Stadium status is something any touring musician aspires to now, but 50 years ago, it was simply unheard of for a musical act to play in an athletic venue—let alone justify playing in one as large as a MLB stadium. But on August 15, 1965, at the height of Beatlemania, the Liverpool quartet shattered all previous records for concert attendance and ticket receipts, with 55,000 fans paying for a glimpse of John, Paul, George and Ringo to the tune of $300,000 (or over $2 million in 2013 figures). Today’s stars may enjoy stadiums outfitted for concert sound today, but back then The Beatles didn’t get much out of being drowned out by screaming fans, and retired from performing a year later. McCartney, however, returned to the Queens ballpark in 2008, just before it was demolished, as a guest at Billy Joel’s final concert at Shea.

Jackyl Becomes the First Band to Play 21 Concerts in 24 Hours (1998)

The Georgia hard rock band Jackyl was never afraid of using a little novelty value to get a moment in the spotlight. Their 1992 breakthrough hit, “The Lumberjack,” was a brazenly goofy little ditty notable mainly for featuring a chainsaw in place of a lead guitar. A few years later, they got back in the headlines by going after Guinness Book notoriety with a couple of records. First, they broke George Thorogood’s record for the most concert’s performed in a 50-day period during a 1998 tour. Then, that same year, they became the first band to perform 21 different concerts, in different locations for different audiences, within a 24-hour period.

The Backstreet Boys Release the First Album to Sell a Milion in a Week (1999)

By the ’90s, selling a million copies of an album was no big deal. But toward the end of the decade, as SoundScan sales climbed to unprecedented new heights, and highly anticipated albums sold more and more quickly, a new kind of arms race was on. Buoyed by “I Want It That Way” and some of the most rabid young fans pop music had ever seen, The Backstreet Boys’ Millennium sold 1,134,00 the week of May 18, 1999, shattering all previous records. That number would later be beaten by the group’s follow-up album, Black & Blue, as well as efforts by artists such as Eminem, Taylor Swift and BSB’s rival 'N Sync (still the record holders). The previous high-water mark was Pearl Jam, whose 1993 album Vs. fell just 50,000 short of the million mark.