Aubrey “Drake” Graham has now surpassed The Beatles for most singles appearing on Billboard magazine’s Hot 100 list. Drake holds 72 appearances on the list compared with The Beatles’ 71 appearances.
This rapid climb to the top of the commercial music industry started in 2009 when Drake took over the radio waves with his first hit single, “Best I Ever Had.” You could hardly walk down the street that year without hearing the words, “Sweatpants, hair tied, chilling with no makeup on / That’s when you’re the prettiest I hope that you don’t take it wrong.”
Since then we’ve been creating our own visual odes to Drizzy, dropping the acronym YOLO like it’s going out of style, captioning our success stories with, “started from the bottom” and letting “Marvin’s Room” hit us right in the feels when no one is looking.
Many may be quick to say Drake is nowhere near as talented or important to music as The Fab Four. After all, The Beatles have 10 Grammy Awards to their name, an Academy Award and have sold over 600 million albums to date, dwarfing Drake’s one Grammy Award and 5 million albums sold.
Despite the difference in numbers, there are actually quite a few similarities between the two music giants.
Both Drake and The Beatles had been in the music game for years before they made it “big.”
Before Drake’s arrival on the national stage in 2009, he dropped his first mixtape Room for Improvement in 2006, featuring the now mainstream sensations Trey Songz and Lupe Fiasco. This release came out while he was still acting on the hit Canadian show “Degrassi: The Next Generation.” In 2007, Drake dropped another mixtape, and even had a video on BET, while still unsigned.
The Beatles formed in the late 1950s, played shows throughout Hamburg, Germany, in the early 1960s and were quite successful in the U.K. before they ever made it mainstream in the United States. It wasn’t until their 1964 appearance on “The Ed Sullivan Show” that the Beatles became a mainstay in American popular music.
Additionally, both Drake and The Beatles were incredibly young when they started in the entertainment industry. Drake was only 15 years old when he started acting. John Lennon was 16 when he met up with a then 15-year-old Paul McCartney to form a group. George Harrison joined a year later at age 14.
Drake’s musical genius can be attributed to the fact that he can rap, break into a melodic falsetto on queue and pair those exploits with instrumentals that make you feel the mood he is speaking about.
Many attribute those same dynamic qualities to The Beatles and their ability to vary between the rock ‘n’ roll, skiffle, hard rock, beat, psychedelic, blues, folk and pop genres.
What made The Beatles so iconic was their ability to connect with the younger generations during the most volatile era in recent history. Not only were they incredibly gifted musicians, but also humanitarians, comedians, philosophers and actors. Their music embodied the sociocultural atmosphere of the 1960s and 1970s alike.
In that sense, Drake has been successful on a grand scale for his ability to capture the convoluted sentiments of younger generations during an era of war, economic instability and changing social dynamics. Pairing his uncanny star value as showcased on his appearances hosting the ESPYs and “Saturday Night Live,” along with his ability to seemingly manufacture hit records, Drake may be well on his way to becoming a young “Beatle.”
Drake will never be as great as The Beatles. No one will. At 27 years old though, he is already one of the most accomplished artists in the history of recorded music.
