The Beatles Sell 450K Albums & 2 Million Songs In First Week On iTunes

We wouldn’t call it Beatlemania, but The Fab Four are definitely large and in charge on iTunes.

The Beatles catalogue was released on iTunes, the world’s No. 1 digital music retailer, for the first time on Nov. 16, ending years of negotiations between Apple founder Steve Jobs. In the first week since the catalogue was released here, there, and everywhere on iTunes, the group sold more than two million singles and 450,000 albums, Reuters reported on Tuesday. The group’s Abbey Road LP landed at No. 6 on the charts for Apple’s digital music store. The Beatles Box Set, a $149 compilation that includes all 13 of the band’s original albums, came in at No. 10.

But despite the fanfare over The Beatles’ arrival on iTunes, the band’s 40 year-old classics failed to outsell new material from Rihanna and album of Christmas tunes performed by the cast of the hit TV musical-comedy Glee.