The Beatles have just made the Guinness Book of World Records with the reissue of their 1969 swan song, Abbey Road.Variety reported that the "Fab Four" returning to the Number One spot on Britain's Official Charts Company with their 50th anniversary editions of the album, marked "the longest period of time for an album to return to Number One in the UK after a record-breaking 49 years and 252 days."
Amazingly, the Beatles just smashed their own record that was previously reached back in 2017 when their 1967Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band collection returned to the top spot after 49 years and 125 days. Paul McCartney responded to the news of the new world record, saying, "It’s hard to believe that Abbey Road still holds up after all these years. But then again it's a bloody cool album." In the States, the 2019 version of Abbey Road hit Number Three this week on the Billboard 200 albums chart.
Paul McCartney told us that even early on, he was convinced the Beatles' music would span the generations:"I remember in the '60s having a discussion with a cousin of mine who was a bit older, and he was saying, 'Do you think the Beatles stuff will last and ever become standards?' It was a very bold move of me then, 'cause, y'know, it was a just fresh-off-the-skillet kind of thing. I said, 'I think it will,' and he said, 'What, do you mean like (Frank) Sinatra, standards and all that?' I said, 'Yeah, I think it might well be.' It was a little cheeky of me to say it then, but it's amazingly gratifying to now see I was right."