Ariana Grande v The Beatles: there’s no comparison
Ariana Grande is a brilliant artist, but claims she has matched a longstanding Beatles record are bunkum, writes Cameron Adams. Here’s why.
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Ariana Grande has just become the first musical artist since the Beatles in 1964 to occupy the top three spots on the American singles chart at the same time.
Yes technically she’s matched their chart record but comparing the pop charts in 1964 and 2019 is the epitome of comparing apples and armchairs.
Sure the singles and albums charts are still the only way we have to measure the most popular music in any given week.
But back in 1964 Beatles fans had to really commit to support the Fab Four.
First of all, buying 7 inch singles meant raiding pocket money. Singles cost around 60 cents back in 1964 — around $8 each in today’s terms.
It meant leaving home, going to a record shop (they were once a thing) and sometimes the most popular records had sold out and you had to wait until they were re-pressed on vinyl and back in stock before you could own them, let alone play them whenever you wanted.
In 2019 Ariana Grande fans can literally grab their phone and press a button and have not only her latest single but her entire back catalogue at their disposal in seconds. And all for free.
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Nothing against Ariana Grande, she’s a superstar in an era where people consume music vastly differently.
It’s not that music isn’t as important. You could argue it’s more vital than ever. Your mobile phone allows you be your own radio station and DJ, making your own playlists for wherever you are and whatever you’re doing. Music is more adaptable to our hi-tech lifestyles than it ever was, but it’s also never been more devalued, financially.
You can still buy Grande’s latest album Thank U, Next on CD. But only 2189 people purchased it on CD in Australia last week, compared to 3122 people who paid to download it digitally. The rest of her album sales last week, 8209 of them, were calculated from the hundreds of thousands of streams of the album on legal sites such as Spotify and Apple which ARIA use to calculate their album chart. ARIA don’t reveal their figures, but for America, roughly 1250 audio streams from a paid subscription service, or 3750 streams from someone with a free subscription service (that is, one where people listen with ads between songs) are equivalent to one album sale.
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It’s a clunky process because you’re calculating very different things. If you pay $20 for a physical Ariana Grande album (as opposed to $20 a month to stream as much music as humanly possible) does that make you a bigger fan? Or if you eventually pay up to $50 for her album when it comes out on vinyl are you more passionate? Or maybe you’re buying it on CD, vinyl and also streaming it?
And this doesn’t include all the people who listen to music on YouTube (not the premium service) or rogue streaming sites, or satellite or internet radio stations — none of that counts for the chart.
Then there’s the case of Queen. Back in the day they made their fortune because people were still happy to pay for albums, in large quantities, because there was no internet.
That means the remaining members of Queen can sit back in their mansions and laugh at the pittance they presumably receive from the royalties generated via the new generation streaming the heck out of their back catalogue post the Bohemian Rhapsody movie.
RELATED: ARIA counts streaming figures for the first time
That movie will also translate into a way more lucrative legacy, with half the band back on the road, with singer Adam Lambert, and selling their songs for major coin to advertising campaigns.
Ironically the Bohemian Rhapsody soundtrack is selling mainly on CD, presumably to older fans who need it because it contains versions of songs they don’t own, while their single compilations are being consumed mainly via streaming, presumably as the older fans already own them on CD and the younger audience can listen to all the hits in one space and skip all the album tracks.
But even if Ariana Grande’s achievement can’t really be compared to The Beatles’, she should be praised for keeping the album alive in a short attention span era where some acts opt for EPs or just a string of singles.
She’s now released two albums in less than a year. And that rapid output of albums is the one area where you can compare her to the Beatles. This year at least. She’s highly prolific and her fans will readily take as much new music as possible.
Sure chart records are made to be broken.
But those charts reflect very different times.
Cameron Adams is a News Corp national music writer.
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