After less than one day of availability, The Beatles’ “Now and Then” bounds in at No. 1 on Billboard’s Digital Song Sales chart dated Nov. 11.
In the Oct. 27-Nov. 2 tracking week, “Now and Then” – with all of its sales in that span logged Nov. 2, after it premiered at 10 a.m. ET – sold 16,000 downloads in the U.S., according to Luminate.
The song also starts at No. 1 on Rock Digital Song Sales, and is The Beatles’ first leader on each retail ranking. (The band’s digital catalog was first made available in the iTunes Store in November 2010.)
As previously reported, “Now and Then” concurrently opens at No. 37 on Rock & Alternative Airplay with 1.1 million audience impressions on reporting rock radio stations in its first day. Among all formats, the song drew 2.6 million in audience Nov. 2.
Elsewhere, “Now and Then” starts at Nos. 7 and 11 on the multi-metric Hot Rock Songs and Hot Rock & Alternative Songs charts, respectively, with its sales and airplay also augmented by 2.3 million official U.S. streams Nov. 2.
The song starts at No. 5 on the Billboard Hot 100’s Bubbling Under chart, which ranks the top 25 titles that have not yet hit the Hot 100.
Plus, the track opens at No. 152 on the Nov. 11-dated Billboard Global 200, with 6.4 million streams and 30,000 sold worldwide, again, all tallied Nov. 2.
“Now and Then” is billed as the final Beatles song, first recorded as a demo in 1977 by John Lennon and initially meant for the band’s The Beatles’ three-edition Anthology series in the mid-‘90s before being shelved by the surviving members of the band. It was completed and released this year after new technology helped extract Lennon’s vocals from the original demo while also using guitar recordings from George Harrison from the initial attempt to finish the song.
Notably, The Beatles released two new Anthology singles, each of which opened at No. 5 on the then-active Hot Singles Sales chart, which tracked physical singles before downloads became songs’ main sales currency in the 2000s. “Free as a Bird” began with 59,000 copies sold in its first week (Dec. 30, 1995) and “Real Love,” with 67,000 (March 23, 1996).
The first full week of activity, including physical copies, for “Now and Then” – whose official video premiered Nov. 3 at 9 a.m. ET – will be reflected on Billboard’s Nov. 18-dated charts, including the streaming-, airplay- and sales-based Hot 100 (encompassing activity tracked Nov. 3-9).
All Billboard charts dated Nov. 11 will update on Billboard.com on Tuesday, Nov. 7.
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