A Look at The Beatles Top 100 Songs in the United States
It’s hardly a stretch to say The Beatles dominated the 1960s, especially from 1963 onward. Their energetic debut album, Please Please Me, bowled over young English music fans. The United States finally caught up nearly a year later with the Fab Four’s historic appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show. The fact that The Beatles had 71 songs land in the top 100 of the Billboard singles chart is as impressive as their 20 No. 1 hits.
The Beatles landed in the Billboard top 100 an astonishing 71 times
Step back a bit and wonder at The Beatles’ success.
The Fab Four existed as a recording band for eight years, but their impact and success stretched well beyond that timeline. Need proof? Three of those top 100 songs came in the 1990s, and two of those were demos (“Free as a Bird” and “Real Love) released when their trio of Anthology albums saw the light of day. “Baby It’s You” also charted in the mid-1990s.
The Beatles found the top 100 three times in the 1970s, too. “Got to Get You Into My Life” and “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da” found Billboard success in 1976, and “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” hit the charts in 1978, more than a decade after the album hit shelves. “The Beatles Movie Medley” smashed seven songs from their feature films into a four-minute song. It peaked at No. 12 on Billboard’s charts in 1982.
How many top 100 songs did The Beatles have? A lot. Take away those seven pieces, and that still leaves 64 top-100 tunes in seven years since the Fab Four didn’t chart in America until 1964 . That’s nine each year, or roughly one every five weeks.
The Fab Four’s top 100 songs from their active career
Nothing is certain, but The Beatles holding the record for the number of Billboard top 100 hits as an active group seems like a lock.
Here’s the list of the 64 songs Liverpool’s most famous band placed in the top 100 during their active career (per Billboard and sorted by date of peak position):
1964
- “I Want to Hold Your Hand”
- “Please Please Me”
- “My Bonnie” (The Beatles with Tony Sheridan)
- “She Loves You”
- “I Saw Her Standing There”
- “Twist and Shout”
- “Can’t Buy Me Love”
- “From Me to You”
- “Roll Over Beethoven”
- “You Can’t Do That”
- “There’s a Place”
- “Why” (The Beatles with Tony Sheridan)
- “All My Loving”
- “Do You Want to Know a Secret”
- “Thank You Girl”
- “Love Me Do”
- “P.S. I Love You”
- Four By The Beatles (EP)
- “Sie Liebt Dich (She Loves You)”
- “A Hard Day’s Night”
- “I’m Happy Just to Dance With You”
- “I Should Have Known Better”
- “Ain’t She Sweet”
- “I’ll Cry Instead”
- “And I Love Her”
- “If I Fell”
- “Ringo’s Theme (This Boy)” (performed by George Martin and His Orchestra)
- “Slow Down”
- “Matchbox”
- “I Feel Fine”
- “She’s a Woman”
1965
- “Eight Days a Week”
- “I Don’t Want to Spoil the Party”
- 4 By the Beatles (an EP and a separate release from 1964’s Four By the Beatles)
- “Yes It Is”
- “Ticket to Ride”
- “Help!”
- “Yesterday”
- “Act Naturally”
1966
- “We Can Work it Out”
- “Day Tripper”
- “What Goes On”
- “Nowhere Man”
- “Paperback Writer”
- “Rain”
- “Yellow Submarine”
- “Eleanor Rigby”
1967
- “Penny Lane”
- “Strawberry Fields Forever”
- “Baby You’re a Rich Man”
- “All You Need Is Love”
- “I Am the Walrus”
- “Hello Goodbye”
1968
- “The Inner Light”
- “Lady Madonna”
- “Revolution”
- “Hey Jude”
1969
- “Get Back”
- “Don’t Let Me Down”
- “The Ballad of John and Yoko”
- “Something”
- “Come Together/Something”
1970
- “Let It Be”
- “The Long and Winding Road/For You Blue”
The Beatles hit No. 1 an impressive 20 times in their career. The fact they had another 44 tunes reach the charts during their active years and had 71 top-100 songs total is a testament to their popularity and songwriting prowess.
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