"In stunning confirmation of Satan’s plan to unleash mediocre hacks onto earth to diminish our cultural standards, Drake surpassed The Beatles in number of Top 100 hits. Few over the age of fourteen would argue with a straight face that Drake’s talent comes remotely close to any single Beatle outside of Ringo, or that any of his songs are particularly good. This leads to one conclusion: stupid people like bad shit. The Bad Shit Theory can be proven further when you note that the cast of Glee’s flitty watered down bullshit song covers have attained nearly three times as many top hits as The Beatles."
Monday, October 06, 2014
Drake Better Than The Beatles ?
Drake Better Than The Beatles?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
People who make ludicrous record-breaking claims like this are annoying for many reasons, but mostly because comparing '60s-'70s-era acts like the Beatles to today's "music" stars is like comparing apples to little round balls of excrement. Music sales are so much lower now (not to mention the quality of the talent) that the bar for making the charts has been lowered to world champion limbo levels. There are now weeks when an album can sell no more than 80,000 copies and be #1 on Billboard's Hot 100.
ReplyDeleteThe most successful song ever from "Glee," the cover of Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'" from the pilot, sold just over 1 million downloads on iTunes. "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" by the Beatles sold 12 million vinyl 45s. This was at a time when people had to leave their homes, go to a record store, and plunk down 99 cents cash for a 45. Adjusted for inflation, that's $7.48 in today's money. Now, you could sit in your easy chair and with one click, download a single from "Glee" (I wouldn't, but you could). It still costs 99 cents. Except in 1965 dollars, you'd be paying just 13 cents for it. Still overpriced.
Even a mediocre Beatles single like "Eight Days A Week" (a song John Lennon called "lousy" and thought never should have been released as a single) spent two weeks at #1 in 1965, went gold in sales, and was one of a still-record 7 #1s in one year, all of which were not only recorded by the Beatles, but written by them, too.
So instead of looking at chart success, where the standards are now much lower, compare how many copies were sold at what price. You'll find that far fewer people will pay even one-eighth as much for today's music as they did for the Beatles. To knock it down even lower, factor in the number of record buyers relative to the overall populations in each era (1965: 194 million; today: 317 million).
Or if you really want to prove there's no comparison between the Beatles and Drake or the cast of "Glee," try listening to them. Go ahead, I dare you.