We're approaching the 50 year anniversary of the Beatles' first #1 hit here.
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James was the DJ for WWDC, a radio station in Washington, DC. Eventually he decided to pursue Albert's suggestion to him and asked the station's promotion director to get British Overseas Airways Corporation to ship in a copy of "I Want to Hold Your Hand" from Britain. Albert related what happened next: "Carroll James called me up the day he got the record and said 'If you can get down here by 5 o'clock, we'll let you introduce it.'" Albert managed to get to the station in time, and introduced the record with: "Ladies and gentlemen, for the first time on the air in the United States, here are the Beatles singing 'I Want to Hold Your Hand.'"
The song proved to be a huge hit, a surprise for the station since they catered mainly to a more staid audience, which would normally be expecting songs from singers such as Andy Williams or Bobby Vinton instead of rock and roll. James took to playing the song repeatedly on the station, often turning down the song in the middle to make the declaration, "This is a Carroll James exclusive", to avoid theft of the song by other stations.
Capitol threatened to seek a court order banning airplay of "I Want to Hold Your Hand", which was already being spread by James to a couple of DJs in Chicago and St. Louis. James and WWDC ignored the threat, and Capitol came to the conclusion that they could well take advantage of the publicity, releasing the single two weeks ahead of schedule on 26 December.
The demand was insatiable; in the first three days alone, a quarter million copies had already been sold (10,000 copies In New York City every hour). Capitol was so overloaded by the demand, it contracted part of the job of pressing copies off to Columbia Records and RCA. By 18 January, the song had started its fifteen-week chart run, and on 1 February, the Beatles finally achieved their first number-one in America, emulating the success of another British group, the Tornados with "Telstar", which was number one on the Billboard charts for three weeks over Christmas and New Year 1962/63. "I Want to Hold Your Hand" finally relinquished the number one spot after seven weeks, passing the baton to the very song they had knocked off the top in Britain: "She Loves You". "I Want to Hold Your Hand" sold close to five million copies in the US alone. The replacement of themselves at the summit of the US charts was the first time since Elvis Presley in 1956, with "Love Me Tender" beating out "Don't Be Cruel", that an act had dropped off the top of the American charts only to be replaced by another of their releases. In 2013, Billboard listed it as the forty-fourth most successful song of all-time on the Hot 100.
With that, the "British Invasion" of America had been launched.
"I Want to Hold Your Hand" was also released in America on Meet The Beatles!, which ground-breakingly altered the American charts by actually outselling the single. Beforehand, the American markets were more in favour of hit singles instead of whole albums; however, two months after the album's release, it had shipped 3,650,000 copies, over two hundred thousand ahead of the "I Want to Hold Your Hand" single at 3,400,000.
I don't respond to people who stan for clowns and careers have died in 5 years. Hopefully they put a biT more effort into buying their faves latest singles. I hear there's a new remix.
Kelela had the best album in 2013 and it was only a mixtape. Truly a masterpiece. The Knowles family(terrorists) are already trying to make her write stuff for solange new album. They need to stop stealing creative work from other people just like Kanye Kardashian.
I don't respond to people who stan for clowns and careers have died in 5 years. Hopefully they put a biT more effort into buying their faves latest singles. I hear there's a new remix.
As much as I used to stan down for Kanye I really can't get over how silly his act has become now. His name has become bigger than his work and anything he puts out Pitchfork will label it as being genius. I can't get behind him as much as I used to
queen