What musical honors and milestones has Paul McCartney set?
• Guinness Book of World Records: most successful popular-music composer and recording artist ever with sales of 100 million singles and 60 gold disks • Guinness Book of World Records: largest stadium audience in history when 184,000 Brazilians paid to see him perform at Maracana Stadium in Rio de Janeiro – April 1990 • Guinness Book of World Records: fastest ticket sale in history when 20,000 tickets for 2 shows in Sydney sold out in eight minutes in 1993 • MBE (Member of the British Empire with other Beatles in 1965 • honorary Doctorate of Music from University of Sussex • first rock musician to receive Chile’s Order of Merit for “services to music, peace, and human understanding” • first recipient of the Swedish Polar Music Award (“Nobel prize for music”) • In 1993 Yesterday was confirmed as world’s most popular song with 6,000,000 airplays in the USA and by being recorded by more than 2,200 other artists • Knight bachelor announced on New Honours List December 31, 1996: Sir Paul •
