How Did The Beatles Dominate The American Music Scene So Quickly?
I’m Betting The Answer Will Surprise You.
In 2020, Apple released a new podcast in their Speed of Sound series titled How The Beatles Swept America in Six Weeks, which describes how they went from a virtual unknown band to the hottest and most demanded band in America in a little over a month. The podcast provides a compelling timeline from the Fall of 1963 to their explosive TV debut in February 1964.
It begins with the inexplicable decision made by the head of Capitol Records to reject releasing the Beatles music in the U.S. 4 times in late 1963. This resulted in Capitol Records London-based parent, EMI, to allow five very small American record labels to exclusively market Beatles music in America including Capitol, Swan, Vee-Jay, Tollie and MGM. Swan Records released “She Loves You” and Vee-Jay Records released “From Me To You”, “Please, Please Me”, “I Saw Her Standing There” and numerous others.
Surprisingly, the Beatles never performed on Dick Clark’s very popular American Bandstand TV show, but he did play their records. Clark first played “Please Please Me” in March of 1963. It was played along with four others in his popular show segment titled “Rate a Record” in which a teen panel assigned a score of 1 to 99 to song after they listened to it. It…
