Who was bigger, Elvis in 1956 or The Beatles in 1964?

By 1964 Elvis had already done a pretty good job of shooting himself in the foot, or at least the business people doing lazy eights around him had, by offering up material to the public that was second-rate, compared to what he'd been doing pre and immediately post-army.

I'm guessing that you've never watched the 1968 Comeback. Compelling evidence that not only was he still in possession of his talent, but highlights what was squandered in those 6 years beforehand.

I firmly believe that had Elvis been able to have complete artistic freedom to record the music he wanted to, to act in the films that he wanted to be in and to continue to perform throughout the 60s - including overseas - this discussion would be redundant. And there's no doubt he'd have had a happier, longer life.

 

I'm not sure it would have made a difference in this rather needless Elvis vs. The Beatles competition, but outside of that I agree with what you've said here, including the rest of your last paragraph.

What's sad to me is that after the excellence of the '68 Comeback and many of the records Elvis put out around the same time, he quickly became a caricature of himself once he went to Vegas. It's a shame that this is what many people now think of when they hear "Elvis."

 

I don't think any measurements survive.

Different times, change in media attention, rock music becoming more mainstream, etc.

 

(Emphasis added by me.) Ding, ding, ding. This.
It was Elvis. The first Beat(t)les record was released in the U.S.A. on 25 February 1963 .
Dick Biondi (Chicago) played it on the air first! But it flopped. The U.S.A. was not ready for it in March 1963.
Elvis did not flop on his 1956 releases. It could be inferred he was following in Bill Haley's path, but RCA used its muscle to get it out there to much of the U.S.A.

Calling W.B.Ibl! Yes, I think you are correct. A whole bunch of non-RCA plants were utilized to press Elvis' records in 1956, of which MGM's New Jersey plant was one of them.

 

Yes, this is the correct answer.

The Beatles in early 1964 to summer 1964 were probably a "bigger" media/event/fan-hype than Elvis ever was (in the US, I mean), but that's only because Elvis laid the ground-work in 1956. Elvis's rise Stateside was more incremental, with a "big-bang" of sorts suddenly happening when "Heartbreak Hotel" topped the charts. Elvis's first TV appearances were on a low-rated program that few people watched, and there was no grand reaction to his first appearances.

So, the answer to the thread-question is The Beatles, but that's more to do with situation/media-outlets than it is with actual popularity.

 

I missed this somehow when it was first posted.

This is a manifestly incorrect statement on two levels:

1. Beatles music had massive success in the UK and in other European nations a full year before they ever came to the U.S. — four hit singles (three of them #1's) and a hugely popular album, at a time when albums didn't sell much in the youth market.
2. Beatles music also had massive success in the U.S. in the month before they ever landed on our shores on February 8, 1964. How else to explain the frenzied crowds that greeted them at the airport, and the reaction of the audiences on the Ed Sullivan Show and at the Washington, D.C. concert? Radio stations were playing every Beatles record they could get their hands on throughout January 1964 — not just their current Capitol single and album (released 1/20/64), but also all of their previous singles and Introducing the Beatles. The station I listened to even played "My Bonnie" and "Ain't She Sweet"!

So their track record was already quite well-established elsewhere before they "landed" in the U.S. — for a year in England and on the continent and approximately five weeks in the U.S.

 

UK of course, but are you sure about continental Europe? I see the first Beatles entry in the West German top 20 in Feb 1964 (I want to hold your hand #15 and Twist and shout #19), and the first #1 in March 1964 (IWTHYH), and She loves you at #12 in March 1964 as well.

 

For 1956 you couldn't have been any bigger than Elvis was in 56 or 57.
For 1964 you couldn't have been any bigger than The Beatles were in 64 or 65.
No one has ever been quite a phenomenon as Elvis 56/57 and The Beatles 64/65.

Some say Michael Jackson 83/84 or even 87/88 and no doubt he's the closest since, but he wasn't a revolutionary artist as the other two were. He was just bigger than his contemporaries. However, the separation in popularity between Michael Jackson in the 80s and let's say Prince, Madonna, George Michael and Def Leppard, though huge, was not nearly as significant a difference between Elvis and his peers in the 50s or The Beatles and theirs in the 60s.

 

In terms of universal acclaim, it was the Beatles and it wasn't even close. In 1964, Beatles records were manufactured in more than 30 countries (and sold in many more), including more than 20 where English was not the primary language. In 1956, by contrast, Elvis was almost exclusively a US phenomenon.

 

Elvis was huge in the UK Otherwise he wouldn't have so moved 2 guys named Lennon and McCartney.
Elvis Presley | full Official Chart History | Official Charts Company

 

What height was Elvis?

 

That's not really true, as Elvis in '56 was topping charts in Canada, the UK, Europe, Australia, etc.

Elvis did have a smaller global audience than the Beatles in '64, however, but that's also partly because rock'n'roll was brand new to nearly all listeners, dirty, profane, and dangerous. It took some time for Elvis to be accepted. Really, you should look at how he was doing globally in, say, 1960, with records like 'It's Now or Never'.

 

Because in 1964 there were 23 million more people in the states and 3 million more in the UK than in 1956, and 17 million more families with televisions in 64 in the States than in 56 and because rock n roll was the mainstream genre in 64 and not Hit Parade Pop like in 56, and because rock concerts were a normal activity in 64, and because parents were no longer forbidding kids from listening to or buying rock n roll music in 64 or boycotting rock n roll shows, because mass production and distribution of rock n roll records was normal business in 64 and because mainstream media on radio, tv magazines and newspapers covered rock n roll favorably in 64 vs negatively in 56, then naturally The Beatles were technically bigger.
But when you consider that Elvis had to contend with all the 50s limitations and was still as massively popular as he was, it's truly a more impressive phenomenon.

 

The butterfly effect?

 

Who had this line-up before these guys? Nobody. I'm glad you brought that up, because it's likely that this directly influenced the Beatles. Sure, they had five pieces for awhile, but they were never going to have a sax player ... Elvis didn't have a sax player.

 

Already answered earlier in the thread. See this post.

 

Elvis was obviously bigly in 1956, but whether the Beatles had embiggened to a greater comparative bigliness by 1964, I couldn't say.

 

I don't have access to charts in other European nations, and it's possible the acclaim there grew somewhat more slowly than it did in the UK.

But one of the things that makes me say this is the rapturous reception The Beatles received on the Swedish TV show Drop In, which was aired October 30, 1963 at the conclusion of a tour they had done of that nation. Here is an account of that appearance, and below is the performance itself, which I believe is the about the highest-quality video extant of a live Beatles performance in 1963.

 

Elvis probably has more culture influence, while the Beatles has more music influence.

 

The premise of the comparison was Elvis circa 1956, not circa 1960. I'll revise my position this much: Elvis 1956 was a predominantly US and, to a lesser extent, anglophone phenomenon.

 

I meant to say in the U.S. and I should have said before the release of "I Want To Hold Your Hand". Hardly anyone knew them in America before 1964 and with "IWTHYH" reaching #1 and them coming to America, it was like a sudden explosion.

 

The Bee Gees were breaking sales and chart records in 78/79.

 

Depends on what do you mean by 'bigger'. Artistically? Elvis, no contest.

 

....And?

 

This does make your statement more accurate, but the buzz about The Beatles was very much alive for most of that month of January 1964, as I described it. By the time they arrived in the U.S. in early February, Beatlemania had been at a fever pitch for several weeks.