Never mind iTunes! The Beatles sell 2.25 million compact discs in five days

iTunes, schmiTunes. Looks like the Fab Four doesn't need Steve Jobs's fancypants online record store after all. Beatles label EMI said Tuesday that consumers in North America, Japan, and the U.K. bought more than 2.25 million compact-disc copies of the Beatles' remastered albums in the five days since their Sept. 9 release, more than one million copies in the U.S. alone.

This frenzy of Beatlemania smashed a number of records, mostly for simultaneous titles in the top-selling charts by a single artist, within the recording industry. The Beatles had 16 titles in Billboard's top 50, including all 14 remastered CDs and two box sets.