The 'Glee' cast surpasses Beatles on Billboard Hot 100 chart, inches closer to James Brown and Elvis Presley
Move over Beatles, and make way for the cast of “Glee.” The hit TV show has now produced more songs that have charted on the Billboard Hot 100 than the Fab Four throughout its career.
The Beatles placed 71 titles in the Hot 100 from their first appearance in 1964 with “I Want to Hold Your Hand” through “Real Love” in 1996. But it’s only taken the karaoke-minded cast members of “Glee” a bit more than 16 months to put 75 songs onto the same chart.
Because of the sheer quantity of “Glee” releases -- five or six songs are typically made available for downloading after each week’s episode -- the number of potential charting songs from the show has rapidly outstripped releases by conventional bands or solo acts.
That doesn’t, however, mean the “Glee” singers have surpassed the Beatles’ sales. In the era of eroding record sales, it often takes far lower sales figures to make the Hot 100 today than it did in decades past. Total download sales of the “Glee” titles are at 11.5 million, according to Billboard.
