On the chart dated April 4, 1964, the Fab Four monopolized the top five on the Billboard Hot 100, marking the only time one act has ever to locked up the region

"Just about everyone is tired of the Beatles."

So read the first line of a story on page 1 of the Billboard magazine dated April 4, 1964, exactly 50 years ago today. That was the week that the Beatles made history as the only act ever to simultaneously occupy the Billboard Hot 100 chart's entire top five positions.

So ... why was Billboard printing such seeming blasphemy?

"Disk jockeys are tired of playing the hit group," the story continued. (Cleverly headlined "Chart Crawls With Beatles," the item was written by Jack Maher and Tom Noonan, the latter of whom launched the Hot 100 in 1958.) "The writers of trade and consumer publication articles are tired of writing about them and the manufacturers of product other than the Beatles are tired of hearing about them."

Billboard, of course, noted one key exception.

"Everyone's tired of the Beatles – except the listening and buying public."

With a 27-1 second-week blast to the top for "Can't Buy Me Love," the Fab Four locked up the Hot 100's entire top five: No. 1, "Can't Buy Me Love" / No. 2, "Twist and Shout" / No. 3, "She Loves You" / No. 4, "I Want to Hold Your Hand" / No. 5, "Please Please Me"

The closest any artist has come to the Beatles' airtight top five mark is 50 Cent, who placed three titles simultaneously – "Candy Shop" (No. 1); the Game's "How We Go," on which he's featured (No. 4); and "Disco Inferno" (No. 5) – in the top five on the charts dated March 12 and 19, 2005.

Beginning a five-week reign, "Buy" marked the Beatles' third No. 1, directly following "I Want to Hold Your Hand" and second leader "She Loves You." No other act has linked three consecutive No. 1s in the Hot 100's 55-year history.

It had never happened before.

It would never happen again.

The entire Top 5 occupied by the same act......

No. 1 and 65
The Beatles established four records on the Billboard Hot 100 with "Can't Buy Me Love" at number one:
1. Until Billboard began using SoundScan for their charts, it had the biggest jump to number one: (number twenty-seven to number one; no other single had ever done this).
2. It gave the Beatles three consecutive number-one songs ("I Want to Hold Your Hand" was replaced at number one by "She Loves You" which was in turn replaced by "Can't Buy Me Love"). The three songs spent a combined total of 14 consecutive weeks at #1.
3. When "Can't Buy Me Love" went to number one (4 April 1964), the entire top five of the Hot 100 was by the Beatles, the next positions being filled by "Twist and Shout", "She Loves You", "I Want to Hold Your Hand" and "Please Please Me," respectively. No other act has held the top five spots simultaneously.
4. During its second week at number one (11 April 1964), the Beatles had fourteen songs on the Hot 100 at the same time.
With alleged advance orders in the states of 1,700,000 copies, the single actually passed the million mark in sales in the US the day after it was released. In fact, the single had an international advance order of 2,100,000 copies.

No. 2
Released as a single in the US on 2 March 1964, with "There's a Place" as its B-side, by Chicago-based Vee-Jay Records on the Tollie label, it reached number 2 on 4 April 1964, during the week that the top five places on the chart were all Beatles singles. (In the Cashbox singles chart for the same week, "Twist and Shout" was No. 1.) In the United States, "Twist and Shout" was the only million-selling Beatles single that was a cover record, and the only Beatles cover single to reach the Top 10 on a national record chart. The song failed to hit #1 because the Beatles had another song occupying the top spot, "Can't Buy Me Love".

The piece above is an excerpt from Wikipedia. There is an error there though, as "Roll Over Beethoven", "Long Tall Sally" and "Rock And Roll Music" - all covers - all reached Top 10 on the national Norwegian chart.

No. 3
When "She Loves You" came out as a single in America on 16 September 1963, it received a positive notice in Billboard, but garnered very little radio airplay. New York disc jockey Murray the K saw it place third out of five in a listener record contest, but it failed to take off from that. Overall, it sold about a thousand copies and completely failed to chart on Billboard.

In January 1964, the Beatles released "I Want to Hold Your Hand", which quickly climbed all the way to number one, launching the "British invasion" of the American music scene and paving the way for more Beatles records and releases by other British artists. In the wake of that success, the Swan "She Loves You" single re-emerged, and entered the Billboard chart on 25 January 1964. Beatlemania took hold of America, spurred by the group's appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show in February, where they performed this among other songs. "She Loves You" spent five weeks at number two, behind "I Want to Hold Your Hand", then replaced it for two weeks at number one beginning on 21 March. During its fifteen-week run on the American charts, "She Loves You" was joined by four other Beatles songs at the top five in the American charts.

No. 4 and 31
EMI and Brian Epstein finally convinced American label Capitol Records, a subsidiary of EMI, that the Beatles could make an impact in the US, leading to the release of "I Want to Hold Your Hand" with "I Saw Her Standing There" on the B-Side as a single on 26 December 1963. Capitol had previously resisted issuing Beatle recordings in the US. This resulted in the relatively modest Vee-Jay and Swan labels releasing the group's earlier Parlophone counterparts in the US. Seizing the opportunity, Epstein demanded US$40,000 from Capitol to promote the single (the most the Beatles had ever previously spent on an advertising campaign was US$5,000). The single had actually been intended for release in mid-January 1964, coinciding with the planned appearance of the Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show. However, a 14-year old fan of the Beatles, Marsha Albert, was determined to get hold of the single earlier. Later she said:" It wasn't so much what I had seen, it's what I had heard. They had a scene where they played a clip of 'She Loves You' and I thought it was a great song ... I wrote that I thought the Beatles would be really popular here, and if [deejay Carroll James] could get one of their records, that would really be great. "

James was the DJ for WWDC, a radio station in Washington, DC. Eventually he decided to pursue Albert's suggestion to him and asked the station's promotion director to get British Overseas Airways Corporation to ship in a copy of "I Want to Hold Your Hand" from Britain. Albert related what happened next: "Carroll James called me up the day he got the record and said 'If you can get down here by 5 o'clock, we'll let you introduce it.'" Albert managed to get to the station in time, and introduced the record with: "Ladies and gentlemen, for the first time on the air in the United States, here are the Beatles singing 'I Want to Hold Your Hand.'"

The song proved to be a huge hit, a surprise for the station, as they catered mainly to a more staid audience, which would normally be expecting songs from singers such as Andy Williams or Bobby Vinton instead of rock and roll. James took to playing the song repeatedly on the station, often turning down the song in the middle to make the declaration, "This is a Carroll James exclusive", to avoid theft of the song by other stations.

Capitol threatened to seek a court order banning airplay of "I Want to Hold Your Hand", which was already being spread by James to a couple of DJs in Chicago and St. Louis. James and WWDC ignored the threat, and Capitol came to the conclusion that they could well take advantage of the publicity, releasing the single two weeks ahead of schedule on 26 December.

The demand was insatiable; in the first three days alone, a quarter million copies had already been sold (10,000 copies In New York City every hour). Capitol was so overloaded by the demand, it contracted part of the job of pressing copies off to Columbia Records and RCA. By 18 January, the song had started its fifteen-week chart run, and on 1 February, the Beatles finally achieved their first number-one in America, emulating the success of another British group, the Tornados with "Telstar", which was number one on the Billboard charts for three weeks over Christmas and New Year 1962/63. The Beatles finally relinquished the number one spot after seven weeks, passing the baton to the very song they had knocked off the top in Britain: "She Loves You". "I Want to Hold Your Hand" sold close to five million copies in the US alone. The replacement of themselves at the summit of the US charts was the first time since Elvis Presley in 1956, with "Love Me Tender" beating out "Don't Be Cruel", that an act had dropped off the top of the American charts only to be replaced by another of their releases.

No. 5 and 41
In the wake of the rush-release of "I Want to Hold Your Hand" in the United States, Vee-Jay reissued "Please Please Me" on or about 3 January 1964, after footage of the Beatles had appeared on a television program hosted by Jack Paar. Playing it safe, the label chose to put "From Me to You" on the B-side, as Del Shannon's version had been a minor hit in 1963. The new single was issued with the catalog number 581.

This time, "Please Please Me" was a massive hit, eventually peaking at number three on the Billboard Hot 100 chart for the week ending 14 March 1964, trailing only "I Want to Hold Your Hand" and "She Loves You". It was one of the songs that comprised the top five on the Billboard Hot 100 of 4 April, when the Beatles held the top five spots.

No. 42 and cashing in on the mop tops!!!

https://youtu.be/5r5_7biqcG8

No. 46 and 79, and the Vee Jay-machinery is p*#*# mighty Capitol off.

No. 58, a Canadian import that forced itself into the US charts.

No. 68, yet another Canadian import.

No. 85. The clean cut kids from California assumed that a record would earn them more money than an actual letter.

https://youtu.be/qxXPkFemYUc

No. 123, nice try by the guy who later got to be famous in Bread.

https://youtu.be/7CVtVaHrsDc

The British original. Released March 20, 1964. It went straight to no. 1 on March 25 and stayed at the top spot for four weeks. There were no Beatles singles with picture sleeves in the UK except "Strawberry Fields Forever"/"Penny Lane" (1967) and "Let It Be" (1970)!!

The Norwegian picture sleeve. "Can't Buy Me Love" was at no. 3 in Norway the week The Beatles owned the Top 5 in the US. It didn't get to no.1 until May 2 when it overtook Jim Reeves' "I Love You Because", but only held the top spot for one week as Eurovison winner Gigliola Cinquetti and her "Non ho l'età" proved too strong for the liverpudlians.

The Swedish sleeve, definitely superior to the Norwegian solution.

Denmark managed to use a recent photo.

April 4, 1964- History playlist on spotify!                                                                                          https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6F5CiQ1HXT3c95BDxdKxJg?fbclid=IwAR3BNnWPVBBquM_ea_mi4eTEZ6aq8nB1WhMKISdBbMGl9IoNGTlFtl_PX6Y&si=ifYX7poRThOqwG-peOqW6A

You're welcome!!