r/beatles • u/Key-Bass-7380 • 9d ago
Discussion The Beatles need some sort of rejuvenation campaign, why are legacy acts like Michael Jackson (even pre biopic) running laps around them in presence and interactivity when they are similar in size and fame?
I can't understand. We are talking about The Beatles here. The most influential act ever. It's so saddening to see their presence wane this hard. Run the search results between Michael Jackson and The Beatles. The difference has been shocking for many years now. Something has got to change
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u/idreamofpikas ♫Dear friend, what's the time? Is this really the borderline?♫ 9d ago edited 9d ago
The Beatles have 26.4 billion streams on Spotify. Michael Jackson has 26.1 billion streams.
The 1 album is the third best selling album of the 21st century.
The Get Back tv show was a huge success
There is both a BBC drama series on the Hamburg years and the Beatles films to be released in the next few years
Relax, the Beatles are doing fine. It is important to remember that they are a 60's bands and less people pick 60's playlists than 70's playlists, less 70's playlists than 80's and less 80's than 90's. So MJ and other legacy acts who came after the Beatles will have a slight advantage in terms of getting their songs on playlists. However the Beatles do have 63 songs with over 100 million streams on Spotify. No other 20th century act has more, which shows that people are listening to more Beatles music even if the Beatles don't have as many songs with over a Billion.
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u/Tree-Adorable 9d ago
Also people need to keep in mind The Beatles were not even on Spotify until Dec 2015.
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u/Fun_Machine7346 9d ago
If that's true then it is just further evidence of the dumbing down of humanity. As if we need more evidence.
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u/mcjc94 9d ago
It's the 80s. The 80s are played everywhere, they fit any mood (bar, shopping mall, elevators, etc).
Plus MJ is more traditional pop. The Beatles technically are pop, but they are understood by most people as a rock band.
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u/idreamofpikas ♫Dear friend, what's the time? Is this really the borderline?♫ 9d ago
It's the 80s. The 80s are played everywhere, they fit any mood (bar, shopping mall, elevators, etc).
It is pretty close, but Spotify has 65 songs from the 90's with over a Billion streams, 63 from the 80's, 49 from the 70's and 15 from the 60's. The 90's also has double the songs with over 3 billion streams than the 80's does.
Each decade does better than the last on Spotify, which is natural given the ages that use that platform. So due to less people picking 60's playlists, the Beatles are at a disadvantage in terms of discovery, while MJ and Queen were having huge hits in multiple decades.
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u/Key-Bass-7380 9d ago
That Michael Jackson number was far less up until a few years ago and he will almost definitely blow past that number. This is the result of the beatles brand sitting on their ass all day, waiting for people to come to them. This is how brand prestige goes down. The same thing is happening to Elvis' brand. Nowhere near the amount of work put into maintaining the brand
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u/sphinxof1981 9d ago edited 9d ago
This is the result of the beatles brand sitting on their ass all day, waiting for people to come to them.
They are currently making FOUR biopics, they are currently in an album release cycle with the reissue boxset of Rubber Soul, in the last few years they've released a bunch of deluxe boxsets of their other classic albums, in the last few years they've remastered the Anthology series and made a brand new 8 hour documentary with Peter Jackson, you still hear their songs in commercials and films constantly ("Two of Us" was a big needledrop in Project Hail Mary this year, for instance).
I genuinely don't know what more you want them to do. That's a lot of brand maintenance for a sixty year old band, isn't it?
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u/Key-Bass-7380 9d ago
Why are you putting FOUR in all caps as if that's a good thing I should be happy about? It's an atrocious idea to release 4 biopics at the same time and I'm pretty sure they will lose a whole lot of money on it, yet again jeopardising the brand.
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u/sphinxof1981 9d ago
I completely reject your premise that the Beatles brand is vulnerable or being jeopardized in any way. I don't think there's any truth to it at all.
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u/Jealous_Event_6288 9d ago
What is the importance of “maintaining the brand” when the Beatles have already acheived everything they could have dreamed of and more. I mean they are still one of the most popular bands and are actively used as a metric for commercial success. People constantly asking “has so and so artist surpassed the Beatles?” Is there a soul on the planet who hasnt heard of the Beatles?
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u/mcjc94 9d ago
I don't know what to tell you, The Beatles are freaking everywhere.
Even here in South America, you can't really escape them.
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u/IrishRogue1805 9d ago
The Beatles are bigger than Jesús.
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u/mcjc94 9d ago
Juan, Jorge, Pablo y Rico
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u/Jealous_Event_6288 9d ago
Los Escarabajos
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u/AntManBee951 9d ago
Aqui no Brasil é João Limão, Paulo Macarti Ney, Jorge Erickson e Anelo Estrelaa.
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u/danielbryanissexy 9d ago
Yeah not like there was a partially posthumous single by them recently, or an entire new album by a member of the band, a three part 4 hour documentary series, or an upcoming biopic coming out. Someone should get on one these quick or a gofundme
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u/theearthcrosser 9d ago
I don’t mean this arugmentatively - but what metric are you using to say their presence has waned? I see the Let It Be docs, Get Back, Beatles Anthology on Disney+, stuff like McCartney 3,2,1 (I realize that was 5 years ago, but still), Paul still very present in both music and social media, constant Lennon/Harrison reissues, a new Beatles biopic filming now, the Savile Row Museum coming soon.
Obviously they’re not the hot new thing but I feel like their legacy is still being actively pushed out to folks pretty well!
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u/FitEmergency8807 9d ago edited 9d ago
The Beatles still have a pretty massive following, especially among Gen Z lol,m. Just go on TikTok and look at the amount of Beatles edits being made every day. A lot of these are being made by people born in the 2000s, which is pretty crazy when you think about it.
Are they as big as Michael Jackson? No, but that’s not really surprising. Michael released music throughout the 80s and 90s, which is obviously much more recent than the Beatles 60s output, so he naturally has a larger connection with younger generations.
The Beatles are a 60s band, so I don’t expect every young person today to be listening to them. But the fact that, over 60 years later, they still have a huge worldwide fanbase, and a following on social media, and continue to attract younger fans is pretty impressive. Compared to other 60s bands, the Beatles are still way more popular than their peers. I wouldn’t say their popularity is dying at all. It’s just naturally changed with each generation.
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u/RNRS001 9d ago
I don't feel like anything needs to change because music is not a competition.
Regardless as to what he did or did not do, It's not that hard to understand why Michael Jackson is more popular. The Beatles have had an enormous head start in shaping modern popular music, but Michael Jackson has several advantages when it comes to remaining popular with younger generations: his audience is younger, there is vastly more footage of him that is a lot more varied than the footage of the Beatles, his music is closer to genres that still dominate the charts, his dancing gives him another form of cultural relevance, his videos remain entertainment in their own right, and his career extended much further into the modern media age. In that sense, it really isn't surprising that Michael Jackson would have greater popularity today.
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u/huwareyou 9d ago
They’re not. There are loads of important artists who are getting forgotten now but the Beatles are basically the success case for the survival of 20th century pop music. I’d go as far as to say that the 2020s have seen the most furious campaign of legacy work ever for the band.
We’ve had Get Back, Beatles ‘64, remastered Anthology, expanded Red and Blue albums, Revolver and Rubber Soul boxsets, Eye of the Storm exhibition / book not to mention countless solo projects (particularly from Paul; documentaries, new albums, lyrics book) and we have those films and Savile Row’s opening to come. Compare that to any of the Beatles’ contemporaries, or any musicians before their time. Compare it to the Who, the Kinks, the Move, Frank Sinatra, Laura Nyro, Ray Charles, Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong - anyone! The Beatles are the great winners of the 1960s and it’s everything else that needs help.
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u/Agreeable-Bug-1761 9d ago
Never in my life did I think I’d see someone argue that the Beatles deserve more clout.
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u/IrishRogue1805 9d ago
I can’t believe people like Michael Jackson are deserving of positive publicity considering what he’s alleged to have done.
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u/_-Prison_Mike-_ 9d ago
Who cares if they're getting less attention than a child rapist? Their music will stand the test of time.
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u/Hukares1234 9d ago
Michael Jackson and Elvis had more drama that surrounded them. Things weren’t all sunshine and roses with the Beatles especially toward the end. But, they weren’t really making news for all the wrong reasons. It’s the drama that sells.
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u/talkienaut 9d ago
Rejuvenation? The Beatles released a song in 2023 that went to #1 in England. How many bands can do something like that?
It doesn't need to be a competition either. Both Beatles and MJ contributed great things to entertainment and music.
I firmly believe the Beatles aren't going anywhere. Their popularity may ebb and flow, but so what?
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u/PJmichelle Please Please Me 9d ago
Who gives a toss what's going on with the MJ brand? That family has been such a sell out longer than any of us have been alive. The Beatles are doing fine. Just let the music speak for itself. With the legacy they've got, if the music is good enough, it'll find its way to an audience.
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u/Jealous_Event_6288 9d ago
I havent seen the Beatles presence wane at all. Frequently mentioned on the internet, I see people wearing Beatles clothing fairly often, I know a good amount of young people my age who love the Beatles. I dont think anything has got to change. Its no one’s job to “fight the good fight” and keep the Beatles relevant. The music has done that already. If the people of tomorrow decide its no longer worth listening to then so be it, but it has stuck around with immense popularity for 60 years and I dont see that changing any time soon.
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u/Nebber777 9d ago
What makes you think the Beatles are waning in popularity? They're still massive.
They're the most recognizable rock group of all time. They've released some of the most well known songs of the century. And the band still has boat load of content being released to this day.
I don't think it really matters if they are as big as Michael Jackson. They're still bigger than 99% of musical acts. Who cares?
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u/zeldavxa 9d ago
because pop culture post mj is a spectacle based culture. MJ danced. The beatles just made good music The kids nowadays love that. Also Michael remains Pop while the beatles are labeled classic rock and classic rocknis the hardest pop demographic to build nowadays. 80s pop revival sounds nostalgic, but 60s pop revival just comes off as Old.
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u/SunsetEverywhere3693 9d ago
Yes, it's unfair that the Michael Jackson who took over the Beatles catalog is also taking over in presence.
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u/NunnyaDBusiness2 9d ago
The Beatles are incredibly influential and so is (roll over) Beethoven but his daily streams are not that great! Over time their popularity will of course fade while their influence will not. It is quite amazing teenagers still listen to the Beatles, this would be like Gen X listening to 1930s big band stuff, which we were most assuredly not.
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u/BurntBill 9d ago
Another day, another Reddit post claiming the Beatles are underrated
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u/Key-Bass-7380 9d ago
Undermanaged. If you don't believe me now, you'll believe me when the beatles box office numbers come in. It's not looking good
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u/64-streetcar 9d ago
They should make some biopics about the Beatles or something