The Beatles held the record for highest number of Hot 100 Billboard hits from a non-solo artist for a long time. Until the cast of the hit television show “Glee” came along. Six more songs from the show just cracked the Hot 100 list this week, bringing the cast’s total to 75. The Beatles total is 71. Since “Glee” tends to add another six songs to the Hot 100 with every episode, one can’t imagine that it will be long before they surpass the top solo artists, Elvis Presley (108) and James Brown (91) .
But can you really compare the cast of a TV show, singing covers of previous standards and hits, to a band that wrote and performed 71 hit songs that defined a generation? In fact, at least a few of the hit “Glee” songs on the charts are, in fact, covers of Beatles tunes. The “Glee” hits also haven’t had anything like the longevity that the Beatles hit songs did. Of the 75 songs from “Glee” that have made the Hot 100 only 14 have stayed on the chart for more than a week. The “Glee” recordings have a cumulative total of 105 weeks in the Hot 100, which doesn’t yet even compare to the Beatles’ 617 total weeks.
“Glee” also hasn’t come even close to the Beatles top ten numbers – 34 of the Beatles 71 Hot 100 hits cracked the top ten, “Glee” boasts just one, their cover of Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin.” It seems that the Beatles place in musical history is safe, at least for now.
