It was big news for music lovers recently when The Beatles' catalogue was suddenly available across all major streaming platforms beginning on Christmas Eve. 

It's no doubt that streaming audio is, and has been, the most popular method of music consumption since its revenue first smoked CD sales in 2014. 

But that hasn't stopped widespread contention over fair compensation for rights holders who see relatively low returns with streaming.

Regardless of rates, listeners streamed Beatles tracks 50 million times in the first two days the 224 songs were available on all of the most widely used platforms.

That equals over a million streams per hour two days straight which ain't too shabby for a band that broke up in 1970 and has only two surviving members. 

Data from across the web is showing interesting patterns in Beatles' listeners. For example, Daily Mail reported that 65 percent of those streaming the Beatles were age 34 or below 

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That is to say that more than half of the Beatles' streaming listeners weren't alive for Beatlemania, likely grew up on cassettes and not vinyl, nor were they alive at the time of John Lennon's murder. 

In the first 48 hours, "Come Together" streamed 1.84 million times. At the time of writing, that has since doubled. 

Spotify's ranking of the most popular songs within the first 48 hours is as follows, and it's pretty uplifting to know younger listeners have so much interest these tunes. Undoubtedly they'll carry well into 2016 and far beyond:

1. "Come Together" (1.84 million plays)
2. "Let it Be" (1.55 million plays)
3. "Hey Jude" (1.32 million plays)
4. "Love Me Do" (1.31 million plays)
5. "Yesterday" (1.23 million plays)
6. "Here Comes the Sun" (1.23 million plays)
7. "Help!" (1.22 million plays)
8. "All You Need is Love" (1.17 million plays)
9. "I Want to Hold Your Hand" (1.1 million plays)
10. "Twist and Shout" (940,000 plays)

Check out the 9 Best Albums of 2015. 

[via Paste Magazine] 

[Feature Image Courtesy Instagram]