Off The Beatle Track

We’re all familiar with Brian Epstein’s boast, reported in Michael Braun’s excellent Love Me Do! The Beatles’ Progress (Graymalkin Media, 1964), that when he first heard The Beatles, “‘I knew they would be bigger than Elvis.’”

Mark Lewisohn, in the Extended Special Edition of Tune In (Little, Brown, 2013), writes, “It’s an interesting thought that while Brian Epstein’s prophecy came true [emphasis added], it did so largely on the basis of renditions of Lennon-McCartney songs–yet when he first saw them, in November 1961, he didn’t know they wrote. His prediction can only have been based on the Beatles’ personalities and sound.”

I find Lewisohn’s comment interesting for two reasons: (1) Like Lewisohn, I wonder on what basis Brian judged that John, Paul, George, and Pete would surpass Elvis’s success, and (2) Lewisohn casually assumes (at least in this passage) that we all agree that The Beatles were, in fact, “bigger than Elvis.”

Were they? I consider myself a fan of both Elvis and, obviously, The Beatles, so I’ll try to be as objective as I can in answering the question. I’ll approach it both quantitatively (who sold more records?) and qualitatively (who has the better catalog and has had more influence?).

500 million? 600 million?

I hate to do this, but I don’t work in the recording industry (or know anyone who does), so I’m going to have to rely on . . . this kills me . . . Wikipedia to analyze record sales.

Wikipedia includes a citation from the February 6, 2016, edition of the Irish Independent¹ that says, “In all [The Beatles] are estimated to have sold more than 600 million records.” Possibly, but I’m not convinced, because in my scant research, I haven’t seen that number used elsewhere. The January 4, 2013, edition of The New Yorker² reported that The Beatles had sold more than 500 records. On April 12, 2022, Reuters³ reported that “Presley has sold more than 500 million records and holds the distinction for most songs charting on Billboard’s Top 40 with 114 hits.”

Let’s assume that The New Yorker and Reuters are correct and that The Beatles had sold more than 500 million records as of 2013 and that Elvis had done so as of 2022. It stands to reason that The Beatles’ sales since 2013 have likely outpaced Elvis’s sales since 2022, no?

Reuters also mentioned Billboard. I don’t want to get bogged down trying to answer the question of who had more chart success because there are so many charts, each with apparently a different methodology. But Billboard lists The Beatles #1 on its “Greatest of All Time Artists” list. Elvis is #13 on that list, below Paul, who’s #12.⁴

With a moderate degree of confidence, I’ll say that The Beatles have probably sold more records than Elvis.

Legacy

When we turn to the question of which act had the superior career, the answer becomes fuzzier.

Let’s stipulate that both Elvis and The Beatles had careers that rank in the top 1% of the top 1% of all recording artists. Their influence over succeeding generations of musicians is incalculable, because both influenced untold numbers of artists who then influenced other artists and so on, in a chain that will likely never be broken.

I will say this, though, and I understand how reasonable people might disagree with me: The Beatles’ music was better. It just was. The Beatles’ music was great for as long as they recorded together. And Elvis’s music was great, at times, but uninspired for long stretches.

“But,” you might counter, “Elvis influenced The Beatles! John said, ‘Before Elvis, there was nothing.’ That’s got to count for something.”

It certainly does. For young Liverpudlian men in the ’50s, seeing that someone roughly their age (Elvis was born five years before Ringo and John) could make a career in music likely planted a seed that they might do the same.

But Elvis was just one of many artists who inspired The Beatles. Others include Lonnie Donegan, Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, Little Richard, Carl Perkins, Gerry Goffin and Carole King, Smokey Robinson, Wilson Pickett, The Beach Boys, The Lovin’ Spoonful, Fats Domino, Bobby Rydell, and many, many others. And in turn, of course, The Beatles have influenced scores of musicians themselves.

At the risk of oversimplifying, Elvis’s primary innovation was introducing what had been considered “Black” (or “race”) music to predominantly white audiences. And until he joined the army in 1958, his music was mostly great. But remember that John also said, “Elvis really died the day he went into the army.”

A list of Beatles’ innovations could warrant its own post.⁵ A few include forming a self-contained unit who wrote and performed their own music; having all four members of the band sing; using feedback, artificial double tracking, tape loops, and backwards sounds; playing stadiums; employing Indian instruments and rhythms; filming music videos; popularizing albums as artistic statements (and maybe inventing the concept album); and refusing to linger too long in one musical style before moving on to something new.

Wrapping up

I’m ready to say it: Brian was right!⁶ Against substantial odds, and with the help of Brian, George Martin, and others, The Beatles made themselves bigger than Elvis. Disagree? Email me at beatletrack@gmail.com.

1. Gerard Siggins, “Yeah, yeah, yeah! Rare footage of The Beatles’ Dublin performance.” ↩︎
2. Bill Wyman, “Did ‘Thriller’ Really Sell a Hundred Million Copies?” ↩︎
3. “Universal Music can’t help falling for Elvis Presley, to manage song catalog.” ↩︎
4. If Billboard explained how it calculated those results, that explanation is very well hidden. ↩︎
5. Maybe from me, someday, but you can find plenty of lists online. ↩︎
6. It would be funny to find out that Brian routinely made such outlandish predictions about his artists. “Cilla Black will be bigger than Streisand! Billy J. Kramer will be bigger than Drake, who won’t even be born for more than 20 years!” ↩︎