The best selling digital tracks by the Beatles
After going through the Beatles‘ best selling physical singles, group and solo, we reach the second stop of our series, covering pure sales in digital format of the band and its solo members.
Famously holding off their arrival to digital platforms for many years, The Beatles beautifully caught up to secure heavy sales in this avenue, as they always do. The order of the best selling tracks may come more as a surprise.
How the Beatles’ tracks are ranked
This page provides the best selling Beatles’ tracks, group or solo, based on digital pure sales. It means that numbers combine both downloads and ringtones, but exclude streams converted into sales.
While the fab four’s feats on records sales are well documented, their digital results are much more of a mystery. They still claim 32 half a million sellers, including 12 tracks which topped a million sales through digital formats.
This is a healthy number considering only Ringo Starr and Paul McCartney have been given a chance to release new songs during the digital era, and both are naturally well past their peak.
The Beatles‘ digital sales are notably truncated by their very late arrival to the party. While the iTunes store kicked in 2003, with sales booming from 2005 onwards, the band’s catalog long-delayed arrival came in November 16, 2010. Their ringtones got available on February 22, 2012, when the market was already down 80% from its 2006-2009 top years.
Last but not least, in South Korea, the second largest digital market in the world in early 2010s, it wasn’t possible to download their tracks before February 29, 2016, when the 27 tracks from the One compilation were made available.
With this background, one may expect the Beatles‘ solo songs to comfortably outdo the group’s top tracks. There are several surprises yet. Also, a few of their classics were actually available through solo live versions, like Paul McCartney‘s renditions on his Back in the U.S. 2002 live set. Sales of these versions are combined with the original ones in the list below.
The best selling digital tracks of the Beatles – 500,000 to 999,999
32 The Beatles – I Saw Her Standing There – 515,000
31 The Beatles – The Long and Winding Road – 530,000
30 The Beatles – I Want to Hold Your Hand – 540,000
29 George Harrison – What Is Life – 545,000
28 The Beatles – Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da – 545,000
27 Ringo Starr – It Don’t Come Easy – 550,000
26 Paul McCartney & Michael Jackson – Say Say Say – 550,000
25 Michael Jackson & Paul McCartney – The Girl Is Mine – 565,000
24 The Beatles – While My Guitar Gently Weeps – 565,000
23 The Beatles – Eleanor Rigby – 605,000
22 John Lennon – Beautiful Boy (Darling Boy) – 625,000
21 John Lennon – Woman – 630,000
20 Paul McCartney & Wings – Band on the Run – 635,000
19 Kanye West ft. Paul McCartney – Only One – 690,000
18 The Beatles – Help! – 695,000
17 Kanye West ft. Theophilus London, Allan Kingdom & Paul McCartney – All Day – 700,000
16 Paul McCartney – Maybe I’m Amazed – 735,000
15 The Beatles – All You Need Is Love – 745,000
14 George Harrison – Got My Mind Set on You – 840,000
13 The Beatles – In My Life – 980,000
A stacked pack of 20 tracks from half a million to a million sales. It includes 9 tracks from the Beatles, including the breakthrough hit I Want to Hold Your Hand, or classics like All You Need Is Love and In My Life.
All solo members are represented as well, including Ringo Starr (It Don’t Come Easy ranks 27th) and George Harrison (What Is Life at 29th and Got My Mind Set on You at 14). John Lennon also charts with a couple of songs: the ever growing Beautiful Boy and Woman rank back to back at 22 and 21.
Paul McCartney performs well as he always does, with 6 songs from this group. The early solo song Maybe I’m Amazed is the highest (16th), leading over Band on the Run (20th) and two pairs of duets, one with Michael Jackson (Say Say Say at 26, The Girl is Mine at 25) and the other with Kanye West (Only One at 19, All Day at 17).
It’s worth noting that among classics failing to reach this rank are songs like the Beatles‘ Love Me Do, She Loves You, A Hard Day’s Night, Can’t Buy Me Love, Eight Days a Week, Yellow Submarine, Strawberry Fields Forever, Penny Lane, Revolution, Something plus many more. Also missing are Wings‘ Silly Love Songs and Mull of Kintyre, as well as John Lennon‘s (Just Like) Starting Over and Instant Karma!. All these songs are among the 300,000+ units sellers. The comprehensive lists per artist are available later on.
The best selling digital tracks of the Beatles – 1,000,000+
12 The Beatles – Blackbird – 1,005,000
The first of 12 million sellers is the White Album‘s Blackbird. Written by Paul McCartney, it has been long known as a fan favorite. This was until downloads came around and revealed to the World that not only fans but the general public as a whole too were very fond of this track.
Blackbird is absent from the list of 49 2-million sellers in physical format, and for good reason: it was never released as a single. This highlights its extraordinary popularity through the years, outselling all but 6 Beatles‘ songs during the digital era. It could have done even better, but as it wasn’t one of the tracks made available on ringtones in 2012 and in South Korea in 2016, it lost sales from both avenues.
11 Paul McCartney – Wonderful Christmastime – 1,015,000
When first released during the festive 1979 season, Wonderful Christmastime was the first Paul McCartney solo song in eight years, following his long stint with the Wings. Several decades later, it has been the artist’s top selling solo track through digital units, topping a million sales.
The track is far from his most popular ones in multiple places like France or South Korea, but its success in the English-speaking markets grants it solid sales overall. The song continues to do wonders every Christmas, although mainly on streams now.
10 The Beatles – Twist And Shout – 1,110,000
Among the bonanza of hits issued by the Beatles in 1963/1964, the one which has best stood the test of time is their cover of Twist And Shout.
Also absent from the compilation One, meaning it wasn’t available on some platforms to download, the track still shifted over 630,000 units in the US and over 120,000 in the UK, en route to 1.11 million global sales. Good enough to make their overall top 10.
9 The Beatles – Yesterday – 1,160,000
Among the 7 Beatles tracks which topped a million digital sales, Yesterday has the lowest US sales at 610,000 units, and the second lowest UK score at 90,000 copies.
The song is a global beast though, among their very top sellers in markets like Germany or Japan. In South Korea, it’s one of only 3 songs which sprinted their way to 100,000+ sales despite the short period of availability, shooting it to 9th overall.
8 The Beatles – Come Together – 1,260,000
Come Together is one of these tracks that never misses the Beatles‘ lists, and this one is no exception. A 4.5 million seller in physical format along with Something, the 1969 classic registers 1.26 million digital sales.
It is solid everywhere, with more than 760,000 of its total coming from the US, and 100,000 from the UK. It’s still only good to be #8, with quite a gap with the next in line.
7 John & Yoko / The Plastic Ono Band – Happy Xmas (War Is Over) – 1,605,000
Wonderful Christmastime was a great contender, but as far as the best selling holiday track from a Beatles is concerned, John Lennon owns the lead with Happy Xmas (War Is Over).
In all fairness, the song has similar download sales – roughly a million – as the previous ones in this list, but crushes them from the ringtones avenue. They were immensely big in mid-2000s, and this song overperformed the pack in this format.
6 The Beatles – Hey Jude – 1,830,000
The #1 seller in physical formats with over 9 million sales, Hey Jude is also a monster in digital units at 1.83 million. The song is now nearing a million downloads in the US, and tops that mark once we include ringtones.
Elsewhere, it is even more global than Yesterday. The song sold roughly 180,000 units in both the UK and South Korea, nearly 100,000 in Canada and over 50,000 in Germany. It is the 6th top seller overall, 3rd amond Beatles‘ songs.
5 George Harrison – My Sweet Lord – 1,855,000
After ranking #2 seller in physical formats, My Sweet Lord repeats presence in the top 5 for the late George Harrison. A perrenial seller, with downloads and ringtones the track is well past 1.2 million in the US.
Of course, it was a global hit when first released, and continues to do very well in the UK, Australia, Germany, among others. All in all, it’s closing on 1.9 million global sales, although Hey Jude is currently catching up its #5 position.
4 The Beatles – Here Comes the Sun – 2,125,000
If the success of Blackbird on digital platforms took many by surprise, it was an absolute shocker to see Here Comes the Sun challenging their very top classics.
It did and continues to do just that. With over 1.3 million downloads in the US, it is their second biggest title, while close to 200,000 UK sales puts it in first place. Despite the low presence on ringtones and South Korean platforms, the song easily cracks 2 million global sales, with a solid 4th place overall.
3 The Beatles – Let It Be – 2,590,000
Classic among the classics, Let It Be climbs to 2.59 million to be the highest ranked song by the Beatles as a band. The song is unstoppable in the US, with downloads close to 1.4 million. It is also their top performer in South Korea (near 190,000), Canada (160,000), Germany (125,000), Japan (over 80,000), France (near 50,000), Italy (20,000) and many more places.
Ironically, one of the rare countries where the track isn’t leading is the UK. With 175,000 sales though, it sold 90% as much as Here Comes the Sun and stands just behind Hey Jude.
Let me tell you, we are done with the Beatles’ tracks in this ranking. So now you are left wondering: which are the two last songs?
2 Rihanna, Kanye West & Paul McCartney – FourFiveSeconds – 4,150,000
Due to its nature, this must be the most unexpected entry. FourFiveSeconds, released in 2015, shoot to the top 5 in most relevant markets. With an impressive line-up consisting of Rihanna, Kanye West and Paul McCartney, the somewhat awkward combination worked to perfection.
Of course, the song was released when downloads were still healthy. With 2.2 million sales in the US alone, it was a very big hit also in the UK (well past 500,000), Canada, Australia (250,000 each), or Germany (175,000).
At 4.15 million, it has a very large lead over any other song. Except one…
1 John Lennon – Imagine – 4,550,000
As the Paris 2024 Olympics have reminded us, there are very few songs with a reach and an impact as big as John Lennon‘s Imagine. For anyone willing to share a message of unity and peace, this is the definitive go-to song.
The song leads most markets among legacy recordings. It moved 1.6 million downloads in the US, half as many ringtones, 200,000 sales in the UK, over 600,000 in South Korea, and 100,000 plus in Canada, Germany, and Australia. A real global anthem, with over 4.5 million digital sales.
Data by singer
The Beatles claim 16 out of the 32 half a million sellers. Paul McCartney is runner up at 8, John Lennon follows with 4. George Harrison has 3 and Ringo Starr the last one. These are similar patterns than among the top 49 physical sellers, albeit with fairly different songs.
Looking at every track with at least 100,000 digital sales, the Beatles extend their lead with 85 tracks out of 151 in total. The last one is the 2023 release Now and Then at 140,000. Paul McCartney has 32 such tracks, John Lennon 18, George Harrison 12, and Ringo Starr 4.
Moving to total sales, The Beatles sold 39 million downloads and ringtones despite being late to the party. Paul McCartney amasses 18 million, John Lennon 12 million, George Harrison 6 million, and Ringo Starr 2 million. An overall total of 77 million.
The following tables provide you with detailed figures single by single for each artist.
The best selling digital tracks by the Beatles
The best selling digital tracks by Paul McCartney
The best selling digital tracks by John Lennon
The best selling digital tracks by George Harrison
The best selling digital tracks by Ringo Starr
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