The Three Biggest Legacy Acts Still Stream Like Crazy
Out of all the legacy acts from the 60s and 70s, the three that stand out above all the others are The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and The Who, at least when it comes to streaming. The amazing thing is that, for the most part, there’s little new music from these acts, yet their streaming numbers keep going up. Chartmetric took a look at the data and came up with some numbers that show that their popularity is only increasing even 50 years after their heydays.

Let’s first take a look at the number of streams per month.
- The Beatles grew their streams from 12.4 to 33.1 million per month just on Spotify
- The Rolling Stones grew from 11.4 to 26.8 million
- and The Who went from 5 to 7 million, peaking as high as 9 million.
The most played songs from each act are:
- The Beatles – “All My Loving.” “Here Comes The Sun.” “Come Together.”
- The Stones – “Paint It, Black,” “Start Me Up,” and “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction.”
- The Who – “Baba ‘O Reily,” “My Generation,” and “Pinball Wizard.”
To put that into perspective, “Here Comes The Sun” and “Paint It, Black” have both passed 1 billion streams. “Baba ‘O Reily” has 619.8 million.
I must admit that I’m surprised that “All My Loving” and “Paint It Black” are still so big, but it proves that your personal favorites sometimes don’t match the general audience.
Why Their Still So Popular
Obviously the original songs from these three acts are still hugely popular but that’s not the reason that they not only remain popular, but their popularity is growing.
It seems that the many remastered releases and box sets that are regularly released is the driver. There seems to be an insatiable hunger for new-old material that’s mined from the vault. It doesn’t matter if they’re outtakes, isolated tracks, or just candid backstage dialog, true fans want every bit of it, and every new bit spurs more streams.
The lesson here is that just about all content can be valuable, no matter how much of a throw-away an artist/manager/label thinks it is. This obviously isn’t true for the vast majority of artists, but the special ones that get to superstar status have a goldmine on their hands, mostly without even knowing it.