April 4, 1964

Exactly 44 years ago this week, the Beatles' mind bending domination of the record charts remains unsurpassed.

 The Beatles in 1964


Cementing Beatlemania more firmly than even in the hearts and minds of the US and UK public, the Beatles performed the seemingly impossible on that magical week: the band occupied the top 5 positions in the US Billboard singles charts, the top two LPs in the Billboard album charts, the #1 single in the UK, the #1 and #3 LPs in the UK.

The Beatles actually managed to place 12 singles in the US Hot 100 that very week that included the top 5 positions. Wait, it got better; the following week of April 11, 1964 the Beatles placed 14 singles in the US Hot 100! Simply astonishing. By the close of 1964 the Beatles had held the US #1 position for an incredible 19 weeks.

Let's not forget about Down Under. Australia too loved the Fab's music. "I Want To Hold Your Hand" raced to the top of the Oz charts on January 5th and remained there for 5 weeks to be replaced firstly by "I Saw Her Standing There" (7 wks at #1)  and then the EP "All My Loving" for a further 5 weeks. This seventeen week domination of the Oz #1 spot has never been beaten since. By the close of the year the Beatles had spent 30 weeks at the top of the Australian charts.
[NB: Including their time spent at the top of the UK chart, 1964 saw the Beatles occupy the #1 position for 38% of the year over the three charts. No other act has come even close to such a chart domination, before or since. Abba's 27% in 1976 being the closest.]

Here now a list of the Billboard singles and albums on the magical week of April 4, 1964:

SINGLES:                                                                                                                                            ALBUMS:
#1   Can't Buy Me Love                                                                                                                     #1 Meet The Beatles
#2   Twist and Shout                                                                                                                         #2 Introducing The Beatles
#3   She Loves You
#4   I Want To Hold Your Hand
#5   Please Please Me
#31  I Saw Her Standing There
#41  From Me to You
#46  Do You Want To Know A Secret
#58  All My Loving
#65  You Can't Do That
#68  Roll Over Beethoven
#79  Thank You Girl

Not bad considering Dave Dexter and Alan Livingston of Capitol Records both felt the Beatles had no market in America and wouldn't sell a thing.     

OPINION:
Notable in the chart history of the Beatles is that in the week preceeding April 4, 1964 (March 28 chart list), the Beatles had 11 songs in the US Hot 100 including the top 4 tunes: #1 She Loves You, #2 I Want To Hold Your Hand, #3 Twist and Shout and #4 Please Please Me.  She Loves You, I Want To Hold Your Hand dropped two places the following week and Please Please Me dropped one place (see above).  #3 Twist and Shout actually went up a notch to #2 for the week of April 4. Can't Buy Me Love was rush released the week of March 28 and by April 4 it was #1. The point here is, if not for the instantaneous popularity of "Can't Buy Me Love," the Beatles would have had another #1 hit on their hands that month: Twist and Shout. If they had just released Can't Buy Me Love one week later! Every band should have these "problems": so many #1 hits that other songs of theirs couldn't get to #1.

ASIDE:
The chart week of June 27, 1964 saw two more two Lennon/McCartney songs in the top 10 in the US:
#1 World Without Love by Peter and Gordon
#9 Bad To Me by Billy J. Kramer with the Dakotas

These two tunes, as previously stated in my "Another '1' LP" essay were complete giveaways to other artists. Truly, the Beatles more or less owned the charts for 1964.

By John Haberstroh (Bassist for Beatle Tracks)   Find us at www.beatletracksband.com