Kendrick Lamar = The Beatles?

[Twirling Time]

The Billboard charts are a lot different in 2025 than they were in 1964. But K-Dot holds at this moment the Nos. 1, 2, 3, 5, 10, 14, 28, 33, 56, 77, 80 and 81 positions on the Hot 100.

Casey Kasem would roll his eyes.

 

[Deskgrunt50]

He's not my taste, but no question he's hugely talented and popular. I'm sure there were naysayers about those long-haired Beatle freaks at the time too.

And the Super Bowl halftime show gives an artist unreal exposure and a huge boost.

 

[YMCA B-Baller]

Kendrick Lamar has been around too long to fit the same comparison.

And if the charts worked back then how they work now, there would have been a lot more of these situations over time. Michael Jackson would have probably been 1-2-3 in '83 at some point among many others.

 

[Brooklyn Bridge]

Kendrick has been around for a minute. Didn't realize how long it's been. To me, the Beatles came and were huge stars and then disbanded. How long was that? 8 years? 10? The old heads can straighten me out.

Agree that the whole industry and how the charts are tabulated are totally different.

 

[Cosmo]

His masterpiece -- To Pimp A Butterfly -- came out 10 years ago. Good Kid MAAD City was pretty great too, and preceded that record. Yeah, he's been around a minute.

 

[Starman]

Kendrick has been around for a minute. Didn't realize how long it's been. To me, the Beatles came and were huge stars and then disbanded. How long was that? 8 years? 10? The old heads can straighten me out.

Agree that the whole industry and how the charts are tabulated are totally different.

Beatlemania got going in Britain in late 1962, gained steam in 1963, but was really restricted to only the home islands before Ed Sullivan on Feb. 9, 1964.

The Beatles ended as an active entity in April 1970, when Paul McCartney announced his departure simultaneously with the release of "Let it Be." (Functionally they were done in summer 1969, after completing "Abbey Road," when John Lennon informed the other three he had had enough.)

So, for pretty much most of the U.S. dominated world -- six years.

But of course, the group's influence has continued for 55 more years.

 

[Webster]

The way that streams are counted has completely upended what the charts look like.

 

[garrow]

I dunno. But what I do know is that my trivia team Anna Kendrick Lamar is the Beatles of trivia teams (in my particular area).