I liked The Beatles, but seriously, why were they so huge?

They were sexual, charismatic and adapted black music for a white audience. Just like Elvis. They embodied the burgeoning teenage culture. Their name The Beatles was an homage to The Wild One with Marlon Brando. The conservatives hated them and the youth embraced them and it led way to the counterculture.

Because they changed everything. For better or worse, nothing was the same musically after Sgt. Pepper.

American whites worried terribly about their kids who drooling over Black American musicians.

White musicians who played rock and roll are a twofer.

A. It soothed white American parents fears about kids getting strange ideas that the Blacks are worth anything and B. Ripped off the Black musicians who originated the genre.

The Beatles maybe the greatest band ever or might be overrated. But the Beatles made it clear that their early music was copied from Black American Artists.

Maybe because The Beatles were one of the first. And they were talented. They started the British Invasion.

But honestly, The Beatles just okay in my mind and for my tastes. I liked plenty of other groups and songs from the '60s who I enjoyed so much more.

The Supremes, The Four Tops, Gary Puckett and the Union Gap, Dave Clark Five, Tommy James and the Shondells, Sonny & Cher, Procol Harum, The Grass Roots, Marvin Gaye, The Mamas & The Papas, Dusty Springfield, Janis Joplin, Nancy Sinatra, Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons, etc. etc. The list goes on, but The Beatles were not among my favorites.

Right place, right time. They were four cute boys with charming British accents and Mop tops the teenage girls found erotic, and the music was classically awesome silly love songs that you want to twist and shout, it was their time and moment, and the Fab Four seized on it. A great time in music, a hugely memorable catalogue that you can't help but sing along... :-)

R4 Gary Puckett and the Union Gap? Really???

Most of the groups r4 mentioned weren’t from the British Invasion and are American groups.

When "I Want to Hold Your Hand" appeared at the end of 1963, it was unlike anything I had ever heard before. First, it was a huge relief from listening to all the music I'd been listening to since JFK was murdered. My mother was so sick of all the girl group music I'd been playing, especially "Be My Baby," which just happened to be my favorite song at that moment.

IWTHYH was followed in swift order by "She Loves You," "Please Please Me," "Do You Want to Know a Secret?", and "Love Me Do." The albums Meet the Beatles on Capitol and Introducing the Beatles on Vee-Jay were also released in January of '64. There was enough Beatles music to drown any residual Kennedy sorrows in. It was a while before I played any of my Spector 45s, the Four Seasons, Lesley Gore. All that stuff was [italic]so '63[/italic]. We had the Beatles now. And then the Dave Clark 5, the Searchers, Gerry and the Pacemakers, and all the rest of that British Invasion stuff to listen to now.

Unlike some of the above posters, I had no idea about the origins of the Beatles' music. I'm okay with that. My parents weren't afraid I was going to listen to black music. I suppose there's some truth to that, but it didn't affect me. I just liked the Beatles. In the summer, there came "Tell Me" by the Rolling Stones and "Where Did Our Love Go?" by the Supremes, loosing a whole 'nother couple of batches of music. 1964 was pretty terrific.

My old favorite group, the Beach Boys, put out three albums that year, Shut Down v. 2, All Summer Long, and The Beach Boys' Christmas Album. Again, a wonderful year for music.

But it was mostly the Beatles' year. They released a total of six studio albums in 1964 in the USA, and 10 singles. They started a complete revolution in music that year, and they only got better.

And they were influential. Many other singers and songwriters have talked about how they were influenced by the songs of John Lennon and Paul McCartney, none more famous than the Beach Boys' Brian Wilson, who has stated many times how hearing Rubber Soul, "an album with all good songs," inspired the creation of Pet Sounds. And Paul McCartney has spoken as often about Pet Sounds' influence on his songwriting, including the creation of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

I don't think Gary Puckett and the Union Gap have had quite the same influence on music or culture.

Nobody knows.

The Beatles refused to play at any segregated venues.

The Beatles had a culture shock too. They didn't understand why The US was so segregated and also why Americans were so offended by Lennon's comment "we're bigger than Jesus." Jimi Hendrix and Bob Marley enjoyed early success in The UK due to lack of segregation in the music market and there was crossover with the local proto-punk scene.

R8, I always thought that Gary Puckett's songs sounded pervy. Songs like Young Girl and Lady Willpower always sounded like he was the guy hanging around playgrounds.

[quote] , I always thought that Gary Puckett's songs sounded pervy. Songs like Young Girl and Lady Willpower always sounded like he was the guy hanging around playgrounds.

Oh for God's sake, they were great pop songs. Don't be so woke.

DC5 is way better in my book.

The Beatles were magical. That's why they were so "huge."

They weren't really that big until the Stars on 45 medleys in 1981

God, I hate the Beatles. The only album that is worth a shit is Sgt. Pepper.

I loved the Beatles, but I can go the rest of my life without hearing another Beatles song

They were many streams flowing together, making something that seemed new and special. There were things they got from Chuck Berry and Little Richard, things they got from Buddy Holly, Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins. There was the English skiffle influence, and some prerock pop influence as far back as dance halls and big bands (mostly from Paul via his musician dad). Later, they picked up things from Bob Dylan, and still later the Indian music. All of it was filtered through the classy, meticulous production of George Martin and the Abbey Road engineers.

The band had two great voices; two great songwriters at the height of their powers, a third who on his best days could match them. And they were young and ranged from reasonably attractive to really handsome, and they had a lot of personal charm and humor.

They cemented their mystique by breaking up just as the '60s were turning to the '70s, and just as they were all around 30. No long slow decline, no pathetic cash-grab reunion tours. They'd always belong to an era they helped define.

Not everything they made was a masterpiece or equally good, but I don't think they made a bad album. Their music always seems fresh and rewarding to me. No member's solo career really lived up to it.

Handsome? They were all hideous.

I like The Beatles but I’ve always preferred Lennon over Paul. I think George and John were the most talented.

Paul paved the way for the Ed Sheerans of the world today in my opinion.

And John said he was always embarrassed covering black songs because they were so superior to the band’s versions.

George was "hugh" if you catch my drift as was Ringo.

John and Paul = puny cocklets.

They were on the cutting, bleeding edge of a major musical and cultural phenomenon. Where they led, everyone else followed. And they stayed on it for 6-7 years, there was never a time when they weren't relevant. Breaking up when they did sealed the deal. They were and still are rock's supreme innovators.

The experts will fill you in on the detail, but you have to always sit yourself in the cultural context of the time to appreciate their impact.

Sitting in 2022 and throwing out a 2022 judgement about the 60's is pointless and naive.

Whenever I find myself going...huh about some cultural piece, I like to do a little homework to get why something was so adored and even if it's not my thing in the end, I can understand what the appeal was.

I think Beatles music sounds kind of twee. I don't really like any of it.

I do like their solo work

The Beatles were an ok starter band. It laid the foundation for Wings.

^ Take It Away was from his post-Wings period, though. '82.

They grew and grew and changed and changed.

The 60s were very powerful musically and they ran with it all the way to 1970.

Because they had a media machine behind them, run by British Jews.

[quote]Because they had a media machine behind them, run by British Jews.

^ Stupid

[quote] God, I hate the Beatles.

I think it's a reasonable assumption that a lot of people hate YOU.

{quote] Handsome? They were all hideous.

I'm sorry you're blind. You have my pity.

I don't even remotely get their popularity in any way. Ewww. Terrible music too.

[quote] She was just seventeen, 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑘𝑛𝑜𝑤 𝑤ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝐼 𝑚𝑒𝑎𝑛

Cancel those old pervs

For one thing they really worked hard and treated music making like a job. They showed up to work every day created and recorded consistently month after month and year after year. The had marketing machine in place and they showed up and performed on schedule. They worked well with the team to produce a consistent product. They also got lucky that TV and the music industry came along and as a whole bunch people were becoming consumers. tThere Art had mass appeal. Every artist knows that success has a lot to do with whether ones art has mass appeal. Plenty of great Artist are very niche appeal Artist but still have great ideas and innovation. Maybe there was a lot of sexual repressed women that needed to squeal at something and the Beatles were giving them a permissive reason. It looks that way in the video. I thought they were decent performers and had a good stage provence that was disarming.

[quote] I don't even remotely get their popularity in any way. Ewww. Terrible music too.

I guess you're just stupid then.

Another factor: Young women shrieking and fainting and losing their shit over musical idols was nothing novel, from Liszt (yeah, really) to Paderewski to the young Sinatra to Elvis. But all of those were solo acts. This time there were four of them in one place. If three of them weren't to your taste, the other one might be.

[quote] Liszt (yeah, really) to Paderewski to the young Sinatra to Elvis.

I don't know about the others but the Sinatra thing began with his management planting girls in the audience paid to scream. I wouldn't be surprised if Col.Parker had played the same trick.

"The frantic and frenetic screaming at concerts appears almost contagious. Emotional contagion occurs in humans and, at least some animals, too, and represents one likely dimension of an explanation for this sort of screaming. It’s a quite well-studied and recognized psychological phenomenon. One of my students, then a senior at Emory University, knowing that I conduct research on screams, told me a funny and fascinating story about her own experience with this phenomenon. At the insistence of her parents, she reluctantly, and most embarrassedly, attended a Justin Bieber concert to chaperon her younger sister. My student insisted she was no fan of "The Biebs" and was utterly perplexed at how—enmeshed in all the screaming of much younger fans—she found herself reflexively (her word) joining in."

Young girls don't lose it over songs. They lose it over cute guys, and they do it in this kind of situation because it's both rebellious and sexually safe. You are not a 1960s female teen so you can't really judge whether the Beatles were cute or not to the sensibilities of the time -- you have to let the screaming guide you.

The people who say The Beatles are the greatest band of all time are not the girls who were screaming. They didn't care what the group was singing, or only cared very tangentially. (BTW, they used to scream at The Beatles movies as well.)

Those who do say The Beatles are the best of all cite (a) their capacity to grab or foresee the Zeitgeist in their music, (b) their capacity to change and deepen their work as they went and (c) their capacity to influence the direction in which non-classical music would go. It is musicians and critics who will cite Sergeant Pepper as the most influential album ever. They also stopped playing together comparatively very soon after they became popular, so the amount of influence they had and the level of fame they reached in that short period is part of what goes to their credit.

When I first heard Nirvana, I was taken aback and thought "Wow, that is someting entirely differnt!". It was the same with the Beatles but much more dramatic and pervasive. Their music was different form everything else and many tried to follow. Then they chnged it up even more further influencing rock music in genral. Even my parents liked the Beatles and recognized they were good. They were a phnenomenon and you had to be there.

As a very young but avid radio-listener back then, I would say because their sound was totally unique, new, and EXCITING. There was a certain visceral thrill you got when they came on. It's hard to imagine hearing them fresh and unlike anything that had come before. You have to try to understand - everything that came after them musically hadn't happened yet. They were so experimental.

Just a reminder, Paul was with the band only up to the point he blew his mind out in a car and the band retreated out of view into the studio with an imposter.

Paul McCartney seemed before that, and has seemed ever after, to be the rock musician LEAST likely to commit suicide.

I know I’ll get Mary-ed for this, but I can’t imagine the world or my life without The Beatles. I just woke up and I’m not feeling very articulate but I’ll try: their music is just so beautiful, so transcendent, so timeless. Side two of Abbey Road is so gorgeous it makes my heart hurt - Their voices sound like angels on Sun King and The End and the fact that AR came out only six years after they performed on Ed Sullivan is astonishing. There are plenty of other great bands from that era but IMO, none match the breadth and depth of The Beatles.

Well my parents were racist from way back. Like way back. But they enjoyed black musicians. Lena Horne, Nat King Cole, Ella Fitzgerald, The Supremes... Great musicians were great musicians to them. A mixed race family moved next door. Ooh boy. But the woman was such a beautiful person they got over that thank god. And yeah they liked the Beatles. They bought our first Beatle's album Rubber Soul when it was relatively new. And when I mean way back like my mother saw the original casts in Guys and Dolls, Can Can and Pajama Game.

They entered American culture and developed a huge fanbase immediately with pop songs like Help! and I Wanna Hold Your Hand. Later, they delivered some really great, more meaningful, better-orchestrated music like She's Leaving Home, Let It Be, The Long and Winding Road and Across the Universe. I'm a fan.

OP, I recommend watching Get Back if you have time. It’s the beginning of end of The Beatles but is a really intimate insight into their personalities and process, especially Paul’s. He is such a natural musician and performer that the music almost literally flows through him as he is being filmed. To think that they were all only 27-28 years old, were two years past SPLHCB and were still putting out near-masterpieces is mind-blowing. And yes, they benefited from a meticulous and classy production team (can’t find who wrote that above) who understood their sound and what they were trying to achieve.

R2 The Beatles did not get screaming girls because of Sgt. Pepper. That album was years later. Their music became more sophisticated over time, which is to their credit.

It's not like cute boy bands aren't a thing in our era. But even their early work was distinctive, so personal appeal+music.

I also agree that breaking up while they were young helped their mystique. So did Lennon being killed, probably. None of them died fat on the toilet like Elvis.

Nothing in pop culture for the last 100 years has been organic.

If you get "huge", it is due to the power structure of media coverage enabling and promoting that to happen.

They were backed by a media machine. Same as Top Gun II being a huge moneymaker now. It's all about the marketing.

you had to be there...

Lots of product has promotion behind it and still tanks.

[quote]It's all about the marketing.

Marketing will only do so much. If you want to last, you have to be able to deliver the goods. And they did.

One thing that helped their longevity is that they have a song about nearly any topic, which makes it easier to use them in commercial advertising.

I had always hoped that they would perform live again. All those screaming girls would have been older and quietly stoned.

But they don't allow their songs to be used in commercial advertising very much.

I'm sorry, but if you haven't the fortitude to read some cultural history, others shouldn't have to spoon-feed you.

Napoleon---Why was this dwarf famous, anyway?

Cleopatra--- Caesar AND Antony! IDGI.

Sinatra---Hoboken? Seriously, why all the fuss?

MLK, Jr.---Somebody explain to me what his protests were all about. I was born in 2002.

"The Godfather"---Hokey old gangster flick. I don't understand its popularity, considering it doesn't even have Dolby Surround Sound 7.1.

Lenin, Lennon---Tomato, tomahto. Whatevs.

The Beatles Never Existed.

I never knew that, in the early fall of '63, "She Loves You," by a then-unknown group in the states, was on the Rate a Record segment of American Bandstand, receiving a score of only 73 out of 100. To add insult to injury, the teenage audience laughed when shown a photo of the band. I'd love to see video of this.

They were a boy band with one very pretty boy and 3 very plain-looking boys.

You had to have been there.

[quote]They were a boy band

They started out that way but quickly grew beyond that. If that was all they were they would have disappeared within a year.

I want to fuck your hand

R58, No. The Beatles, like the Stones, Searchers, DC5, etc., were not "boy bands."

They were bands, period. Musicians.

NOT simply singers, and not with choreography, e.g., Backstreet Boys, 'NSYNC, One D, Boyzone, etc. THESE are boy bands.

We never listened to surfing music again.

I once read that after the trauma of Kennedy being assassinated, they were like teddy bears to hang onto.

R63, Check 1966.

[quote] They were bands, period. Musicians.

Half of the Beatles' 'musicianship' was contributed by George Martin.

Half of the Stones' musicianship' was contributed by Andrew Loog Oldham.

Overrated.

[quote] They were a boy band with one very pretty boy and 3 very plain-looking boys.

I thought they were all attractive, even Ringo. When young he was ugly/cute but he grew into his looks as he got older and became a nice looking man.

After Elvis joined the Army, popular radio became saturated with snoozy singers like Pat Boone, Paul Anka, and Perry Como, and teen idol rock 'n' rollers like Frankie Avalon, Ricky Nelson, and Fabian, and pop princesses like Connie Francis and Brenda Lee. Rock music became safe and boring. The Beatles re-energized rock and roll and made it exciting again.

Right place right time an easily likable energy and aesthetic. Chosen by marketers and culture managers who noticed the appeal they had. Those with marketing and distribution mechanisms in place. Expose and distribute to a mass audience. Same with many famous Artists be it painting, music or theater. They are chosen by the marketers for their mass appeal and marketability. Packaged and presented as a product. Probably the same with sports and political ideas. The movie the Devil wears Prada is about this.

I thought they were important and profound at the time of 'Pepper' when they were kept in check by George Martin.

They went nutty after that and In the ensuing years I realised Lennon was an Peter-Sellers-type nutter who would have probably overdosed and died young.

And I also realised that McCartney was a middling songwriter capable only of unintelligent, saccharine schlock.

R66, Do you do this deconstruction with artists and their works (music, films, other) that you like?

Because NOBODY has more hands in a Pop song's pot than anyone contemporary you can name. It's the newest Christmas song:

12 Swedish producers meddling

11 Tech CEO financiers funding

10 Company lawyers vetting

9 Co-writers grifting

8 Better talents exiling

7 Payola guys extorting

6 Reviewers lying

5 Auto-tunes!

4 Awful re-mixings

3 Jimmy Fallon fawnings,

2 Tik-Toks,

And a last-minute check with Dr. Luke!

John Lennon composer.

The Beatles were the first band after the origins of rock and roll (mid 50s) who really went through an astounding transformation from their origins.

Where they went from 1966-1970 was quite remarkable, and it elevated the whole genre (oops, I mean jandra) as a result.

Who was the pretty one?

[quote]I also realised that McCartney was a middling songwriter capable only of unintelligent, saccharine schlock.

I can't go along there. McCartney had tremendous natural gifts. Singing, playing numerous instruments well, and songwriting (especially the melodic side) all came so naturally and easily to him. The problem is, he never developed a capacity to distinguish between "This is a great song," "This is a song that could be great, but needs more work," and "This is a song I should throw away altogether." He can't edit himself, and after 1969-70, who was going to do it for him? Linda? A hired gun in the revolving cast of Wings? The record producer? (He always ran roughshod over producers.)

That weakness in quality control often seems to afflict young musicians who, when young, get told over and over that they're geniuses. Dylan and Prince are two other examples.

Why, R72, yes I do.

When I read a novel I give total attention to the author. When I attend an opera or concert I give 60% attention to the composer's skills and 40% to the performer's.

When I watch a classic movie I give 40% attention to the performers on screen and 60% to the people behind the screen who do the coaching, cutting and grooming.

When I watch a current movie… no, stop… I do NOT attend current movies because 95% of current movie and 98% of current pop music is confected garbage.

I’m with R75, R58. Paul was the “very pretty boy” only in comparison to the unattractiveness of the others. But a pretty low bar.

To fully appreciate how revolutionary the Beatles were to our popular culture, just look at the rest of the acts Sullivan booked for the series of shows in the winter of ‘64.

For America, at least, their timing was perfect, though unintentionally. JFK was assassinated on November 22, 1963 and the country was still in a mourning phase. The Beatles made their debut on The Ed Sullivan Show on February 9, 1964, just 79 days after JFK's assassination. They gave the US something to be happy and excited about. Television was huge and influential in America then. 73 million Americans watched the Beatles on TV that night, an unheard of number. They instantly became household names in America.

The Beatles never existed.

If "Come Together" comes on the radio and you don't immediately blast it in your car and rock out all alone or with other in the car, your soul is dead and you might as well just plant yourself in the garden.

CUM TOGETHER!

R69 There was Bob Dylan but he hadn't gone electric yet.

Also, while Dylan was a big talent and reached a lot of people, he was always more "niche" than Elvis and the Beatles. Some people never could get past the sound of his voice, and he wasn't any conventional dreamboat. (Yeah, I know there are people in this thread who think the Beatles were ugly, but they had boatloads of screaming girls who felt differently. Dylan had older, studious girls gazing thoughtfully as he sang about injustice.)

[quote] in the early fall of '63, "She Loves You," by a then-unknown group in the states, was on the Rate a Record segment of American Bandstand, receiving a score of only 73 out of 100.

Hard to imagine teenagers of the day wouldn't have immmediately fallen in love with that song.

I don't find anyone of them physically attractive except for George Harrison who wasn't pretty but was cute with bushy eyebrows, a tan and very fuckable looking.

Gays on here need to get straight girls just have different ideals. The Beatles were non-threatening and charismatic and had romantic and sexual songs that appealed to girls emotionally. It's about the emotional connect, the swooning.

So much bullshit written here. I don't know where to begin.

[quote]They were sexual, charismatic and adapted black music for a white audience. Just like Elvis.

[quote] It soothed white American parents fears about kids getting strange ideas that the Blacks are worth anything and B. Ripped off the Black musicians who originated the genre.

The Beatles ripped off no one.

On their first two early albums the did do covers of Chuck Berry, The Shirelles, Little Richard, but they were songs that were already massive hits by the original artists. "Roll Over Beethoven" was already a huge hit in 1956. The Beatle's cover only added to Chuck Berry's wealth. So where's the "rip off"?

Also (and most importantly) the album that put the Beatles on the map in the US and internationally was "Introducing The Beatles" and there were NO covers of black artists. So what are you even talking about?

The breakout hits for the Beatles were "She Loves You", "I Want to Hold Your Hand" and "I Saw Her Standing There" ALL written by Lennon -McCartney. Those were the songs that revolutionized the pop music scene in 1964.

By April 1964 the 5 top hits in the country were by the Beatles and none of them were covers.

[quote]The Beatles maybe the greatest band ever or might be overrated. But the Beatles made it clear that their early music was copied from Black American Artists.

The copied no one. In their early days they did do covers of Chuck Berry as well as Buddy Holly...so what?....that's not "copying".

[quote]It soothed white American parents fears about kids getting strange ideas that the Blacks are worth anything

Please just stop it.

Stop trying to rewrite history. There were black artists...pop music STARS... that were hugely successful across the board with number 1s and top ten hits long before the Beatles.

Frankie Lymon, The Platters, Jackie Wilson, Fats Domino, Little Richard, Johnny Mathis, Sam Cooke, Chubby Checker, The Drifters, The Coasters, Brook Benton, Ray Charles, Lloyd Price, Bobby Lewis, Dee Clark, the various Doo-Wop groups, the "girl groups" etc. and etc. and etc.

The Billboard Year-End Hot 100 singles of 1961 had 4 out of the top 10 songs by black artists. So please stop rewriting history.

Oh, shut up, OP.

Troll.

[quote]Also (and most importantly) the album that put the Beatles on the map in the US and internationally was "Introducing The Beatles" and there were NO covers of black artists. So what are you even talking about?

Actually, “Anna” was written and recorded by Arthur Alexander, who was black.

The Cookies, who recorded “Chains” in 1962, were black.

And the Shirelles did “Boys” first. And “Baby It’s You.” Black.

Both the Top Notes and the Isley Brothers recorded “Twist and Shout” before the Beatles. More blacks.

So, r87, what are [bold]you[/bold] even talking about? Perhaps you meant Meet the Beatles, their first Capitol album, on which there are no black covers.

"Twist and Shout" was written by two white men, r89, Phil Medley and Bert Burns. The Top Notes and Isley Brothers were black people performing music written by whites.

"Chains" was written by Carole King and Gerry Goffin.

"Baby it's You" was written by two white guys (Burt Bacharach and Mack David) and a black guy (Luther Dixon).

"Boys" was written by a black guy (Luther Dixon)and a white guy (Wes Farrell).

A lot of the music recorded by American black performers in the 1950s and 1960s was actually written by white people, often Jews (we can also add Jerry Lieber and Mike Stoller, and Phil Spector to that list).

R89 Yes , I meant "Meet the Beatles". That is the album that established them.

And note: on the Ed Sullivan Show February 1964, the moment that truly introduced them to American audiences, they performed “All My Loving,” “Till There Was You”, “She Loves You”, “I Saw Her Standing There” and “I Want to Hold Your Hand” ....so where is the supposed "rip off" of black artists?

And as R90 correctly points out, plenty of so- called black music was actually written by white artists or was a collaboration of writers, producers and musicians.

Thank you, r87.

The bandwagons are getting more and more ridiculous, ignorant, obdurate, and arrogant the younger the drivers and passengers get.

Terrible irony: While vilifying Elvis and now the Beatles, some are apparently determined to "rehabilitate" Hitler!

One of my favorite astrologers wrote an interesting analysis of this and I'll quickly paraphrase. Basically we're transitioning from the Age of Pisces to the Age of Aquarius and The Beatles represent the Aquarian Age. Note: a new age does not arrive all at once but instead rolls in and out like the tide.

The Beatles were a group of friends (an obvious Aquarian theme), common people, and although they were part of one cohesive group each person was distinctive and brought something unique to the group. Jazz music is very Aquarian in the sense that everyone is kind of doing their own thing and The Beatles were quite influenced by jazz (as opposed to something like choir music where the idea is to blend everything so individual voices are indistinguishable; that's more Pisces Age).

There's more to this but it was very clear The Beatles represented the coming Aquarian age John Lennon said The Beatles were more popular than Jesus (Jesus being an emblem of the Ages of Pisces). Not only was he right, but he was essentially announcing that the Pisces Age was ending and Aquarius was incoming.

The Beatles were huge because the moment was right (we as a collective were sensing and embracing the new Aquarian Age) and they as a group were symbolic representations of the Aquarian way. When something catches on big, it's because the shift is already happening within all of us. By the way, we aren't fully in the Age of Aquarius yet but the waves are getting larger, it seems.

^Marilyn McCoo

It was a very different time, OP. The impact of the Beatles on popular music cannot be overstated. They were brilliant. So much of what they did is still influencing music today, whether the younger people listening to it know that or not.

Because boomers had terrible taste in music.

It was because of white supremacy!

If you weren’t there you won’t get it.

They weren't the same after Paul died.

They were just in the right place at the right time. People babbling about adapting black music are clueless. Sure, some of their inspiration came from black artists, but artists like Buddy Holly also inspired them. They actually named themselves after insects as homage to Holly. Parents hated the Beatles for their “long hair” and “wild music”. Kids loved them for their look and unique sound. They were originals.

The link to R89’s post is the most enduring image of my earliest outside world memories.

[quote] … The impact of the Beatles on popular music cannot be overstated … much of what they did is still influencing music today, whether the younger people listening to it know that or not.

So, R95, can you name a particular musician of this generation who best exemplifies this influence of which you speak?

The Beatles Never Existed

Sure, r102, Ed Sheeran, The Indigo Girls, Nirvana, The Pet Shop Boys, Supertramp, and I could go on but all you have to do is listen to the Beatles and then listen to music for the past 50 years and you'll hear it for yourself.

R104 You mention the Beatles and their music.

I contend that Harrison contributed 13% of that musicianship and Ringo just 2%.

Lennon and McCartney each contributed 35% each in their own particular varied styles.

While George Martin contributed the remaining 15%.

In addition to being musical innovators, they were a cultural phenomenon...

[quote]The Beatles’ music still lives on today because it was written as a call for peace during a time where this confidence still did not exist. We are constantly looking for something new — something to distract us from the hardships we face in the world due to politics, environmental shifts, or trials in our personal lives. Ergo, that era has not changed, and neither has the story that the Beatles have told ended. Until we are finally at peace, The Beatles’ music will continue to be relevant. And as life will always have its downfalls, odds are that their call for love and peace will live on for generations to come.

They were not only in the right place & time but they leveraged that popularity to prove that experimental & leading edge processes can be applied to pop music. They were:

First to use the studio as a contributing instrument. That is, they first to book lengthy studio time to work through the creative process.

The first to utilized recording technology as an instrument: over-dubbing, reverse tracking, layering, multiple sound effects, etc. including the sitar & the modular synthesizer in their later recordings.

FWIW, The Beatles introduced the western pop audiences to Indian music, culture, and TM.

The first to approach an album as a cohesive deliverable. There were few throwaway tracks on their albums (Maxwell’s Hammer, Octopus aside). Their vision & intentions were so focused on producing cohesive albums that they rarely included the single releases on their albums. Not that the albums didn’t contain single releases, but the singles that were released apart from the albums were never included in the final album product.

They were the first to consider an album covers as an opportunity for artistic expression (and Klaus Voormann is grateful).

One of the first the issue what was later termed a “music video” for Strawberry Fields & Penny Lane.

They were the first rock back to perform in a stadium (Shea Stadium). They hold the record for largest American TV audience for a musical artist: 70+ million on Ed Sullivan.

They were the first and only artists to hold the top 5 spots on the BB 100. They still hold the record for most #1 hits, most #1 albums, most discs sold, per EMI, and so on.

The Beatles’ became the driving cultural force of the 60’s because of their artistic courage and vision. Marketing can be effective only so far into a career. At some point, an artist has to deliver the goods or they end up wallowing in mediocrity.

Beginning with Rubber Soul, Lennon-McCartney purposely began adding leading edge sounds to their recordings, with significant contributions by George Martin. The Beatles shunned the formulaic by ensuring that each new release, beginning with Rubber Soul, pushed past the boundaries of recording and artistic expression.

1964 was a schizoid year after the death of Kennedy. In January Hello, Dolly! a very old fashioned musical opened and immediately became a smash hit and was known nation wide simply because its title song was a sensation. Didn't it kick a Beatles' song off no1 in the pop charts? And the biggest movies of the year were Mary Poppins and My Fair Lady. But things were changing with Dr. Strangelove and A Hard Day's Night.

I don't think the poster above gives any credit to English music hall songs as an important influence on them which was brought out throughout their musical career no matter how cutting edge they became. They probably heard a lot of them as boys in the 40s and 50s. Their influences were catholic.

They were huge because they were the first

I agree with a lot of R108's post, but:

[quote]The first to approach an album as a cohesive deliverable.

Sinatra deserves some credit there. On '50s Capitol albums such as Only the Lonely, Where Are You?, and Come Fly With Me, he and his excellent arrangers were trying to go beyond just putting ten good songs under one cover; they were using the still-new format of the LP to sustain a mood and tell a story. There was a lot of care given to sequencing. It was the genesis of the rock concept album.

Right people in the right place at the right time.

To that, add that they made the most of that card, displaying enormous creativity, and opening a door through which many others came.

They were both part of and the weavers of the fabric of the Sixties.

I won the generational lottery to be a young man in London in the Swingin' Sixties.

I feel sorry for the rest of you lot, not least OP, who shows the paltry character of everything that came after because he even has to ask.

{quote] I won the generational lottery to be a young man in London in the Swingin' Sixties. I feel sorry for the rest of you lot...

Okay Boomer... Yes, we "paltry" lot who came after are envious but why bash us for being curious? Have you learned anything from the 60's besides smug selfishness?

R112, R111 may not even be a boomer; he may well have been born during the war.

R113 Try again, Boomer. Which war? There have been many wars since "the war," which in your self-centered brain can only mean WWII.

My bad, R114. R111, as "a young man in London in the Swingin' Sixties[,]" could've been born during the Spanish Civil War.

[quote]I don't think the poster above gives any credit to English music hall songs as an important influence on them which was brought out throughout their musical career no matter how cutting edge they became.

True. And in the latter half of the 60s there was a huge nostalgia craze and the Beatles were responsible for much of it starting with the "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" album.

[quote]Sinatra deserves some credit there. On '50s Capitol albums such as Only the Lonely, Where Are You?, and Come Fly With Me, he and his excellent arrangers were trying to go beyond just putting ten good songs under one cover; they were using the still-new format of the LP to sustain a mood and tell a story.

True.

R115 Good point! 😂

R112 That isn't "curiosity". It's not exactly obscure cultural history, you know? The entire era stands as a landmark that is referred to constantly. and has been discussed endlessly.

It's like asking what made Elvis so huge. Well, ffs, that's been "deconstructed" endlessly, too. Listen once to Heartbreak Hotel and Jailhouse Rock and it's not hard to figure out. And, Elvis hit Britain hard, too, by the way.

For the record, I am, but barely, a post-WWII baby. Make of that what you will.

R118 I don't share OP's curiosity but I defend OP's right to ask why the Beatles' young, female audiences lost it (they literally peed their pants). If you're tired of discussing the topic, why bother to engage? 🙄

THE most overrated act in history

They were sexy compared to everything else out there at the time. The tight shark-skin suits with no collars. The Chelsea boots.

The long hair. American men had their hair parted, greased pompadours, crew cuts...the Beatle's hair style was something new and at the time subversive.

And for the most part, they sang with British accents. They didn't try to sound American. It was a new cool sound. In fact that whole crop of British Invasion performers kept their accents....some even accentuating it like Peter Noone. Girls loved it.

So it was all new and exotic compared to The Beach Boys, Bobby Darrin, Jan & Dean, Dion, Paul Anka, Bobby Vinton, Bobby Vee, Frankie Avalon etc.

R119 - All right, OP has a right to ask, and I apologise for the incivility. By "paltry" though I wasn't referring to the people that came after, but the originality and quality of the musical culture. In fact, make that most of the culture. It was an astonishing era.

R118

Oh and poster lower down: THE most overrated act in history? Please. Facile teen shit like One Direction? Taylor Swift?

They went from sunny basics to stuff like Revolver, Sergeant Pepper, the White Album . . . come on, they wrote most of their own songs, they were interesting, they didn't stay still.

And the rest of the lot coming in with them were an amazing crowd, too - not one band was like the other - ffs, The Kinks, The Stones, The Animals, The Searchers, never mind Cream . . . The Yardbirds, The Small Faces, The Hollies, The Who . . .

It was the Beatles who opened that door. And their influence seeded creative responses in America, as well - you think the Beach Boys would have come up with Good Vibrations without the British Invasion?

And I say this as someone who also loved American pop music, including the folk crowd. That's part of my point: the Beatles spearheaded an exchange of something as well.

But to call The Beatles THE most overrated act of all time? That's just bullshit. And I DON'T apologise for that incivility.

And the film "A Hard Day's Night" is a minor masterpiece.

[quote]I wasn't referring to the people that came after, but the originality and quality of the musical culture.

R122 Okay, you get a pass, Boomzy. Those of us who were "late to the party" don't need to be reminded.

[quote] (they literally peed their pants)

No, it was vagina juice.

R8 so 63' lololol. That's so funny. Interesting how just 20 years later Madonna was writhing around on stages in color. It wasn't that long ago.

Teenagers are the same in any generation!

More teens reviewing the Beatles.

[quote] A. It soothed white American parents fears about kids getting strange ideas that the Blacks are worth anything and B. Ripped off the Black musicians who originated the genre.

This is why I can't abide The Rolling Stones. If you ask Stones fans about real original blues music, they can never tell you anything about it. Fuck them.

[quote]It soothed white American parents fears about kids getting strange ideas that the Blacks are worth anything

That statement is so ridiculous.

R126, I’ve noticed that, likely due to copyright right reasons, none of the AB videos of the Beatles actually play their songs.

The Beatles Arrive in America - [ Queens, New York, February 7, 1964 ]

The Beatles come to America February 7th 1964

Young Millennial here. I was like really into JC Chasez & *NSYNC when I was seven years old. But I can't imagine admitting that to anyone as an adult. Thank goodness back then I never went to a live concert or proclaimed what a fan I was on camera, like some of the girls upthread--the shame!

I love JC!

It's a cliche here, but it really helps to understand their impact if you were there at the time. I was 10 in 1963 and totally bummed by the JFK assassination as the year ended. 1964 began with the biggest hit being DOMINIQUE by the Singing Nun. Everybody, young and old, loved that song! I remember when the drums began beating for the Beatles, with articles about them in the daily papers and their songs popping up on the radio. At that time, most pop & rock acts had a single song or the charts or one TV appearance to watch. We then got the Beatles on THREE CONSECUTIVE ED SULLIVAN SHOWS and two years of their recorded output seemingly dumped on the market all at once. Hit after hit climbed the charts simultaneously on multiple record labels. No previous teen sensation had that kind of instant saturation impact, in that limited media era. You couldn't go anywhere without hearing their music or seeing articles in the fan magazines or dailies. It wasn't a case of whether you liked the Beatles or not. It was, "which Beatle was your favorite?"

I was 10 in 1963. In October of that year I remember my brother telling me "Hear that song? It's a new group from England". Apparently a radio station out of Philly had one of their records and started playing it to not much fanfare. But my brother was already a fan.

I remember watching the Ed Sullivan show with the Beatles' first performance, and all of us talking about it the next day in school.

[quote]1964 began with the biggest hit being DOMINIQUE by the Singing Nun.

And the Grammy Award winning song of 1963 was "Deep Purple" by April Stevens and Nino Tempo. A song written in 1939.

Yep....we were all ready for something new.

R127 - Oh, come on. The Stones never pretended they originated the sound, and performed with Chuck Berry.

The racial issue is unfortunately clouding an artistic truth: all artistic shifts stand on the shoulders of previous ones, from European classical music onward. You can hear Mozart in Beethoven in Brahms, Brahms in Dvorak, Ravel in Gershwin, ffs . . . art moves on always, and the last thing on the line casts a shadow over the next one. Beethoven broke the bonds of "German Pure Music" that dominated until the Romantic era of the 19th century, but those Romantic composers also worshipped Mozart.

What about the equally fantastic Big Band Era of the 1930s and 1940s? Benny Goodman, Stan Getz, Artie Shaw . . . were they invalid because swing grew out of the originators of jazz and blues? Did you hear Ellington and Armstrong calling artists like Goodman and those fantastic musicians in the bands frauds?

All art stand on what came before. It's too bad the racial issue plays into this, and that isn't to say there wasn't one: but it's not the only truth of those sixties bands.

And the last Number 1 Billboard hit before the Beatles was THERE, I'VE SAID IT AGAIN by Bobby Vinton, a cover of a 1945 hit song.

R57, starting at 14:17, "These Boots Are Made for Walkin'" didn't fare much better - getting an average 77.5 - on a subsequent edition of Bandstand's Rate a Record.

[quite] I apologise for the incivility

R122 I thank you for your politeness. It is very rare in this place where four-letter words are used so frequently and thoughtlessly.

Oh dear. I wrote 'quite' when I meant to write 'quote'.

R134 and R135

[quote] I was 10 in 1963

[quote] I was 10 in 1963

And therefore what, r141? I was 12.

R142 It's great coincidence, you both lived through the First Wave of Beatlemania.

My elder brother told me about all that. He purchased a Beatles doll from the local garage.

It was about 4 inches tall, plastic with a mop of synthetic hair and, I assume, hand-painted by a Japanese slave-worker. When he got bored he tried to trim the hair. I don't remember it looking as silly as the picture below.

I loved "Deep Purple." I had no idea Nino Tempo and April Stevens' song came from 1939. It was on its way up the chart three weeks before the Beatles exploded in NY. Nino and April's version of "Whispering" was the Pick Hit of the Week" that Tuesday, December 10, 1963.

My parents gave me a stereo for Christmas that year, and suddenly I could play albums. They gave me a few each by Lesley Gore and the Beach Boys. We had no idea what was coming..

I had all of these 45s:

3. I'm Leaving It Up to You - Dale & Grace (Montel) 5

4. I Wonder What She's Doing Tonight - Barry & the Tamerlanes (Valiant) 4

7. She's a Fool - Lesley Gore (Mercury) 7

*8. I Have a Boyfriend - The Chiffons (Laurie) 6

9. Deep Purple - Nino Tempo & April Stevens (Atco) 15

10. Everybody - Tommy Roe (ABC-Paramount) 16

11. Have You Heard - The Duprees (Coed) 9

12. Wonderful Summer - Robin Ward (Dot) 17

16. You Don't Have to Be a Baby to Cry - The Caravelles (Smash) 26

*20. Popsicles and Icicles - The Murmaids (Chattahoochee) 24

26. Be True to Your School - The Beach Boys (Capitol) --

28. Talk Back Trembling Lips - Johnny Tillotson (MGM) 19

41. Frosty the Snowman - The Ronettes (Philles) 43

Radio 77 Pick Hit: Whispering - Nino Tempo and April Stevens (Atco)

* former Pick Hits of the Week

Let me guess, r144: You're from Queens (not making a joke; just bein' friendly!).

W🅰️BC, Cousin Brucie, Cousin Brucie, Cousin Brucie....

I saw them in concert in 1964. Atlantic City.

[quote] 1964 began with the biggest hit being DOMINIQUE by the Singing Nun.

That was no. 1 the week JFK was killed, so I forever associate that song with the assassination.

I only know the song Dominique from the film The Singing Nun. That's where I first heard it as a boy. I like it to this day. Had no idea it was no 1 on the US pop charts.

If I could have been a teen/young man during a certain period in history it would have been post WWll New York. Second would have been London in the 60s. Not only the music but dear god the theater!

r148, my mother would thereafter associate "Be My Baby" with the assassination. Apparently, I played it all weekend on repeat (I had one of those RCA 45 players). It was part of my parents' motivation to buy me a stereo that Christmas—that way, I wouldn't be limited to playing 45s all the time.

I don't remember what I played that weekend, but I trust my mother was right.

r145 Nope. The wilds of northern New Jersey.

So, R150, the assassination was of no moment for you? I trust you were quite young.

I wasn't sure, r152, what made you think that, but then I remembered how badly my mother wanted my brother and me to pretend nothing bad had happened that weekend. Listening to music, even if she didn't like the record I was playing on repeat, while reading a book, was normal, everyday behavior for me.

I went to my Saturday art class the next day (in retrospect, I was surprised it was open). Like millions of other people, I saw Jack Ruby get shot on live tv after Mass that Sunday, and that event, especially, made my mother lose her mind. I wasn't allowed to be in the house during the funeral. It wasn't [italic]cold[/italic] cold out, but I sat out in the back yard playing Clue at the picnic table with a friend who didn't want to watch the funeral. My mother lived in as much denial as it was possible to live, and she shared that characteristic with me.

So yeah, I can see why you might assume the assassination "was of no moment" to me. You're wrong, but I get your point.

[quote] I saw Jack Ruby get shot on live tv

I’m presuming you’re referring to Lee Harvey Oswald.

Thank you, r154. Hahahahaha. You're right. Thanks for catching that!

^ That’s not as bad as people who think John F. Kennedy murdered President Lee Harvey Oswald!

Teen girls like them first and then yrs later men, just like the Monkees ,the beach boys and many others..

Great new pop music and fantastic MARKETING. Plus endless product. Musical growth, each member (except Ringo) made major contributions.

[quote]They were sexual, charismatic and adapted black music for a white audience

They were ENGLISH, not sexual in the least. That's part of their appeal. Two, there was no adaptation of black music, it was purely English - non-threatening and easy to like.

Lucky bugger, r146! I'm still annoyed with my parents for not taking me to "The Ed Sullivan Show!" (They otherwise went to NYC often.)

[quote]They were ENGLISH, not sexual in the least.

You obviously weren't around back then.

To the pre-teen girls, they weren't sexual - that's the appeal of boy bands and androgynous pop stars to young pre-teen and teen girls, pal, R160. The HAIR made them even more girly. My parents freaked out because they thought The Beatles had to be homosexuals with that hair.

^ Not, I’m sure, they thought there was anything wrong with that.

On what date did you buy your first copy of "I Want to Hold Your Hand"?

Mine was probably January 2, 1964, after hearing it for the first time on 77 WABC-AM. Thought it was heaven-sent after the long, post-assassination Christmas holiday.

I agreed with my friend Barbara that Paul was the best-looking Beatle, but kept to myself the fact that he wasn't nearly as hot as the Beach Boys' Dennis Wilson.

[quote]To the pre-teen girls, they weren't sexual

Love how you moved the goal posts.

Pre teen? Yeah, girls up to 11 years old were one part of their audience.

But those crowds were full of TEENS.

And yes...the Beatles sure were sexual.

Because there had been no one like them. They emerged shortly after the assassination of John F. Kennedy and ushered in a whole new era, in music and popular culture.

"For reasons that even psychologists could not agree upon, the Beatles seemed to exude a kind of sublimated sexual energy, coupled with a tender sensibility, which left young girls absolutely obsessed."

R166, maybe because they were guys in their 20s?

R166, Thanks for that article.

[quote]And certainly it’s difficult, nowadays, to listen to “Please Please Me” as anything other than an exasperated plea for oral sex. But few of the group’s contemporary listeners had much to say about any possible sexual insinuations in the Beatles’ work.

Right? As a Gen-Xer and post-Beatles fan, I was amazed "Please Please Me" got through the censors during that repressed era. For you guys who lived through it, what were people thinking the lyrics meant, other than "blow me?"

If "please" in this context means "suck my dick," then this lyric makes the song gay AF:

"Please please me, oh, yeah, like I please you."

How did no one at the time notice that there were multiple different guys playing the roles of each of the Beatles?

It's remarkable that they released Meet the Beatles, The Beatles Second Album and A Hard Day's Night as well as the movie A Hard Day's Night all in 1964. For us Beatles fans at that time, it was heaven.

R170 That is the most stupid conspiracy theory ever.

R170 STFU and let the grownups talk.

The 'Faul Troll' (fake Paul, etc.), shows up on Beatles threads like an evangelist Chicken Little, claiming the sky is Faulling and the Beatles never existed. My response is... yeah, so what? I'm fine with whoever: Paul/Faul, George/Forge, John/Fohn, Ringo/Fringo, or whatever combination you believe. You did your job and warned us and now you can kindly fuck off out of here.

[quote]It's remarkable that they released Meet the Beatles, The Beatles Second Album and A Hard Day's Night as well as the movie A Hard Day's Night all in 1964. For us Beatles fans at that time, it was heaven.

If you were a young boy the whole year was heaven. The Beatles, the introduction of the Mustang. The World's Fair, 007 Goldfinger, The Addams Family, the Gemini flights, the whole British Invasion, there was so much going on for a kid to be exited about.

[quote]...the Beatles qua phenomenon was due to a confluence of forces that defined a historical moment. It's not so much that this perfect storm of factors can't align again, but that time has made these factors irrelevant. The world is a different place, and cultural breakthroughs, by definition, can't happen twice. Here are six reasons why a Beatles-like phenomenon can't happen again...

I think I can imagine what it must've been like back in the early 60s just by watching those videos on YouTube that play the number one songs month-by-month from 1960 up to present day. When I watched the 60s video the number one songs were, for the most part, really schmaltzy, and dull for the most part. Then the first Beatles song hits in what, 1963/64? And you can just feel how different that must've sounded at the time.

The Beatles were a perfect working union. The four of them, John, Paul, George and Ringo, were like the workings of a Swiss watch. It was a perfect union. That's why they had to get rid of Pete Best. Not only was he nothing much as a musician he just didn't fit it. He had no personality to speak off. He had looks, but nothing else. It's infuriating to see him on talk shows saying he was kicked out of the Beatles due to "jealous." Nobody was jealous of him! He was just no good for the band.

Ah, r151, an outlier like me (to NYC)! I'm familiar with E. Hanover, W. Caldwell, Morristown, Mine Hill. I still miss Roger Grimsby!

One thing about the Beatles: They continually innovated, with sounds, lyrics, concepts, and allowance for individuality.

People judging their oeuvre today and finding it wanting in comparison to modern Pop might as well fault Napoleon for lacking modern artillery.

We’re winning the League this year, lad, and the Fab Four are gonna help us do it.

And by Fab Four, obviously I mean the trainers, sha rdy, mushies and Dulcolax we’re gonna spike Man City’s dinners and water bottles with, come the Final.

After scranning that, they’ll all wind up in the Ozzy. Serve them right, won’t it, the Jargs that they are. I’m gonna be in proper bulk seeing that divvy Grealish throwing up guts all over his Gucci clobber and everyone saying it’s ‘cos he’s bevvied again.

But yeah, The Beatles are sound—world legends aren’t they? You probably can’t see on the box, but every time I take a corner, I’m actually humming ‘I Am The Walrus’ to meself. Scares the opposition shitless, like.

R179, Your post is EPIC!

It was gorgeousness and gorgeosity made flesh.

Because they churned out great music always progressing and eventually opening new ground. The Stibes were almost as big, but they did not develop as expansively tarry going outside their rock and roll catalogue. The Beatles opened everything up all the while making incredibly charismatic songs. Whole albums of theirs were great- every song.

Then there was the image and 4 cute mop headed Brits who charmed everyone- even adults. But it’s their music that fascinated. Such a progression.

Stones, not Stibes

R179 for the win.

[quote]The Stibes were almost as big,

And here I was thinking, "if the Stibes were so big, why have I never heard of them?"

There was a lot of material not yet released in the US, which is why there was so much that came out in 1964. And people, (probably the Beatles themselves too), considered them a fad that would quickly fade, so all that stuff coming out was to strike when the iron was hot.

My mother called The Beatles "fairies." First time I heard that word.

Paul McCartney, the "Faul" version, looked different in the 1970s because he had his nose thinned.

The Beatles and rolling stones were gay bands.

Personally, I've always preferred the Stibes. Shame what happened to their main Roadie, forgetting which way to look crossing the street.

Last saw them on Ibiza. They were performing the Euro-trash Club Mix of their old hits "Yeah, Wut Of It?" and "Knackered in Her Knickers." Good times.

The correct pronunciation is the "Stee Bees". I hate it when people get that wrong.

Did Jackie On Assistance ever see the Stibes in concert?

Op you can’t comprehend it.

I was 7 when Beatle-mania hit the US in 1964. My older sister had her bedroom walls covered with teen magazine photos of John, Paul, George, and Ringo and of the whole band together. She and her friends would get together to just talk about and ogle over them.

My best friend made two cardboard guitar cutouts and we climbed on the large window sills of the mill across the street from his house and pretended we were part of the Fab Four in concert. I would be constantly singing A Hard Day’s Night or She Loves You when I walked the streets of my neighborhood, and was utterly baffled by the the phrase “I’ve been sleeping like a log”.

Their music was being endlessly played on all the pop music radio stations and my parents couldn’t grasp what the huge fuss was all about. They loathed their “silly” and “loud” music and their mop-tops.

You definitely had to be there.

[quote] my parents couldn’t grasp what the huge fuss was all about. They loathed their “silly” and “loud” music and their mop-tops.

R191 that makes me feel awful thinking of my poor parents, who tolerated hours upon days of my blasting Glassjaw, A Perfect Circle, Enter Shikari, TOOL, Adema, The 69 Eyes, Skindred, Bullet For My Valentine, Rammstein, Evanescence, Dir En Grey, Deftones, Refused, System Of A Down, Nine Inch Nails, Kyuss, Monster Magnet, Slipknot, Korn, Linkin Park, Drowning Pool, Trapt, Rage Against The Machine, Boyhitscar, and whatever else was headbangy and playing on the Scuzz TV that I was into at the time. If that was my kid, I'd have given them up for adoption after just a month of that, so my folks clearly had endless fucking patience.

It wasn't just the American girls who screamed. In this recollection from Pete Best, when the Beatles returned to Liverpool from Hamburg in 1960 they began doing concerts and the English girls were rushing the stage and screamed (@ 14:05). This was years before they were heard of in America.

My sister attended the Beatles ' concert at the Hollywood Bowl in 1964. She was 18 and she and a friend drove up from San Diego to LA for the concert. Right after that she went off to college. She is still a fan of the Beatles all these years later, but has told me all she can really remember from the concert was the shrieking and screaming. She could barely hear the actual music.

The Beatles' popularity did benefit greatly from radio and television exposurr in the U.S., which seem to me to have had more impact on popularity and popular culture durnig the 1960s than they have now, with so many more media outlets plus the internet.

Not surprising they took middle America by storm, look at the other acts that were on the Ed Sullivan that night: impressionist Frank Gorshin, acrobats Wells & the Four Fays, the comedy team of McCall & Brill and Broadway star Georgia Brown joined by the cast of “Oliver.

[quote]and Broadway star Georgia Brown joined by the cast of “Oliver."

Including future Prefab Four member Davy Jones!

[quote]It wasn't just the American girls who screamed

Is this news to ANYONE?

R197 Haha, my point was that the Liverpool girls were screaming in 1960, well before the Beatles became a global phenomenon. Maybe that doesn't seem odd given that they were initially billed as "direct from Hamburg," which gave them an exotic air. But it was interesting to me that they were causing "the next-door neighbors" to lose it.

The Beatles were extremely good singers. Great intensity but could not keep up that level of intensity. A lot was expected of them . Their songs were bad though.

Slim pickins

"Their songs were bad though." R199, They didn't make them...for YOU!

Scousers are so funny and charming and mad, The Beatles no exception.

Ancient scouser.

My grandfather (who was in his thirties in the 1960s and has been dead for nearly a decade) thought that the Beatles were overrated in that they were not doing anything innovative musically that hadn't already been done by Elvis, Little Richard, the Everly Brothers, and Buddy Holly and the Crickets -- all of whom they admired/mimicked. They were merely British, which was their novelty.

They also happened to come in the midst of extreme change in America (e.g., JFK assassination, Civil Rights, Vietnam War), so they were merely riding that wave but were not the cause of it, as it has sometimes been reported. However, what they did do was to start the so-called British Invasion of the latter '60s.

[quote] The Beatles

I remember my father mocking them. He asked 'Why didn't they call themselves "The Insects" or "The Maggots"?

Or The Pests

[quote]They also happened to come in the midst of extreme change in America (e.g., JFK assassination, Civil Rights, Vietnam War)

I was eight, my sister was fourteen. We loved the music - that's the reason, that's all. It was a welcome change. All of this "they became popular because of the JFK assassination and Vietnam is afterthought and revisionist. Besides The Beatles, kids and teen mostly thought about school and girls/boys. Several years later - Sgt Pepper era - Beatles songs were said to be about drugs and counter culture, that was different. George Harrison said the world used us as 'an excuse to go crazy' after visiting the hippies in Haight Ashbury.

[quote]All of this "they became popular because of the JFK assassination and Vietnam is afterthought and revisionist.

Basically, I agree with you. The Beatles would have become as popular as they became no matter what. However, and though I never thought about it until decades later, I can say that the Beatles and the British Invasion that followed in 1964 were just what we needed in the US after the Kennedy assassination.

I was a pre-teen when "I Want to Hold Your Hand" came out, and it was such a new thing, musically speaking, followed so quickly by so many other new musical things, and together they all replaced what we'd been listening to just previously, i.e., in the wake of the assassination. Things seemed somewhat better in 1964 than they did in 1963, and the Beatles helped.

I never associated the Beatles with Vietnam.

Also, I was too young to have listened to Elvis, Chuck Berry, the Everly Brothers, etc., so the music never seemed as derivative as it did to r204's grandpa.

[quote]I never thought about it until decades later, I can say that the Beatles and the British Invasion that followed in 1964 were just what we needed in the US after the Kennedy assassination.

You may have thought of that because every documentary about The Beatles says so.

I love the Beatles and I'm a woman. I was in first grade when they first became huge in the U.S. so obviously was not a participant but remember the hysteria. Frankly, I've never understood it. I have never had that reaction to any group no matter how much I liked it. I wonder if it has to do with lower intelligence and less education, or maybe many of them were on drugs, although that seems unlikely.

This is a great documentary. I don't have a strong music background and had no idea how much was going on in the Beatles' music.

R210 many screamed and swooned over Elvis, Sinatra, Crosby, Paul Anka, even Johnny Ray. It happens, I don't understand why either, but it happens. Drugs and/or low intelligence has nothing to do with it.

Like a lot of people my age, my introduction to The Beatles was in preschool, when we used to sing Yellow Submarine and Oh-Bla-Di-Bla-Da

I was surprised to eventually learn that they were a well-respected and very popular band for adults.

Not for adults when they were a band, R213, for teenagers.

[quote]Not for adults when they were a band, [R213], for teenagers.

In fact, r214, Capitol or Apple released a new Beatles album every single one of my teen years.

Here's Beatles VI.

What does that mean, R215? Teenagers bought Beatle albums. Adults did not.

Yes, r216 [italic]teenagers[/italic]. I was a teenager during the time when the Beatles were releasing records.

I wonder if Jazz Age Eldergays hissed at each other about who bought Stephen Fosters sheet music during the Civil War

Probably, right?

Your old man wasn't too perceptive, r205, in that he failed to note the spelling: BEATles.

From the Beat Generation to the Beatles.

John Lennon was exposed to be a rotten egg of a man, hasn’t he?

R220 So what?

R221 = Yoko Ono.

R219 = born in 1998

[quote]The notion of paying for music digitally and not owning physical copies of albums was revolutionary. It was the precursor to streaming, and if Jobs was still alive today, who knows what impact he’d have made on our consumption habits over the last decade. On top of being a crucial figure in changing the travel of direction of the music industry, Jobs was also a fanatical muso. His favourite band of all time were The Beatles, with the innovator once saying: “If the vault was on fire and I could grab only one set of master tapes, I would grab the Beatles.”

One thing you always have to remember is also how attractive they were. Three of the four were especially handsome in very different ways: sweet and baby-faced (Paul), intellectual but masculine (John), dark and brooding (George). And Ringo may not have been classically handsome, but he was adorable and very sexy.

It was unusual to have a band where all four members were so fuckable.

Uh, no, R225, with all respect, none of the Fab Four were “especially handsome.” Paul usually gets “cute,” but that’s probably only in comparison to his bandmates, a pretty low bar.

The Beatles are interesting. They went from being like the Backstreet Boys at first to becoming Radiohead over the course of their career, and the public came along with them. I don't think that's something that will ever be replicated again.

[quote]They went from being like the Backstreet Boys at first to becoming Radiohea

From N'Sync to Radiohead to the Chemical Brothers to Nirvana, as Spin Magazine once put it.

Important to note that The Beatles' image was created by a gay man, Brian Epstein.

[quote]Ringo may not have been classically handsome, but he was adorable and very sexy

Not even close.

Arguably, the most classically handsome Beatle was Stu Sutcliffe...

I think I liked the Beatles most when they were in their "those lovable moptops" phase.

The Beatles - especially John Lennon as composer as his post Beatles music bore out - had the rare talent to infuse their music with rich melody. Melody! Name any 10 Beatle songs from the past and almost anyone could hum them today. Now here's the kicker: Even people who were NOT Beatle fans could hum them. Remember that scene from Amadeus when Salieri asks a non musical fan what he thought of his own music with no response. But when he started playing a few notes on the piano from Mozart the priests eyes light up.

R227 and r228, What utter twaddle. The Beatles may have started with covers of "Long Tall Sally" and "Twist and Shout," but very quickly became Pop composers non parcel. Plus they each played a musical instrument.

None of that can be said of the (enormously talented harmonic) Backstreet Boys. The Beatles "became like" nobody who came after. They didn't transition from any lesser group to another.

The Beatles can be compared, if need be, which there isn't, but people will so compare, in the 20th--21st Centuries---in terms of being a lightning bolt of musical and social change, a bolt that struck the Earth and got it all shook up but this time with a British accent---ONLY to Elvis.

Arguably the force of Black America straight outta Compton was the third earthquake, but that's literally another story.

As for their physical attractiveness, you guys and gays simply have no clue, even if you're a Boomer like me (a Frau). I was 14 in February 1964, and overnight girls my age were calling themselves "Paulette," "Johnette," "Georgina," and the like (not with Ringo, though; NEVER Ringo. Nobody ever thought he was cute, let alone sexy! And we knew who Pete Best and Stuart Sutcliffe were, but didn't go all Astrid over either.).

We worshipped the Beatles. We bought their music (remember Sears?!); spoke their slang ("gear," "fab," etc.); quoted their interviews ("Arthur," "Turn left at Greenland"); adopted their (and Jane's, Patti's, Cynthia's) bangs-heavy hairstyle; wore black half-boots.

We bought John's books. "In His Own Write" saw some poems re-printed in, and thus the Beatles' getting America's imprimatur, the All-American "Saturday Evening Post," which poems caused my "Greatest Generation" father to declare Lennon a genius! Maybe it was "No Flies on Frank"? What other musical group and or solo artist had branched out like this, creatively, and not just to movies? Speaking of which....

We went to see "A Hard Day's Night" numerous times, and over a half-century later can yet recite entire bits of dialogue ("We fought the war for your kind!" "Bet you're sorry you won.").

We followed their personal journeys, even unto India. I attended my university's concert with Ravi Shankar, impossible without George.

Most infamously, the Beatles influenced Charlie Manson, such that the misspelled-in-blood "Healter-Skelter" aided in tying La Bianca to Tate.

To bring it to the present: Cute Beatle Paul---now a "Sir," but then again, the Beatles had from the git-go enchanted the Royal Family ("You in the front can just rattle your jewelry"---still sells out stadiums.

Maybe "You Had to Be There" for Jenny Lind. Maybe YHTBT to understand Bing or Frank or even Elvis.

But I KNOW YHTBT to "get" the Beatles.

And the 60s.

"non pareil."

I was born in 1978, so I missed the whole era, and for some reason, I strongly dislike most of their music. Just the sound of it. Tori Amos is my favorite musician and among the few songs of hers I don't like at all are several that she has said are influenced by the Beatles or which have been described in reviews as being similar to Beatles songs.

I know many people my age and younger who love their music. I made an effort, but the only song of theirs that I really like is Eleanor Rigby.

Not to worry, r235. I strongly dislike Tori Amos. And Eleanor Rigby is one of my least favorite Beatles songs.

[quote]overnight girls my age were calling themselves "Paulette," "Johnette," "Georgina," and the like (not with Ringo, though; NEVER Ringo. Nobody ever thought he was cute, let alone sexy! And we knew who Pete Best and Stuart Sutcliffe were, but didn't go all Astrid over either.).

This is the kind of thing I LOVE hearing about. These little anecdotes give you such an insight into culture from the past. Thanks for sharing.

[quote]Just the sound of it. Tori Amos is my favorite musician and among the few songs of hers I don't like at all are several that she has said are influenced by the Beatles or which have been described in reviews as being similar to Beatles songs.

I'm big on Tori too, and similarly her Beatles inspired songs are not favourites (although I do really like later, post-Sgt Pepper Beatles). Tori's best when her inspiration isn't aping other styles, but being inspired by other styles and incorporating it into her own style, if you get me. Like how "Precious Things" is her doing heavy metal and "Cornflake Girl" is her doing reggae, but they aren't pastiches of heavy metal and reggae, you know?

The Beatles were on Ed Sullivan in Feb 64. They were immediately favored by the 14-year-old crowd who adopted them because they were different than the gen just before us. Elvis wasn't a huge favorite with that crowd he was popular with the teenagers when most of the baby boomers were still kids. So the Beatles and what came after we could claim as our own music. The baby boomers were a huge generation and the next big consumers so we were catered to. I liked the Beatles Ok but overall the 60s and 70s were a great time for rock. I also think the Big Band era was a great time for music.

R233 here, r238. Re: Big Band era. I LOVE the music! I learned trombone because my trombonist father was taught by Tommy Dorsey's father (we're all from PA's Coal Regions)!

And Gene Krupa is THE reason I have just begun drum lessons!

Wow R239 that is impressive about your dad. When I was a kid my dad had big band playing all the time and I really loved it and I also love the vocalists. Ella, Dianah lois all of it. I loved it as much as I loved the 60-70s music.

[233] They started out as teeny boppers and transitioned in to something greater. SORRY. It's the truth.

R241, I wasn't arguing that the Beatles became greater than they were in the Cavern Club or even Hamburg. I mean, NS, Sherlock.

What I take issue with is the attempt to compare their trajectory to that of lesser but more recent groups, because to what purpose? To make the Beatles more "accessible" to people now, to whom Thom Yorke might as well be Gene Vincent?

It's like saying Picasso went from Paint-By-Numbers to Bob Ross to Thomas Kinkade.

You really needed to have been there and understood the times.

[242] Radiohead isn't Thomas Kinkade, and the Beatles are not Picasso, so whatever.

I liked 'HELP' a lot.

The point is, the Beatles weren't afraid to ditch their original "brand" and evolve.

"I liked The Beatles, but seriously, why were they so huge?"

Something chemical in the water in Manchester. Radioactive I'm sure.

R246, all the bands that lasted from the early days of the British Invasion evolved. That's why they lasted.

In July of 1987, shortly after the CD release of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, NYT columnist Anna Quindlen let us know that she had been "a Paul girl." As a gay man, I had never been attracted physically to any of the Beatles, but how I would love to have been able to write a column then that started "I was a Denny boy," Denny being the drummer and the only hot Beach Boy (and the only one who actually surfed).