Dear John Lennon,
How are you, dude? How is everything going up there in the afterlife? Guess you were a little off base when you imagined “no heaven,” huh? Hahaha. Oh well, nobody’s perfect. Say, speaking of heaven, I hope you gave J.D. Salinger a good kick in the ass when he got up there last year. LOL! (Oh, that means “laughing out loud,” by the way. It’s kind of a recent thing down here.) Anyway, I just wanted to wish you a happy 70th birthday, man. Congrats for sure. Unfortunately, in lieu of a present, I’ve got some bad news for you:
According to the BBC, the cast of the US TV show Glee (a show about the tribulations of a geeky high school choir… seriously) just beat your band’s long-ass-standing record for the most appearances in the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart by a non-solo act. Only your idol Elvis Presley and that James Brown guy have scored more US hits, with 108 and 91, respectively.
See, the way it works is that songs that the kids sing on the show are released digitally (don’t ask, John; you don’t want to know) after each episode is broadcast. Six new entries this week brings their total to 75 chart entries, compared with your guys’ 71. Of those six entries, five were covers of Britney Spears songs (again, probably best not to ask). Among them was a version of the singer’s mega-hit “Toxic,” which landed at 16, making it the show’s highest new entry to date. In fact, that track sold 109,000 downloads (copies) in its first week of release. And all together, Glee has moved 2.8 million albums and 11.5 million downloads, according to the Nielsen SoundScan numbers.
And to make that wound a little saltier, your 71 songs with The Beatles charted between 1964 and 1996, while Glee’s hit parade only got started last June! Yeah, I know. Sorry. But hey, on the plus side, only 14 of Glee’s hits have stayed in the chart for more than one week, giving them a cumulative total of 105 weeks on the Hot 100, whereas you’ve hung around that particular chart for a commutative total of 617 weeks. That’s pretty damn impressive, John. Still, I can see how this news can be kind of irksome on your birthday. I hope you’re not still a jealous guy?
Peace and Love,
Nobodaddy
• Glee: http://www.fox.com/glee
• John Lennon: http://www.johnlennon.com
