Pet Peeves | Page 201 | Fab Forum | The Beatles Bible

As a prelude, i’d like to mention that i live in the US, so this may be different to people living elsewhere.

Ron Nasty said
I Want To Hold Your Hand  was The Beatles biggest selling single (14 million worldwide), followed by Hey Jude  (8 million).

That may be true if we’re accounting for worldwide single sales but I’ve heard Hey Jude on the radio many more times than I Want To Hold Your Hand .

Ron Nasty said
Queen’s biggest selling was Another One Bites the Dust (7 million), followed by Bohemian Rhapsody (6.7 million), We Will Rock You doesn’t make the list.

There’s a very simple explanation for that. You see, for some stupid reason, Queen decided to make We Are The Champions the A-side and We Will Rock You the B-side instead of the other way around although the single is often unofficially referred to as a double A-side. Also, I’ve heard We Will Rock You more times than Bohemian Rhapsody and Another One Bites The Dust, especially considering that the 2 more successful Queen songs regarding international sales aren’t played at places where children will be and We Will Rock You is more often heard at events.

Ron Nasty said
The top selling single of all time remains Bing Crosby’s version of White Christmas (50 million), followed by Elton John’s Candle in the Wind ’97 (33 million). In all, there are 19 singles that have sold more than The Beatles best-selling single.

I hate to say it but you’ve got me there.

Ron Nasty said
There are many ways to measure these things however. If you look at lists that people have voted, be it a public vote or a jury vote, I have never seen one topped by Hey Jude , though it regularly places reasonably high, while We Will Rock You rarely ranks, and then quite low.

The problem with those lists is that they treat all ages equally. For example, someone born in 1933 is more likely to vote for Buddy Holly’s Peggy Sue than Weezer’s Buddy Holly.

If we want to make the lists fair, we have to split up the ages and only give a full vote for the song if it was released during the area of which the person matches up with. For example, we could so something like this, leaving room for overlap. It may seem unfair at first but when you think of it, people who grew up in the 60’s are more likely to know songs from the 60’s, people who grew up in the 70’s are more likely to know songs from the 70’s, etc., so it makes more sense to separate the votes from age and if for example, someone born in 1987 votes for Killer Queen, his vote only counts as half whereas if someone born in 1957 votes for Yellow Submarine , his vote counts as a full vote because he grew up during that era.

Follow this guideline or make one up yourself that’s very similar.

If you were born in between 1935 and 1948, your vote counts as a full vote if it’s a song released between 1950 and 1960

If you were born in between 1945 and 1958, your vote counts as a full vote if it’s a song released between 1960 and 1970

If you were born in between 1955 and 1968, your vote counts as a full vote if it’s a song released between 1970 and 1980

If you were born in between 1965 and 1978, your vote counts as a full vote if it’s a song released between 1980 and 1990

If you were born in between 1975 and 1988, your vote counts as a full vote if it’s a song released between 1990 and 2000

If you were born in between 1985 and 1998, your vote counts as a full vote if it’s a song released between 2000 and 2010

If you were born in between 1995 and 2008, your vote counts as a full vote if it’s a song released between 2010 and 2020

If you want to make it more fair, you could do 2 separate lists, one where age is ignored and another where you follow a rule like this. You’d get 2 completely different rankings if you do that. I bet if you used age segregation when doing a list like this that Hey Jude might top the list.

Ron Nasty said
And if you were to take it by the amount of covers a song gets, the Guinness Book of World Records recognizes Yesterday  as the most successful song of all-time with over 2,000 cover versions.

However, not all music listeners play music themselves.

Time for a Beatles related pet peeve, The Beatles Rock Band multitracks.

Don’t get me wrong, i love these multitracks but the way the tracks are separated is so inconvenient.

Let’s use A Hard Day’s Night as an example:

Here’s how The Beatles Rock Band sorts out the tracks:

T1/2:

Drums (Ringo)

T3/4:

Hofner bass (Paul)

T5/6:

Most of the song:

Rickenbacker 12-string rhythm guitar (George)

Rickenbacker rhythm guitar (John)

Solo:

Rickenbacker 12-string guitar solo overdub (George)

Piano solo overdub (George Martin)

T7/8:

Vocals (John and Paul)

Rickenbacker 12-string rhythm guitar (George, solo)

T9/10:

Count-in

Piano (George Martin, 1st note)

Gibson acoustic guitar (John)

Bongos (Ringo)

Cowbell (Ringo, bridge)

Rickenbacker 12-string rhythm guitar (George, solo)

Wouldn’t it be a lot more convenient to have the tracks laid out like so:

T1:

Drums

T2:

Bass

T3:

Electric rhythm guitar

T4:

Acoustic guitar

T5:

Piano

T6:

Vocals

T7:

Bongos

T8:

Cowbell

I hate how the tracks are scrambled up together.

But what about all of the people like me who aren’t gamers but want to do Beatles remixes or want to listen to isolated tracks. I say you shouldn’t have to buy The Beatles Rock Band to listen to the isolated acoustic guitar on I’m Looking Through You for example. Also, it’s a real PITA to get the multitracks from your legitimately purchased game because you have to hack into the game to get it and like Ringo said in a song that isn’t playable in The Beatles Rock Band, It Don’t Come Easy.

What’s the point though, the creator doesn’t get a profit from people buying secondhand. If i buy The Beatles Rock Band at a yard sale, Paul McCartney isn’t getting a single penny for that specific transaction therefore you mind as well just get the multitracks the easy way if you have no interest in playing the game.

Good point, i guess you’re right.

I hate how i hate when females sing Beatles songs, they only sound right to me if a male is singing but at the same time i’m afraid that that’s sexist to think that way but at the same time The Beatles were all males and a female singing a song like While My Guitar Gently Weeps or Nowhere Man sounds unnatural in the same way that a male singing Janis Joplin or Adele would be, it feels wrong but i can’t help but feeling that way.