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The 10 most-streamed Beatles songs so far

Fri 10 June 2022 15:30, UK

The world before Beatlemania seems so distant now that it’s hard to fathom what it was like when the group were in their early years of formation, wandering around unrecognisable to the public. Equally, it’s difficult to imagine what the world would be like today had The Beatles not become the focal point of a potent and widespread cultural revolution. Would one of the other British invasion bands of the 1960s have taken the spotlight instead? Would we have had such an iconic cultural shift? These questions are, of course, unanswerable, but what we can be certain of is that the world would be a very different place today had the Beatles not existed.

The charming foursome from Liverpool rose to their immortal position with a dollop of talent and a hefty portion of luck. They were the right lads who met at the right time and undoubtedly picked the right vocation. Their early music won over the hearts and minds of the western world with its ubiquitous references to love coupled with the band’s palpable charm and enrapturing harmonies.

After their all-important monopoly of the US charts, The Beatles began to develop artistically as they brought Eastern influences and psychedelia into their music. While love songs still cropped up here and there, by the mid-1960s, with the release of Rubber Soul and Revolver, the group began to show a deeper creative muse.

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With such an eclectic spread of music across their ten years and 12 core studio albums, there’s always an album or at least a few songs that anyone can enjoy. Consequently, one of the greatest opening questions one can ask on a first date or as an interview icebreaker is, what’s your favourite Beatles album?

As most fan polls and critic reviews attest, the top album lists invariably place the likes of Revolver and Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, toward the top. With this in mind, it’s interesting to note that not a single song from either of these landmark albums features in the band’s top ten most-streamed tracks.

Judging by The Beatles’ ten most-streamed songs (listed below), 1969’s Abbey Road is the most adored album, with George Harrison’s ‘Here Comes The Sun’ in the top spot not far from joining the “Billion Streams Club”. It’s trailed by Abbey Road’s iconic opener, ‘Come Together’, in second place. The album is also home to Harrison’s emotive classic, ‘Something’, which Frank Sinatra once described as the greatest love song of all time and currently sits as The Beatles’ ninth most-streamed song.

After Abbey Road, 1965’s Help! features twice on the top ten list thanks to the popularity of Paul McCartney’s ‘Yesterday’ and the title track, which sits at number ten. Apart from this, the top ten list contains a diverse selection from The Beatles’ disparate spread of albums.

The clear early favourite is ‘Twist and Shout’, The Beatles’ cover of the Isley Brothers’ ‘Shake It Up Baby’. The classic rendition was released on the 1963 debut album Please Please Me; its enduring success can be attributed to Lennon’s iconic shouting vocals that allegedly saw him lose his voice in the studio while recording.

At the time, Lennon was battling a mild cold which served to exacerbate the issue. As he later said of the recording session, “The last song nearly killed me. My voice wasn’t the same for a long time after, every time I swallowed it was like sandpaper.”

Lennon and Harrison stake a claim to a fair portion of the top ten, especially given Harrison’s limited overall share in the Beatles’ discography. But it’s McCartney who takes the lead with four of his most loved ballads, ‘Let It Be’, ‘Yesterday’, ‘Hey Jude’, and ‘Blackbird’, making it into the top ten.

See the full list below (the stream counts are based on the current statistics shown on Spotify).