You'd think this would be an easy thing to find with a Google search but I've come up empty.
Beatles album with the most hit singles?
Beatles album with the most #1 hit singles?
Cheers!
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3I think you might need to be clearer with respect to the premise of the question, and even what you mean by a single. For instance, EMI's policy was specifically to withhold 'singles' from albums, and release those tracks separately. Also, there are compositional differences between those albums released in the UK and elsewhere.– StrawberryAug 16, 2020 at 11:38
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@Strawberry I think the footnotes in the accepted answer are sufficient. But thank you for the good point.– tale852150Aug 16, 2020 at 17:13
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3 Answers
Most Billboard1 #1: 3 (Help!; Magical Mystery Tour; Let It Be)2 Most Billboard Top 10: 5 (Please Please Me) Most Billboard Top 100: 8 (Please Please Me; A Hard Day's Night)
1 Beatles' Billboard Chart History
2 Albums are limited to the "core catalog".
With regard to 'hit singles' only (and depending on our definition of 'hit single'), it's Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, with 5 hit tracks.
It's actually a really difficult question to answer. We can't really use the term 'single' in conjuction with the studio albums, because it was The Beatles' express policy not to include on their albums, tracks that had previously been released as singles.
I should say that by 'studio album', I simply mean those albums that were released in both the UK and the US between 1963 and 1969, and that weren't simply re-compilations of previously released singles, and other material. Athough even this is further complicated by the fact that the track listings vary between the US and UK - a fact that I gloss over in what follows.
So, with all that in mind, we could instead consider The Beatles' top 30* (say) most downloaded studio album tracks, and see to which studio album each belongs. As best as I can tell, these are as follows - and remember, great tracks like 'Hey Jude', 'We Can Work It Out', 'Day Tripper', and 'Paperback Writer' are ignored, because they weren't released on studio albums:
Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
- Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
- With a Little Help From My Friends
- Strawberry Fields Forever
- Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds
- A Day In The Life
Help!
- You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away
- Yesterday
- Help!
- Ticket To Ride
A Hard Day's Night
- Can't Buy Me Love
- A Hard Day's Night
- And I Love Her
Please Please Me **
- Love Me Do
- Twist And Shout
- I Saw Her Standing There
Let It Be
- The Long and Winding Road
- Let It Be
- Get Back
Abbey Road
- Come Together
- Here Comes the Sun
- Something
Rubber Soul
- Norwegian Wood
- In My Life
The White Album
- While My Guitar Gently Weeps
- Blackbird
Magical Mystery Tour
- I Am the Walrus
- All You Need Is Love
Revolver
- Eleanor Rigby
Beatles for Sale
- Eight Days a Week
* OK, it's actually 29 - I told you this was difficult: I've excluded the track 'I Want to Hold Your Hand', which was released in the US on the album Meet the Beatles, but this album wasn't released in the UK, and the UK album With the Beatles (which shares the same cover art) doesn't include this track - although it wouldn't affect the final standings.
All this will be upturned with the release of the next John Lewis Christmas TV advertisement, and, FWIW, my favourite album is Rubber Soul.
** Note that tracks from Please Please Me were of course released as singles!! And apologies for any other errors or omissions - hopefully they won't affect the overall standings, but it's a close race, so they might!
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For the 'Top 30 (29!)' I just looked at data previously released by Spotify and iTunes, as revealed by Google. Aug 16, 2020 at 18:19
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1@NKCampbell That's rather the point. Prior to the era of the digital download, it was impossible to purchase individual tracks, unless they were expressly released as a single - which (in the case of The Beatles), expressly prohibits their inclusion on a 'studio album' Aug 17, 2020 at 8:03
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1@NKCampbell Sure. In fact we could argue that Please Please Me is the winner, because (being the first) it's really the only album of the era on which we find contemporarily released 'singles' (i.e. released in the same country, and at roughly the same time, as the album) Aug 17, 2020 at 13:36
Their compilation album "1" was released in 2000. This was compiled by producer George Martin and the three surviving members of the band, so it could be considered a Beatles album. It includes the 27 Beatles songs that went to number one in the United Kingdom or in the United States.
