christine McVie, guitarist and singer-songwriter Lindsey Buckingham, and singer-songwriter Stevie Nicks.

The above six albums (recorded between 1975 & 1990) make up the bulk of the studio work by the Buckingham-Nicks Era of Fleetwood Mac.  There were two albums after that, but they were not up to par, and one didn’t even chart.  Their Greatest Hits album includes songs from five of these albums.  Here are the songs selected.

It’s a good collection, but feels incomplete, because it’s missing some key songs, including “Landslide”, “Monday Morning”, “Never Going Back Again”, “The Chain”, “Songbird”, “Gold Dust Woman”, “Silver Springs”, “Think About Me”, and more.

Let’s look at their studio albums more closely.  The first two albums of the Buckingham-Nicks Era are “must have” for Fleetwood Mac Fans.

These two great albums from 1975 & 1977 are the two highest-selling albums by Fleetwood Mac.  Their self titled album introduced us to the new lineup, and includes the classic tracks “Monday Morning”, “Rhiannon”, “Over My Head”, “Say You Love Me” and “Landslide”.  It took their hit singles and a lot of touring, but eventually Fleetwood Mac hit #1 on the Billboard Top 200 album chart.

Rumours is one of the most popular albums of all time.  It spent an incredible 31 weeks in the #1 position, and almost unbelievably is still found high on many yearly sales and streaming charts.  Fleetwood Mac fans likely know all of the songs, and most of the tracks received radio airplay, so it’s kind of like a greatest hits collection.

This is the listing from the first CD of my Deluxe Edition, and you can see it includes “Silver Springs”, which had been left off the original 1977 album because of time limitations of the vinyl format.

The next four albums could not possibly live up to the brilliance of Rumours, but they still have some great songs, which are shown on a couple of playlists below.

Thought you might like to see a recommendation for two CD-length “Fleetwood Mac Best” playlists.  These songs are in chronological order, which is usually the best format for collections.  The only variance is that the three songs from Mirage were moved before the Tusk songs in order to keep those eight tracks together.  On the lists you can see which albums the songs came from.

As expected, Rumours has the most representation.  Tusk provides as many songs as Fleetwood Mac, but of course Tusk is a double album.  The surprise here is that Behind The Mask has six very good songs included, even though it’s somewhat of an overlooked album (since Lindsey Buckingham wasn’t on it).

The songwriting breakdown is interesting.  Christine McVie has the most with 16, Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham each have 11,  and there are two outside writers.  If you look at almost any sales or streaming statistics, the songs by Stevie Nicks are the most popular.  Of course Nicks emerged as the group’s biggest star, had many solo hits, and was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame as both a member of the band and as a solo artist.

Here’s Nicks shown during the height of her career…in 1976 as part of the band, and then in 1981 on tour for her #1 smash album Bella Donna.  It included the hits “Edge Of Seventeen”, “Stop Dragging My Heart Around” and “Leather And Lace”.  Bella Donna outsold all but the first two Fleetwood Mac studio albums from this era.

The popularity of Fleetwood Mac has been a phenomenon.  Their main studio recordings seem timeless, and they were an extremely successful touring act for decades.

Extra:  If you want to make a single purchase to get most of Fleetwood Mac’s best recordings, this two-disc Very Best Of Fleetwood Mac is good, and can be found reasonably priced.  I spotted it new for $14.50 on Amazon.

But…if you can make playlists on your streaming service, try putting together the two Fleetwood Mac Best playlists, and see how they sound.

Let It Be has some of The Beatles’ best and most popular songs (three #1 singles), and yet it’s not often on the shortlist of the group’s best albums.  Why?  And why is it that The Beatles released another complete remix of the album years later?

The problem is two-fold.  There was a concept that The Beatles would write and record new songs with no overdubs or “studio tricks” for an album to be named Get Back.  The second part of the problem was that they were filming everything for a documentary.

It was all unnatural for a group that had become masters of the studio.  It would have likely been more fascinating to observe their regular studio work of creating an album, instead of watching them continually rehearsing to try to perfect a single take of each song while preparing for a possible concert.  The Beatles also grew tired of the constant invasion of the cameras which hampered them interacting normally.

The whole concept also affected how the proposed Get Back album was put together.  Three weeks after filming was finished (the end of January 1969), The Beatles started recording Abbey Road.  So, a lot of the work on Get Back was left to engineer Glyn Johns, who also served as producer for much of the album.  Johns submitted a mix for possible release in 1969 before Abbey Road.

This version was rejected by The Beatles.  To look at the song list, you’d expect it to be good, but Johns had chosen some of the band’s earliest attempts at many of the songs, and the album came off as incomplete and not up to The Beatles’ standards.  Glyn Johns made a second attempt at mixing the album in 1970, but other than adding “I Me Mine” (which Paul, George & Ringo had recorded in January of 1970 for the Let It Be film), the result was similar, and another rejection.

The final attempt at putting together a good album in 1970 was to turn over the tapes to producer Phil Spector.  He assembled the album as we know it, but the concept that this was somehow a “live” album still affected the decisions that were made.

You can see they said this was a “new phase Beatles album”, and that it had the “freshness of a live performance.”  That sort of thinking caused Spector to throw in little bits of studio chatter to kind of give a feeling that the studio songs were somehow live.  He also intermixed actual live recordings with the studio recordings on the album’s track list.  In addition, Spector went against the album’s original concept by overdubbing orchestration onto some of the songs.  There’s certainly a built-in inconsistency as we listen to Let It Be.

In 2003, Paul McCartney put together the album Let It Be…Naked with the approval of George Harrison and Ringo Starr.  The songs from the January 1969 Get Back sessions were remixed using the original concept of only having The Beatles and keyboardist Billy Preston on the recordings.  The album matched the stated goal, but it wasn’t going to replace versions of the songs that were mostly loved.

 I’ve always been really fond of Let It Be, but that’s partly because (like with every album) I made my own playlists.  That was on reel-to-reel tapes, then cassettes, then CDs, and now digital playlists.  Not only did that save repeated wear to the albums, but all the best songs could be placed together, and the lesser songs omitted.  In my review of the 2021 box set, I suggested that the album would have been improved if they had simply given up the idea that “the whole album is live”, and placed the rooftop concert songs together on Side 2.

This version can be made with the songs that were on the original album, plus the “Don’t Let Me Down” rooftop recording from the box set, or the better-edited version from Let It Be…Naked.  The flow of the album is greatly improved.  Here’s Side 1, broken into two 3-song sets (because of time constraints):

Here’s the Side 2 Rooftop Concert:

If you watched the Get Back documentary, you know The Beatles almost didn’t go up to the roof for that concert.  If they hadn’t, there were still enough recordings to put together a studio-only album.

Instead of the rooftop concert, on Side 2, we have the singles of “Get Back” and “Don’t Let Me Down”.  The studio version of “One After 909” is from the Anthology 3 collection.  Then it gets a little creative, using recordings that were made during rehearsals in January of 1969.  This version of “Oh Darling” is extremely different from how McCartney sang it on Abbey Road.  It has McCartney and John Lennon duetting on the song with a light charming touch.  There’s a friendly feel, like their excellent rapport on “Two Of Us”.  The rehearsal of “Oh Darling” has been available on bootlegs for many years.  Here’s the latest mix (Billy Preston’s on keyboard), edited from the box set.

The next song is an often bootlegged blues jam from their January rehearsals, ” The Walk”.

And the album ends with the short quirky “Maggie Mae”.  It kind of gives the album a “Her Majesty” ending like Abbey Road.

Let It Be may not be the very best Beatles album, but there’s a lot to love.

The Beatles top singles?  Highest ranked albums?  Top streamed songs?  Top songs played by musicians?  Biggest selling albums?

First we’ll look at the rankings the Muse Group put together showing which songs musicians are looking up through their sites.  To no one’s surprise, songs by The Beatles are looked up the most.  But which ones?  Here’s a chart showing the songs being checked out by guitarists and by pianists (players of other instruments are not included).  The data is for 12-months ending June 25th, 2025.  (Chart enlarges with a click.)

You can see “Let It Be” is the top song with both guitarists and keyboardists.  In fact, eight of the songs are on both lists.  The change from the guitar tabs list to the piano score list is that “Come Together” and “And I Love Her” drop off, and “Eleanor Rigby” and “Penny Lane” are added.  Songs written primarily by Paul McCartney are the top four on the guitar list, and four of the top five on the piano list.  George Harrison has his three best songs on both lists.

The above data was the inspiration for gathering other interesting rankings of The Beatles’ music, and putting them in easy forms that can be saved with screenshots (click to enlarge).  Here’s the streaming ranking.

The above list shows the overall popularity of Beatles songs on Spotify streaming through last year.  The top five songs being streamed in 2025 are the same, but in a slightly different order… 1. “Here Comes The Sun”, 2. “Let It Be”, 3. “Come Together”, 4. “Hey Jude”, and 5. “Yesterday”.  It’s amazing that the most listened to song wasn’t even a single, just an album track.  Other non-singles are “Blackbird”, “In My Life”, “While My Guitar Gently Weeps”, “Ob-la-di Ob-la-da”, and “Norwegian Wood”.

This list shows how The Beatles’ singles performed on the Hot 100 chart.  “Hey Jude” spent 9-weeks at #1 in 1968.  We can see the 1964 surge of Beatlemania with the high rankings of “I Want To Hold Your Hand” and “She Loves You”.  In the top 10 are two songs from Let It Be, two songs from Abbey Road, and two songs from A Hard Day’s Night.

There are a couple of surprises.  “Twist And Shout” only made it to #2 (held out of #1 by “Can’t Buy Me Love”), and “Please Please Me” only made it to #3.  The stats for two songs that did not make the list, #1 “Penny Lane” and #1 “Eight Days A Week”, look better.  They had about the same number of weeks in the Top-40, and were ranked higher.  “Twist And Shout” did re-enter the Top-40 in 1986 when it was featured in the movie Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, so that probably gave it an extra boost, but “Please Please Me” seems out of place.  Here’s a look at The Beatles #1 singles in chronological order.

The Beatles had a total of 47 Top-40 hits in the U.S. from 1964 to 1970.  The final total for them was 52, after a random release of “Got To Get You Into My Life” in 1976 (#7), the “Twist And Shout” re-release in 1986 (#23), and the post-Beatles singles of “Free As A Bird” (#6), “Real Love” (#11), and “Now And Then” (#7).  The last three singles were released in 1995, 1996 and 2023.  The Beatles’ biggest chart-topping year was 1964 when they had a still-record six #1 hits.

Moving from songs to albums…which Beatles LP’s hit #1 on the Billboard 200 chart?

It’s surprising how the above list isn’t readily available in a simple accurate form.  One list even had British album versions on it that weren’t available in the U.S. at the time.  Another list showed the Yellow Submarine Soundtrack as #1, but it peaked at #2.  Still another list erroneously said the American album Introducing The Beatles was illegally released and was withdrawn from the market.  They said that was why Meet The Beatles was considered The Beatles first U.S. album.  The truth is that Introducing The Beatles, which is very similar to the Please Please Me album, was the first Beatles album released in the U.S.

The Vee Jay Records album contained recordings that Capitol Records had declined to release.   Capitol lost in court to stop Vee Jay from continuing to produce the album, and the companies eventually agreed that the song rights would revert to Capitol in October of 1964.  Introducing The Beatles was very successful, reached #2 on the Billboard album chart, and stayed there for nine weeks.  It was held out of #1 by Meet The Beatles, which was released 10 days later (January 20, 1964), but rose quicker on the charts and stayed at #1 for 11 weeks.

Capitol Records added to the confusion by naming their 2nd release The Beatles Second Album when it was really The Beatles third U.S. release.  Apparently Capitol wanted to pretend Introducing The Beatles didn’t exist.  When they later obtained the rights, Capitol released their version of the album in 1965 and named it The Early Beatles.

The Introducing The Beatles album had two songs fewer than the U.K. Please Please Me album.  In America Vee Jay Records didn’t have the rights to the songs “Love Me Do” and “P.S. I Love You”, so those songs were taken off the album.  For The Early Beatles, Capitol was able to add back those two songs, but didn’t include the Lennon-McCartney written “Misery”, “There’s A Place”, and “I Saw Her Standing There”.  It was understandable that the last one was left off since it was on Meet The Beatles, but for the fans, Capitol should have included the other two and added “From Me To You”.

And which Beatles albums sold the most?

These are The Beatles’ 12 regular studio albums ranked by their official sales (hits collections are not included).  Two American albums, “Meet The Beatles” & “Beatles ‘65”, are shown because they were the biggest part of the sales combined with the British versions, “With The Beatles” & “Beatles For Sale”.

When you look at how many great songs and albums The Beatles put out from 1962 to 1970, it’s amazing what they accomplished.  It’s over six decades after they started, and no one else has even come close to their quality and their level of success.

Before The Beach Boys released “Surfin’ Safari” (their first Top-40 hit in September of 1962), Surf Music was mostly guitar instrumentals like “Misirlou” and “Let’s Go Trippin’” by Dick Dale & The Del-Tones.  It was The Beach Boys who added the singalong factor to songs about surf, cars, & girls.  Their success brought other artists, songwriters, and producers to try to capture that magic too.  See if you can remember the songs and artists who added to the West Coast sound.  Most of them were one-hit wonders, so the names aren’t easy to recall.

Before we get to those, here are The  Beach Boys’ friends and sometimes co-songwriters who had some major hits.

Jan Berry (on the left in the middle photo) and Dean Torrence performed as Jan & Dean.  They had hits in the late 1950s, but it wasn’t until 1963 (a few months after “Surfin’Safari” and “Surfin’ U.S.A.” by The Beach Boys), that Jan & Dean hit #1 with “Surf City”.  The song really was a collaboration by the two groups.  Brian Wilson wrote the music, Jan Berry wrote the words, and then Brian sang harmony with them on the recording.  All of Jan & Dean’s big surf-style hits came in 1963 and 1964… “Drag City” #10, “Dead Man’s Curve” #8, “ The Little Old Lady From Pasadena” #3, and “Sidewalk Surfin’” #25.  That last one was a remake of The Beach Boys song “Catch A Wave”, but with new lyrics by Jan Berry.  Trivia note:  That’s Dean Torrence singing lead vocals with Brian Wilson on The Beach Boys #2 hit “Barbara Ann”, recorded in 1965.

Now we come to other songs and artists of the surf era that are more like answers to trivia questions.

Here are some mid-1960s hits that sound a lot like The Beach Boys.  First the titles so you can see if you know the songs and guess who did them.  Then the names of the artists will be listed a little lower in this article.

1. G.T.O. (Little GTO) #4, 1964
2. Hey Little Cobra #4, 1964
3. California Sun (In That Warm California Sun) #5, 1964
4. Little Honda #9, 1964
5. New York’s A Lonely Town (When You’re The Only Surfer Boy) #32, 1965
6. Sandy #27, 1966

Surf instrumentals remained popular in the early 60s.  Here are four of them.  See if he titles remind you of what they sounded like and who did them.  The artists’ names are farther below.

1. Pipeline #4, 1963
2. Wipe Out #2, 1963
3. Penetration #18, 1964
4. Walk Don’t Run ’64 #8, 1964

Hollywood tried their best to get in on the surf craze with movies staring Annette Funicello and Frankie Avalon.  Annette was popular from being on the Mickey Mouse Club, and Frankie was a Teen Idol from music and films.  The movies were successful, but the plots were thin and the humor was mostly silly.

Ready for the names of the artists?

1. G.T.O….Ronny & The Daytonas
2. Hey Little Cobra…The Rip Chords
3. California Sun…The Rivieras
4. Little Honda…The Hondells (covering a Beach Boys song)
5. New York’s A Lonely Town…The Trade Winds
6. Sandy…Ronny & The Daytonas (their only other hit)

Instrumentals

1. Pipeline…The Chantays
2. Wipe Out…The Surfaris
3. Penetration…The Pyramids (who shaved their heads as a gimmick)
4. Walk Don’t Run ’64…The Ventures (an update of their #2 hit in 1962)

(Send this to your older music friends, and see how they do on the quiz.)

The popularity of surf and car songs was mostly from 1962 to 1965.  By that time, there was Folk Rock and more serious music taking over.  Maybe that’s why it’s still fun to go back and listen to those early hits.

By the way, there’s some misperception that The Beach Boys started with surf songs, and then moved on to car songs; however, the car song “409” (the engine size of a Chevrolet Impala SS) was the flip side of their first hit, “Surfin’ Safari”, and was on their first album.  The group’s earliest albums all included songs about surfing, cars, girls, and the West Coast lifestyle.  They were out there havin’ fun, in that warm California sun.

It always happens when one of our music stars dies…all of a sudden people buy & stream their albums and songs.

On iTunes the day after Brian Wilson’s death, The Beach Boys had the top three selling digital albums…their Classic Pet Sounds, and two of their greatest hits collections.  At the top of the singles chart were “God Only Knows” and “Wouldn’t It Be Nice”, plus “Good Vibrations” at #6.  Even on the Music Videos chart there were three Beach Boys songs among the mostly new videos in the Top 10, “Surfin’ U.S.A.”, “I Get Around”, and “God Only Knows”.

Well-known artists from the last six decades have relayed how much they love the recordings and songwriting of Brian Wilson and The Beach Boys.  The Pet Sounds album and the song “God Only Knows” have definitely been mentioned the most.  Pet Sounds has actually been criminally under purchased in the past.  It took from 1966 to 2000 for it to sell one-million copies.  It’s great to see it sitting at #1 in digital sales.  It’s only $9.99, and that’s less than the price of a burger at most restaurants these days.  Even if you just stream it, please listen closely to the clever and original arrangements of both the vocals and the instrumentation.

There are quite a few Beach Boys greatest hits collections, and here’s a ranking of the best three.  Song lists are included that you can click to enlarge.

#3

Endless Summer is a very good 20 song collection of The Beach Boys songs about surfing, cars, and girls, but it only covers 1962 through 1965.  So…no Pet Sounds songs like “Wouldn’t It Be Nice” & “God Only Knows”.  On this digital version, they did include 1966’s “Good Vibrations” as a bonus track.  About half of the tracks are in mono.  The price is $11.99 on iTunes.

#2:

For a few dollars more, you can get Sounds Of Summer.  It says it’s The Very Best of The Beach Boys, and that’s pretty accurate.  Most Beach Boys fans would be satisfied with the 30 songs in this career-spanning collection.  It’s mostly killer, not filler, so it’s a good choice.  The price is just $14.99.  The reason it’s #2 here is because quite a few songs are in mono (unless the digital version was updated), and the #1 choice has 20 more songs for a very little increase in price.

#1:

50 Big Ones is the most complete as it contains all but one Beach Boys’ Top-40 hit, and is mostly in stereo.  The price is $19.99.  Fifty songs is a lot, but once you have them in your computer, you can divide them into two playlists, and put them in chronological order.  That way you hear the history and development of The Beach Boys.

“Caroline, No” is not on the hits collections.  It’s the only one of The Beach Boys’ 35 Top-40 hits missing from the 50 Big Ones album.  That’s probably because the single was released under Brian Wilson’s name, even though it’s on Pet Sounds.  You can’t go wrong with buying that album too!

Above are The Beach Boys in 1964, a little before they changed their hair to fit in better with The British Invasion.  1964 was the year they got their first #1 hit with “I Get Around”.  They did a good job of representing America in a friendly competition with the Brits, and they did it with their own original West Coast sound.  In fact, The Beach Boys were very popular in England.

Brian Wilson’s passing (at the age of 82) on June 11th, 2025 was a sad day, but his talents as a songwriter, singer, arranger, and producer will be enjoyed for decades to come.

For a more complete look at Brian Wilson and The Beach Boys, use this link:

https://ontherecords.net/2024/02/brian-wilsona-look-back-updated/

Billboard Magazine recently published an article showing the artists who spent the most weeks at #1 on their album chart.  First, we’ll show you the results, and then take a deeper dive.

As you can see, The Beatles have the most weeks at #1 by far, and Taylor Swift has the second most, with a significant lead over Elvis Presley in third place.  Of the nineteen artists on the list, most of them have either died or are unlikely to produce any new music.  Other than possible Greatest Hits or anthology releases, the artists most likely to add to their #1’s through new recordings are Taylor Swift, Adele, Drake, Eminem, and Morgan Wallen.

There are definitely surprises.

Who knew The Kingston Trio (Folk artists from the 1950s) would tun out to be the American group whose albums  spent the most weeks at number one?  Their biggest album, At Large, spent 15 weeks topping the chart.  The only other 1950s solo artist besides Elvis Presley is Harry Belafonte, and who expected that?  His album Calypso accounted for 31 weeks of his 37 at number one.  Other long-running albums were Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours at 31 weeks, and Michael Jackson’s Thriller with 37 weeks.

Besides The Beatles, the only 1960s artists on the list are The Rolling Stones and The Monkees.  The Stones had nine #1 albums from 1965 to 1981.  The Monkees’ time at the top fell within just 13 months, with four albums from November of 1966 to December of 1967.  The lone American Rock band to make the list is the Eagles.  It would be nice to include Fleetwood Mac, but although they were based in America in the 70s, they’re only two-fifths American.

The top two artists, The Beatles & Taylor Swift, not only have the most weeks at #1, they have the most albums that made it to that position.  The Beatles have 19 #1 albums that topped the Billboard 200.

Taylor Swift has 14 albums in a row that reached #1 on the Top 200 album chart…with the certainty that The Life Of A Showgirl will be her 15th.  Above you can see Swift has 9 #1’s in just the last six years.  Swift’s 2006 first album, Taylor Swift, “only” hit #5, but it was #1 for 24 weeks on the Country chart.

It was her latest album that spent the most weeks (17) at #1.  Tortured Poets was the most streamed album in the world last year.  According to Spotify, Swift had three of the Top 10 most streamed albums globally in 2024, and no one else had more than one.

These days, it’s easier for well-known artists to get a number one album, because of the rush of streaming and sales the week it comes out.  It used to take time for music listeners to become aware of albums (they had to buy physical copies instead of instantly being able to listen to them).  Normally, the albums would work their way up the charts as the artists toured to support them.  Also, if singles from the albums became hits, people were more likely to take a chance on purchasing the albums.  On the other hand, today’s albums can fade fast unless people find enough good songs to warrant repeat listenings.