Post Malone Breaks Beatles Record for Most Top 20 Hits at Once
Beerbongs & Bentleys, the second album by rapper Post Malone, is responsible for setting a record that had previously thought to be unbreakable. In the first week of release, it has placed nine songs in the Top 20 of Billboard's Hot 100 chart, breaking the record set by the Beatles in 1964 and tied last week by J. Cole.
The news comes via Billboard, who add that all 18 of the songs from Beerbongs & Bentleys made the Hot 100, with three, "Psycho," "Better Now" and "Rockstar," in the Top 10. With Billboard now putting greater emphasis on streaming totals in determining chart positions, it's possible that the record-setting 47,930,039 Spotify streams in the U.S. on the first day of the album's release played a major part in the new record. The streaming figures resulted in 461,000 equivalent album units.
On April 4, 1964, a time when the charts were determined by combining sales of singles and radio airplay, the Beatles held the Top Five positions on the Hot 100 and, for the next two weeks, had six songs in the Top 20. They held that record by themselves for the next 54 years, until J. Cole's KOD arrived last week and also placed six songs in the Top 20.
It was all part of a glut of Beatles records that flooded the market in the early days of Beatlemania, with Capitol Records looking to get as much music out there after having ignored the band for a year. Five of the Hot 100 songs were also on Vee-Jay Records, who were involved in a legal dispute with Capitol over the rights to the songs on Please Please Me.
Post Malone rose to fame three years ago when his first single, "White Iverson," peaked at No. 14 in 2015. His debut album, Stoney, included his first Top 10 hit, "Congratulations," and was certified double-platinum.
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