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Statistics: •By the end of 1970 the Beatles had sold more than 500 million records. •Guinness reported sales of 545 million records from 1963-74. •Let It Be (album) had the largest initial sales in US record history up to that time. 3.7 million advance orders: $25.9 million. •Let It Be (single) released in 3/70 sold one million in sales in a month and later reached 1.5 million. •The worldwide sales of 'Get Back' were estimated at 4.5 million. •As of January '68 every Beatles' single had sold over one million worldwide; 26 singles and LP's have sold over one million in the U.S. alone. Total sales, converted to singles, was 225 million (Schultheiss 201). •New Jersey officials confiscated 30,000 copies of Two Virgins LP having rendered them pornographic. •Hey Jude had worldwide sales of 5 million in '68 and 7.5 million by '72. •What It Costs to Make a Record (Business Week. 7/27/74) •In the years 1963-68 the group sold an estimated $154 million worth of records worldwide (Chapple and Garofalo. Rock and Roll is here to Pay, p. 70). •In addition, albums afforded a greater profit margin, were less breakable, and cost only slightly more to handle. By 1969, 80 percent of the sales dollar was in LPs (Chapple and Garofalo. Rock and Roll is here to Pay, p. 76). •Paul had heard a figure from within Apple that only one person out of a hundred bought Beatle records (Flippo, p. 239).
General Statements: •"Double Beatle" from Newsweek. December 1968. America could hardly wait for the new two-record Beatles album. Capitol records sold 1.1 million copies in the first five days at $11.58, the highest price ever asked for two pop disks. At that price the buyer doesn't even get a handsome colorful jacket like those enclosing the two previous Beatle records, "Magical Mystery Tour" and "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band". The new jacket is plain white, like a printing error, and its title... •A proposed ad for the White Album: "You're eating breakfast and in exactly forty-nine hours you could be the proud owner of Beatles' album number 1. Or, of course, you might get number 3972, but that's pretty good too". •John said he got the idea for Cry Baby Cry from an ad that stated "Cry baby cry, make your mother buy". •"The LP business really began with the advent of the heavier rock acts", said Don Kirshner in 1972. Since their singles were rarely played, albums were used to introduce the groups, who planned their albums as singles anyway, that is as conceptual units (Chapple and Garofalo. Rock and Roll is here to Pay, p. 76). •Flying was credited to Lennon/McCartney/Harrison/Starr and copyrighted in the UK by Northern Songs sometime in '68 (Schultheiss 199). • In addition to negotiating a greatly increased royalty rate for the Beatles (since early 1967 they had received, excluding publishing income, 39 cents per album-prior to 1967, they had only earned 6 cents per album) Klein also secured a piece of the action for Apple Records as part of the deal. The deal was quite inventive and it stipulated that EMI-who retained ownership of the Beatles master recordings- would grant Apple the right to manufacture and sell Beatle albums in the United States. Apple would then pay Capitol to manufacture the actual records (Granados, S. Those Were the Days. p. 93). •Paul was in conference with some representatives from the J. Walter Thompson agency. It was October 18, 1968, and Paul had been worrying about ways to promote the release...of the White Album. They couldn't rely on the same old hippies and the like to buy Beatles albums because the saturation level was far too low. And he realized that a formidable advertising machine such as JWT would know how to up the ante (Flippo, p. 239).
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