The Beatles have sold more than 2.3 billion albums through the years, a remarkable sales record by any measure. But the group's most historic chart-making moment was the first week of April, 1964 when the band held the top five positions on the Billboard charts.
Penn State Laureate Kenneth Womack is an English professor at Penn State as well as an expert on the Beatles.
He explained how this record came about, “This great moment with these top five songs, in addition to drawing from these different periods in The Beatles' career, also are the culmination of what happened back in February when the Beatles came to America, had the wonderful series of appearances on the Ed Sullivan Show. This first week of April is when it all came together and just exploded in this kind of frankly, commercial moment for the Beatles."
The historic high-five refers to the top five positions on the Billboard charts all held by the Beatles in 1964:
5. “Please Please Me”
4. “I Want to Hold Your Hand”
3. “She Loves You”
2. “Twist and Shout”
1. “Can’t Buy Me Love”
To learn more about the Beatles, and the anniversary of their chart-topping hits, visit Womack’s website, http://kennethwomack.com/.
