McCartney compares Taylor Swift’s fame to that of the Beatles

More than sixty years after the explosion of Beatlemania, Paul McCartney looks at the new pop superstars and sees a precise parallel with what he himself experienced in the Sixties. In a new interview granted to BBC Soundsthe musician and former Beatle has in fact compared Taylor Swift’s world fame to that achieved by the Beatles in the heyday of the Liverpool band. “You see the parallel, the fame and the amount of fame,” McCartney explained of the American singer’s global impact. “The worldwide fame that Taylor Swift has is similar to the one we had. But I honestly don’t think I need advice.”. During the conversation, McCartney also joked about his role compared to the new generations of pop stars: “I’m like the older brother of that generation… or rather, no, more likely the grandfather”.

The former Beatles said he met Swift several times along with other contemporary artists such as Billie Eilish, Olivia Rodrigo and Sabrina Carpenter during parties hosted by his wife Nancy Shevell and daughter Stella McCartney. “They are really cool, very good people,” he said. “I like their voices. If they needed advice I would be happy to give it, but I don’t think they need it“. In recent years the symbolic link between Taylor Swift and the Beatles has often also been underlined by numbers. In 2025 the American pop star in fact surpassed the British group’s historical record for the greatest number of songs simultaneously present in the Top 10 of the United World Chart: seven songs against the six placed by the Beatles in 1964. We’re only talking about rankings, obviously.