Scope
The Beatles formed inSales and attendance records
Over the 1960s as a whole, the Beatles were the dominant youth-centred pop act on the sales charts. "Breakthrough and role in Britain's cultural resurgence
Merseybeat and British rock 'n' roll
As the Beatles rose in popularity in 1963, the terms "Mersey sound" and " Merseybeat" were applied to bands and singers from Liverpool, making it the first time in British pop music that a sound and a location were linked together. The city had the cultural advantages of being the UK's main transatlantic port and having an ethnically diverse population; local musicians were able to access records by American musicians through theSociocultural influence
The Beatles' emergence overlapped with the decline in British conservatism. In the description of author and musician Bob Stanley, their domestic breakthrough represented "a final liberation for Britain's teenagers" and, by coinciding with the end ofPolitical significance and awarding of MBEs
The Beatles' international success created an export market for British pop for the first time and provided a boon to the UK government's balance of payments deficit. This unexpected development led to approval from politicians and an eagerness on their part to be associated with the band. In the run-up to the 1964 general election, the Beatles became aBritain's leadership of international culture
In his book on the 1960s, social historianBeatlemania
In late 1963, the British press coined the term " Beatlemania" to describe the phenomenal and increasingly hysterical interest in the Beatles. The word was first widely used following the band's 13 October appearance on ''US breakthrough and British Invasion
Most Americans were introduced to the Beatles' music with the single "I Want to Hold Your Hand" backed with "Personality and fashion
Attitude and sensibility
In the description of ''Rolling Stone''s editors, the Beatles "defined and incarnated Sixties style: smart, idealistic, playful, irreverent, eclectic". They helped popularise Northern English accents on British radio and television, reversing the preference for BBC English, and their humour and irreverence combined to mock social conventions. WriterUnlike previous pop stars – programmed to recite their future itineraries and favourite colours – The Beatles replied to the press in facetious ad-libs provoked by whatever was going on in the immediate present ... Before them, pop acts had been neatly presented as soloists or well-drilled units each with its clearly identified leader. With their uncanny clone-like similarity and by all talking chattily at once, The Beatles introduced to the cultural lexicon several key Sixties motifs in one go: "mass"-ness, "working class" informality, cheery street scepticism, and – most challenging to the status quo – a ''simultaneity'' which subverted conventions of precedence in every way.
Hair length and clothing
The Beatles' emergence coincided with a new consideration for the concept of male beauty and its elevation in importance beside feminine attractiveness. According to Marwick, the group's appearance and Kennedy's provided "the two great points of reference in this respect". The Beatles were dubbed "moptops" by some British tabloids in reference to their haircut, a mid-length hairstyle that was widely mocked by adults. It was unusually long for the era and became an emblem of rebellion to the burgeoning youth culture. In their 1986 book ''Re-making Love: The Feminization of Sex'', authorsImage and caricatures
The Beatles differed from previous musical acts in their presentation as a group in which each of the individual personalities was seen as indispensable to the whole, and each member attracted fanatical devotion. According to cultural commentator Steven D. Stark, their lack of a designated leader aligned with a more typically feminine approach to collaboration, an aspect that increased their resonance among the female audience and subsequently influenced men's self-perception and cultural views on masculinity. The intensity of the Beatles' appeal as live performers was such that they were often presented with people who were physically impaired, in the assumption that the band had healing powers. When the band assumed a mystical image in the late 1960s, fans increasingly identified them as the four elements, in which each member presented a complementary and essential contribution to the alchemical whole. In 1964, the Beatles starred in the film ''A Hard Day's Night (film), A Hard Day's Night'' as fictionalised versions of themselves, which created a lasting impression of their individual personas. Lennon became known as "the smart one", McCartney "the cute one", Harrison "the quiet one", and Starr "the lucky one". Starr's personality as the band's affable, self-deprecating drummer proved especially popular with fans and the press in the US. In 1964, as coverage of the Beatles matched that of the 1964 United States presidential election, Johnson–Goldwater presidential race, Starr was the subject of bumper stickers proclaiming "Ringo for President", as well as several tribute songs. Their ''Hard Day's Night'' characterisations were adopted again for the children's cartoon series ''The Beatles (TV series), The Beatles'', which was made by King Features Syndicate, King Features and broadcast weekly on ABC in the US from September 1965 to April 1969. It was the first animated TV series to depict living people and featured the Beatles (voiced by actors) having adventures while touring the world. The series was highly successful, although its focus on the pre-1967 era ensured that audiences were presented with an increasingly outdated image of the band. Towards the end of 1966, by which point the Beatles' artistic maturity had left many younger listeners yearning for their innocent, "mop-top" image, the Monkees were assembled by a pair of Hollywood-based television executives as a four-piece band in the Beatles' mould. An immediate commercial success, the Monkees' The Monkees (TV series), self-titled television show evoked the Beatles' personalities from Dick Lester's feature films ''A Hard Day's Night'' and ''Help! (film), Help!'', with the characters of the individual Monkees developed to reflect those of the Beatles. In Marwick's view, the Monkees' creation represented "the most remarkable sign of direct British influence" on American pop culture during the 1960s. At this time, the Beatles grew moustaches, a look that defied pop convention by implying maturation and artistry over youthfulness. Their appearance was the source of confusion for some of their young fans. A ''Daily Mail'' writer complained that after emerging as "heroes of a social revolution" in 1963 and "the boys whom everybody could identify with", the Beatles had become austere and exclusive. The producers of the 1967 Disney animated film ''The Jungle Book (1967 film), The Jungle Book'' hoped to include the Beatles in a scene featuring four vultures with mop-top hairstyles singing "That's What Friends Are For (The Vulture Song), That's What Friends Are For". After the band declined to take part, the scene was voiced by actors adopting Liverpudlian accents and the song was given a barbershop quartet arrangement.Merchandise
Along with Beatles-themed wallpaper and jewellery, "Beatles wigs" were popular and widely available in UK stores from 1963. In the US, their merchandise was extensive, and marketed through Seltaeb, a local subsidiary of a company owned by Epstein's NEMS Enterprises. Among what Schaffner estimated to be "several hundred" items authorised by Seltaeb were toys, clothing, stationery, alarm clocks, pillowcases, bath products, junk food and lunchboxes, while Beatles wigs "became the best-selling novelty since yo-yo's". Beatles-brand chewing gum alone netted millions of dollars in the US. Beatle boots were also sanctioned as official merchandise by NEMS. According to Doggett, while Presley's image had similarly been exploited, "the onslaught of ephemeral artefacts aimed at Beatles fans between 1963 and 1969 dwarfed every previous campaign." The commercial exploitation extended to novelty records such as ''The Chipmunks Sing the Beatles Hits'' and an early version of a Beatles karaoke disc. King Features' ''The Beatles'' led to a range of cartoon-style products and marketing by companies such as Nestlé, with their "Beatles' Yeah Yeah Yeah" confectionery, and Lux (soap), Lux soap. A major merchandising campaign accompanied the release of the band's 1968 animated film ''Yellow Submarine (film), Yellow Submarine'', containing products that captured their psychedelic look.Growth of musicians, scenes and rock bands
According to Gould, the Beatles served as the "archetype" of a rock band, in contrast to the vocal and harmony groups with which listeners were most familiar in 1964. In the US, thousands of bands sought to imitate the Beatles, some adopting English-sounding names to capitalise on the British Invasion. While the country already had a vibrant garage rock scene, the movement surged following the Beatles' first appearance on ''The Ed Sullivan Show''. Commentator Bill Dean writes that the exact figures are impossible to determine, but "the anecdotal evidence suggests thousands – if not hundreds of thousands or even more – young musicians across the country" responded by forming bands. This was sometimes to the chagrin of their parents and other adults. Tom Petty, who joined the Sundowners in Gainesville, Florida, after seeing the Beatles' US television debut, recalled: "Within weeks of that, you could drive through literally any neighborhood in Gainesville and you would hear the strains of garage bands playing ... I mean everywhere. And I'd say by a year from that time, Gainesville probably had 50 bands." The Byrds and Creedence Clearwater Revival are among the American groups said to have formed as a result of the show. Accompanying this phenomenon, the musicians typically abandoned their crewcut look and allowed their hair to grow. Joe Walsh, Nancy Wilson (rock musician), Nancy Wilson and Billy Joel also credited the show as the impetus for them to pursue musical careers. The proliferation of new groups was evident in many other countries. In Spain, Los Estudiantes and Los Brincos modelled themselves on the Beatles, as did the Uruguayan band Los Shakers, who were one of many groups around the world that formed as a result of ''A Hard Day's Night''. Following the Beatles' concerts there on the The Beatles' 1964 world tour, 1964 world tour, new bands sprung up in Australia, New Zealand and Hong Kong, while some existing acts, such as the Bee Gees, instantly changed their style to match the Beatles'. The '' Daily Express'' reported in 1965 that a band known as the Candid Lads had started in the Soviet Union, with a sound and look identical to the Beatles'. Bands there were forced to play in secret due to the communist authorities' ban on rock music, and Beatles records had to be smuggled into the country. Russian musician Aleksandr Lipnitsky, Sasha Lipnitsky later recalled: "The Beatles brought us the idea of democracy ... For many of us, it was the first hole in the Iron Curtain." In Japan, the Beatles influenced what was dubbed the "Group Sounds" era, before which Japanese bands were mainly imitations of acts such as Presley and Pat Boone. According to music-industry executive Aki Tanaka, the Beatles' 1966 concerts in Tokyo inspired "the birth of a real Japanese rock music scene", in which local artists wrote their material rather than merely covering Western rock songs.Artistry and recognition of popular music
Songwriting
Through the Beatles' early success, the Lennon–McCartney partnership revolutionised songwriting in Britain by usurping the Denmark Street tradition of in-house songwriters. In the US, they similarly inspired changes to the music industry, as did the British Invasion songwriters they influenced, by combining the roles of writer and performer. This trend threatened the Brill Building writers and other professional songwriters that dominated the American music industry. According to ''Rolling Stone''s editors, the Beatles thereby "inaugurated the era of self-contained bands and forever centralized pop". Lennon and McCartney also supplied hit songs for several other artists up to 1966, including Cilla Black, Billy J. Kramer, the Fourmost and the Rolling Stones, and they opened up opportunities in the US that were previously unavailable for non-performing British songwriters, such as Tony Hatch. Direct collaboration between Lennon and McCartney was limited from 1964, but their songs continued to be credited to the partnership. From 1963 to 1967, the Beatles increasingly broke with established rock and pop conventions. Adding to their sophistication as composers was the application of mode (music), modal mixture, wider chord palettes, and extended form. One of the hallmarks of the Beatles' experimental period is their use of the flattened subtonic chord (VII). Although it was already a staple of rock 'n' roll, the Beatles further developed and popularised the chord's function in popular music. Another is their subversions of pop's standard AABA form. Few electric beat artists wrote songs with bridge (music), bridge sections until the group's breakthrough, after which the practice became ubiquitous. MacDonald describes Lennon and McCartney's growing articulacy and ambition from 1962 to 1967 as "quite vertiginous" and says that, with Harrison and Starr's collaboration in the recording studio, they "led a revolution in the very ethos of songwriting which consisted in seeing the song as a part of something larger: the record". Luhrssen and Larson describe the pair's songwriting as "more melodically and harmonically unpredictable than that of their peers", and say that the Beatles' sound "struck many ears as outrageous, especially the falsetto leaps in songs such as 'She Loves You,' which might have been inspired by Little Richard but sounded unprecedented". "A Hard Day's Night (song), A Hard Day's Night", written primarily by Lennon, begins with a ringing chord most commonly identified as G7sus4. The specifics of its harmonic construction are often scrutinised, with many writers offering different interpretations of the chord. In 2001, ''Rolling Stone'' referred to the "Hard Day's Night" chord as the most famous in rock history. Another chord described as among the "most famous" in history is the sustained E major heard at the end of "A Day in the Life" from ''Sgt. Pepper''. Principally through McCartney's melody writing, the Beatles created many songs that became the most widely recorded of all time, including "And I Love Her", "Yesterday", "Michelle (song), Michelle", "Eleanor Rigby", "Here, There and Everywhere", "The Fool on the Hill", "Hey Jude", "Blackbird (Beatles song), Blackbird", "Let It Be (Beatles song), Let It Be" and "The Long and Winding Road". According to Doggett, these mainly McCartney-written songs provided contemporary relevance for "light orchestras and crooners" in the easy listening category, persuaded adults that the new generation's musical tastes had merit, and "ensured that Lennon and McCartney would become the highest-earning composers in history". Harrison's songwriting widened the Beatles' range further, although his level of contribution remained limited by Lennon and McCartney's dominance throughout the band's career. His song "Something (Beatles song), Something" was also widely covered, and earned rare praise from Sinatra, who described it as "the greatest love song of the past fifty years".Competition
Before the mid-1960s, competition between popular recording artists was typically measured by popularity and record sales, with artistic rivalries usually only occurring between jazz or classical musicians. Comparing its effect on 1960s popular music to Charlie Chaplin's on 1920s filmmaking, Gould credits the Beatles' increasing ambition "to write better songs" with inspiring "intense creative rivalries" between themselves and other acts who "felt a need to validate their success by experimenting with songwriting and record-making in ways that would have seemed unimaginable only a few years before." Author Robert Rodriguez writes that "The Beatles, Dylan, and the Rolling Stones have long been viewed as the Holy Trinity of 1960s rock, from whom every important development and innovation flowed." Author Carys Wyn Jones states that the "competition, interaction, and influence" between those acts (plus the Beach Boys) became "central to histories of rock". The Byrds also figured highly in their importance, to the extent that they were widely celebrated as the American answer to the Beatles. Bob Dylan and the Rolling Stones were symbolic of the nascent youth revolt against institutional authority, something that was not immediately recognisable within the Beatles until 1966. The Beatles' initial clean-cut personas contrasted with the Rolling Stones' "bad boy" image, and so the music press forged a rivalry between the two acts. From 1964 onwards, the Beatles and Dylan partook in a mutual dialogue and exchange of ideas. Their engagement is referred to by Chris Smith, author of ''101 Albums That Changed Popular Music'', as the "single phenomenon that defined the tone of 1960s popular music and the future of music in America". In August 1964, at the Delmonico Hotel in New York City, the Beatles met Dylan in person and were introduced to cannabis (drug), cannabis. Many commentators have referenced this meeting as a cultural turning point. Gould explains that, before then, the musicians' respective fanbases were "perceived as inhabiting two separate subcultural worlds": Dylan's audience of "college kids with artistic or intellectual leanings, a dawning political and social idealism, and a mildly bohemian style" contrasted with their fans, "veritable 'teenyboppers' – kids in high school or grade school whose lives were totally wrapped up in the commercialised popular culture of television, radio, pop records, fan magazines, and teen fashion. They were seen as idolaters, not idealists." He writes that within a year of the Beatles' first meeting with Dylan, "the distinctions between the folk and rock audiences would have nearly evaporated", as the Beatles' fanbase began to grow in sophistication and Dylan's audience re-engaged with adolescent concerns presented in the "newly energized and autonomous pop culture". In July 1966, Dylan suffered a motorcycle accident and spent a period in convalescence, and principally for McCartney, Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys subsequently took his place as the Beatles' chief artistic rival. The two bands inspired and endeavoured to top each other with their artistry and recording techniques, but the Beach Boys failed to maintain their career momentum after 1967. According to Jones, the interplay between the two bands during the ''Pet Sounds'' era remains one of the most noteworthy episodes in rock history.Cultural legitimisation of pop music
In Britain, music journalists started including pop and rock music in serious discussion as a direct consequence of the Beatles' 1964 breakthrough. Pop gained its first exposure in the arts section of one of the country's broadsheet newspapers when William Mann (critic), William Mann, ''The Times''s classical music critic, wrote an appreciation of the Beatles in December 1963. In the United States, the Beatles were the main beneficiaries of a new widespread appreciation for pop and rock over 1966–67 among journalists and intellectuals, coinciding with the emergence there of a dedicated rock press and serious coverage of the genre in the cultural mainstream. Music critic Tim Riley (music critic), Tim Riley identifies the Beatles as pop music's "first recording ''artists''", whose body of work represents "very intricate art". Luhrssen and Larson say the Beatles "[made] it mandatory that serious rock bands aspire to be artists, not merely entertainers". With ''A Hard Day's Night (album), A Hard Day's Night'' in July 1964, the band became the first pop act since Buddy Holly to issue an album consisting entirely of original compositions. The accompanying feature film endeared the Beatles to intellectuals in Britain. Lennon's artistic standing was furthered by the critical and commercial success of his book of prose ''In His Own Write'' and its 1965 sequel, ''A Spaniard in the Works''. Now feted by London society, Lennon and McCartney found inspiration among a network of non-mainstream writers, poets, comedians, film-makers and other arts-related individuals. According to Doggett, their social milieu in 1964 represented "new territory for pop" and a challenge to British class delineation as the Beatles introduced an "arty middle-class" sensibility to pop music. The albums ''Beatles for Sale'' and ''Help!'' (issued in December 1964 and August 1965, respectively) each marked a progression in the band's development, in terms of lyrical content and recording sophistication. With ''Help!'', the Beatles became the first rock group to be nominated for a Grammy Award for Album of the Year. Recording for ''Social movements
Generational awareness
From 1963, the Beatles provided one of the first opportunities for female teenagers to exhibit spending power and publicly express sexual desire, while the group's image suggested a disregard for adults' opinions and parents' ideas of morality. Simonelli writes of the Beatles' emergence and its impact on 1960s youth: "British young people experimented with music, art, politics, sexual morality, fashion and the like, and the rest of the Western world watched, absorbed the changes and contributed to the process." The band's sociocultural impact in the US began with their February 1964 visit, which served as a key moment in the development of generational awareness. Writing that same month, American sociologist David Riesman said the Beatles' success was "a form of protest against the adult world"; later in 1964, ''The New York Times Magazine'' described Beatlemania as a "religion of teenage culture" that was indicative of how American youth now looked to their own age group for social values and role models. According to historian Michael James Roberts, even though their early songs avoided such issues, the band represented "cultural change and the oppositional stance of the youth culture against the establishment". The group's popularity subsequently grew into what was seen as an embodiment of sociocultural movements of the decade, and their artistic maturation reflected the era's social developments. They were widely viewed as leaders of the youth culture and such a sentiment was echoed by the mainstream press. Their 1966 songs "Paperback Writer", "Rain (Beatles song), Rain", "Taxman" and "Eleanor Rigby" provided social commentary, with the lyrics of "Rain" making explicit the delineation between the socially aware and those who were not. By contrast, ''Sgt. Pepper'' achieved a cross-generational appeal; in "She's Leaving Home", McCartney and Lennon sang of a real-life teenage runaway but gave an unusually sympathetic perspective on the parents' sense of loss. According to Stark, the social unity conveyed by the Beatles from the start of their career inspired the framework for the Collectivism and individualism, collectivist thinking that distinguished the 1960s and the emergence of the 1960s counterculture, counterculture movement. He sees their English sense of humour as a defining trait of the counterculture and an inspiration for Yippie activists Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin. Gould similarly writes that, from the band's arrival in the US, teenagers were aware of the "social dimension" implicit in the group's camaraderie, matching clothes and hair, and ensemble playing. In Gould's view, as icons of the 1960s counterculture, the band became a catalyst for bohemianism and activism in various social and political arenas, fuelling movements such as feminist movement, women's liberation, gay liberation and environmental movement, environmentalism. According to documentary filmmaker Leslie Woodhead, a former Cold War spy, the Beatles' music helped persuade young Russians to defy communist ideology and begin the process that led to the fall of communism throughout Eastern Europe. He said the extent of the band's influence became apparent in the 1990s when local rock musicians told him that "not only were the Beatles colossal from the Berlin Wall to Vladivostok but that they'd played a really significant part in helping to wash away totalitarianism ... They liberated a certain spiritual energy so that two generations of Soviet kids simply gave up on building socialism and started to realise that the Cold War enemy, instead of being a threat, made wonderful music." Many young Russians learnt to speak English through the Beatles' lyrics, and the band's songs helped spread the English language throughout Europe and the rest of the world.Civil rights and support for African-American musicians
Marwick writes that while American folk singers Dylan and Joan Baez were more identifiable with civil rights issues, in Beatles songs, "it was a case of music and lyrics together constructing – constantly changing – moods which never failed, it seemed, to evoke responses in large numbers of listeners of the day." Roberts highlights the significance of their US breakthrough occurring in the same year that the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Civil Rights Act was passed, and also that their first US LP, ''Introducing... The Beatles, Introducing ... The Beatles'', was released by the African-American–owned label Vee-Jay Records. Through the album's preponderance of cover versions of recordings by black R&B artists, Roberts continues, the Beatles introduced this music to a new audience of white Americans and helped to "relegitimate" an aspect of African-American musical history. During the Beatles' US tour in August–September 1964, the group spoke out against Racial segregation in the United States, racial segregation in the country at the time, particularly in the Southern United States, South. When informed that the venue for their 11 September concert, the Gator Bowl Stadium, Gator Bowl in Jacksonville, Florida, was segregated, the Beatles said they would refuse to perform unless the audience was integrated. City officials relented and agreed to allow an integrated show. Although the group held their press conference there before the concert, they cancelled their reservations at the whites-only Hotel George Washington (Jacksonville), Hotel George Washington in Jacksonville. According to music journalist Bill DeMain, the Beatles' stand "gave pop music a new-found social conscience"; American singer Brian Hyland recalled of the episode: "They were really the first group to have the power to do that. They used that platform really well ... It took a lot of courage." During the tour, the band repeatedly voiced their admiration of Little Richard, Chuck Berry and Fats Domino, and particularly soul artists such as the Miracles, Marvin Gaye and Chuck Jackson. Miracles leader Smokey Robinson said he was especially grateful for the Beatles' championing of Motown music and their choosing to cover songs by Motown artists. He added that they "were the first white artists to ever admit that they grew up and honed themselves on black music. I loved the fact that they did that, that they were honest". The Beatles subsequently invited Mary Wells to be their support act on a UK tour and in 1965 arranged for Esther Phillips to give her first performances outside the US. According to Lewisohn, documents reveal that for their tours in 1965 and 1966, the Beatles included clauses in contracts stipulating that shows be integrated. In 1966, McCartney said they had avoided performing in South Africa "or any places where blacks would be separated", adding, "It wasn't out of any goody-goody thing; we just thought, 'Why should you separate black people from white?'" According to Moore, the Beatles and the British Invasion bands that followed them to the US initiated the process whereby Americans "gradually encountered and accepted the return of their black heritage".Opposition from conservatives
The Beatles were widely condemned by conservative elements of society, as Presley and other symbols of rock and roll had been during the 1950s. Israel refused to let the band perform there in early 1964, wary of "attacks of mass hysteria" being inflicted on the country's youth. In August 1965, the Indonesian government burned the group's records in order to "preserve the national identity in the field of culture" as part of that country's twentieth anniversary celebrations of independence. In East Germany, the Beatles were blamed for a "cultural crisis" that saw artists and intellectuals pushing for more leniency from the state; by April 1966, however, the government were supportive of the Beatles and instead targeted the Rolling Stones. The United States Department of Labor, US Labor Department attempted to ban the Beatles from performing in the country, motivated by cultural conservatism and after lobbying from the American Federation of Musicians. The government sought to ban all British acts in 1965, but the financial opportunities presented by the Beatles ensured that their The Beatles' 1965 US tour, second North American tour went ahead. From that year onwards, right-wing Christian leaders such as Bob Larson and David A. Noebel, David Noebel were vocal in their condemnation of the Beatles' influence in the US. As a spokesman for the anti-communist Christian Crusade, Noebel denounced the band as "four mop-headed anti-Christ beatniks", and published pamphlets warning that they were destroying the morals of America's youth to facilitate a communist takeover orchestrated from Moscow. By contrast, ''Pravda'', the official newspaper of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, said the Beatles represented "a plot by the ruling classes to distract ... youngsters from politics and bitter pondering over disgraced and shattered hopes". In the UK, criticism largely faded with the band's international breakthrough, as commentators recognised the Beatles' value to the economy. Some traditionalists were nevertheless outraged by the group being awarded MBEs, and the Beatles, as with rock music in general, remained the target of figures such as ''Daily Mail'' columnist Monica Furlong and conservative activist Mary Whitehouse. In 1967, Whitehouse campaigned against the lyric "Boy, you've been a naughty girl, you let your knickers down" in the Beatles' song "I Am the Walrus" after the BBC had aired the song as part of the band's TV film ''Magical Mystery Tour (film), Magical Mystery Tour''. The BBC duly banned the song. The following year, Lennon's relationship with Japanese avant-garde artist Yoko Ono, for whom he abandoned his wife and son, was met with strong public disapproval and racial abuse. Lennon received further condemnation from conservatives when he returned his MBE to the Queen in November 1969. He cited his opposition to the British government's support of both Role of United States in the Vietnam War, US involvement in the Vietnam War and Nigerian Civil War, Nigeria's role in the Biafra conflict, in addition to the poor chart performance of his and Ono's second Plastic Ono Band single, "Cold Turkey".Budokan, Manila and "Jesus" controversies
The Japanese authorities viewed the band as subversive before they were appointed as MBEs in 1965. In the lead-up to the Beatles' concerts in Tokyo the following year, the visit was the subject of national debate as traditionalists were opposed to the group's influence and the decision to allow them to perform at the Nippon Budokan, a venue reserved for martial arts and a shrine to Japan's war dead. The Beatles received death threats and ultranationalist students demonstrated outside the Budokan during their stay. Shortly afterwards, the band played in Manila in the Philippines, at a time when the country was keen to project a pro-Western image with the recent inauguration of President Ferdinand Marcos. There, the Beatles' nonattendance at an official function organised by Imelda Marcos was perceived as an insult to the nation's first family; it led to recrimination in the local press, the band's security detail being withdrawn, and mob violence against them as they attempted to leave the country. Filipino writer Nick Joaquin said the situation was indicative of how the Philippines had been attracted to the Beatles' image without appreciating that their message was one advocating individuality, adventurousness and originality over the qualities that still defined the country: tradition and order. Joaquin likened the group's presence in Manila to Batman being transplanted to Thebes, Greece, Thebes in Ancient Greece. The band enjoyed what Epstein termed a "special relationship" with the US until late July 1966, when ''Datebook'' magazine published an interview that Lennon gave for the London ''Evening Standard'' "How Does a Beatle Live?" series. In the interview, Lennon said the Beatles were " more popular than Jesus", such was the decline of Christianity. His comments caused no significant reaction in the UK, but radio stations in the US Bible Belt soon launched a boycott of Beatles music and organised bonfires of the band's records and merchandise. For some Southern commentators, the furore over Lennon's alleged blasphemy allowed them to air their suppressed grievances regarding the Beatles' long hair and the group's support for African-American musicians. Spain and South Africa joined in the radio ban, as did other stations in the US, and the Holy See, Vatican issued a statement condemning Lennon's remark. At Epstein's insistence, Lennon apologised during a press conference at the start of the band's US tour. Members of the Ku Klux Klan threatened reprisals against the Beatles, particularly when they were due to play in Memphis, but the tour passed without major incident. Further to their experiences in Tokyo and Manila, the "Jesus" controversy confirmed the Beatles' decision to retire as live performers in 1966. Another religious controversy ensued in the US in reaction to the band's 1969 single "The Ballad of John and Yoko", due to Lennon's use of the word "Christ" and reference to crucifixion.Idealism and the counterculture
''Rubber Soul'' included Lennon's "The Word (song), The Word", the lyrics of which anticipated the ethos behind the counterculture's 1967 Summer of Love, while ''Revolver'' included a number of songs whose lyrics address themes of death, isolation and transcendence from material concerns. Of "Tomorrow Never Knows", Lennon's evocation of an LSD trip, MacDonald writes that the song's message "launched the till-then élite-preserved concept of mind-expansion into pop, simultaneously drawing attention to consciousness-enhancing drugs and the ancient religious philosophies of the Orient, utterly alien to Western thought in their anti-materialism, rapt passivity, and world-sceptical focus on visionary consciousness". In author Shawn Levy (writer), Shawn Levy's description, ''Revolver'' presented the Beatles as "the world's first household psychedelia, psychedelics, avatars of something wilder and more revolutionary than anything pop culture had ever delivered before". From 1966, the Beatles began to promulgate a world view espousing LSD-inspired higher consciousness, led by Lennon and Harrison defying Epstein's insistence that the group refrain from commenting on political issues such as the Vietnam War. The controversy surrounding Lennon's "more popular than Jesus" remark reinforced their determination to speak out and furthered their standing in the emerging counterculture. Cultural commentator Mark Hertsgaard writes that the band did not directly address racism, war or social justice in their songs from this period, yet a "sensibility ... permeated their music" and "The essence of the Beatles' message was not simply that the world ''had'' to change, but, more importantly, that it ''could'' change." He sees this best exemplified in ''Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band'' and says that Harrison's song "Within You Without You" "contained the album's most overt expression of the Beatles' shared belief in spiritual awareness and social change". Abbie Hoffman likened ''Sgt. Pepper'' to "Beethoven coming to the supermarket", adding: "It summed up so much of what we were saying politically, culturally, artistically, expressing our inner feelings and our view of the world in a way that was so revolutionary." On 25 June 1967, the Beatles premiered "Manson, "Paul is dead" and break-up
From ''Revolver'' onwards, analysing the Beatles' lyrics for hidden meaning became a popular trend in the US. The lyrics on the band's 1968 double album progressed from being vague to open-ended and prone to misinterpretation, such as "Glass Onion" (the line "the walrus was Paul") and "Piggies" ("what they need's a damn good whacking"). In August 1969, Hollywood actress Sharon Tate and six other individuals were murdered by members of the Manson Family, acting on Charles Manson's interpretation of White Album songs such as "Helter Skelter (song), Helter Skelter", "Piggies" and "Revolution 9". Within weeks, unrelated rumours of Paul is dead, McCartney's death began to spread, based on perceived clues left in the Beatles' lyrics and record sleeves. It was alleged that he had been replaced by a look-alike. MacDonald cites Manson's Helter Skelter (scenario), Helter Skelter scenario as an example of the many "crackpot fixations" that the Beatles inspired in their drug-influenced audience, and a dangerous escalation of the otherwise harmless obsession that encouraged rumours such as the "Paul is dead" conspiracy theory. Schaffner described the latter as "the most monumental hoax since Orson Welles' The War of the Worlds (radio drama), ''War of the Worlds'' broadcast persuaded thousands of panicky New Jerseyites that Martian invaders were in the vicinity". Its escalation in 1969, particularly in the US, was informed by the counterculture's disillusionment with society and, according to American broadcaster Vin Scelsa, indicative of how songs by the Beatles, Dylan and the Rolling Stones were received as "personal message[s], worthy of endless scrutiny" and "guidelines on how to live your life". Both the Manson murders and the Beatles' break-up are often cited as marking the decade's closure. According to Burns, the break-up in April 1970 was "like the Kennedy assassination all over again, or one's parents divorcing". The event was afforded the attention of a presidential assassination or the 1969 Moon landing, as commentators analysed the causes and speculated about the possibilities of a reunion. Burns writes that, throughout the 1970s, there persisted a sense that if the Beatles re-formed, it might revive "the 'era' that had seemed to have passed. When Lennon died, that truly was the end of ... the innocent, comforting, naive belief that the world at large could, somehow, be 'together' in the 1960s sense of the term."Drug culture
According to music critic Jim DeRogatis, the Beatles are seen as the "Acid Apostles of the New Age". The band's connection with recreational drugs was important to their position as leaders of the counterculture, as was their embrace of Indian religion. According to Kureishi, drugs had long been connected to music, but "the Beatles were the first to parade their particular drug use – marijuana and LSD – without shame ... The Beatles made taking drugs seem an enjoyable, fashionable and liberating experience, like them, you would see and feel in ways you hadn't imagined possible." The band's drug-taking became public knowledge with the release of ''Sgt. Pepper''. "A Day in the Life", the album's closing track, was banned by the BBC for an alleged drug reference in the line "I'd love to turn you on"; with "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds", the title was widely read as a code for LSD. Although he had long resisted Lennon and Harrison's urging before trying the drug, McCartney announced in a ''Life'' article in June 1967 that he had taken LSD. When asked to confirm his statement by an ITN reporter, McCartney repeated that he had taken the drug. In the UK, according to MacDonald, the admission "brought howls of righteous anger on their heads" in a manner similar to the 1966 Jesus controversy. As a show of support, Lennon, Harrison and Epstein announced that they too had taken LSD. In July 1967, all four Beatles added their signatures to a petition demanding the legalisation of marijuana and paid for its publication in a full-page ad in ''The Times''. McCartney's admission formalised the link between rock music and drugs, and, as in the 1966 controversy, attracted scorn from American religious leaders and conservatives. In early August 1967, Harrison made a well-publicised visit to the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco, the epicentre of the counterculture during the Summer of Love, which was viewed as a further endorsement of the drug culture. Leary, an LSD advocate whose text ''The Psychedelic Experience, The Psychedelic Experience: A Manual Based on the Tibetan Book of the Dead'' Lennon had used in his lyrics for "Tomorrow Never Knows", declared the Beatles to be "the wisest, holiest, most effective avatars (Divine Incarnate, God Agents) that the human race has ever produced". A United Nations report stated that the Beatles, along with the Rolling Stones and other rock bands, promoted drug use through their music, and that young listeners were following their lead. Bray writes that, rather than advocating drug-taking as a road to "mindless oblivion", the Beatles' espousal of LSD was focused on enlightenment and was therefore one of their "key legacies to the counterculture". In early 1967, the Beatles' elevated status as MBEs ensured that Harrison and his wife, English model Pattie Boyd, were allowed to leave a party in Sussex before Mick Jagger and Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones were arrested on drugs charges. As a result of McCartney's LSD admission, however, the British authorities' indulgence of the band started to wane significantly. According to Harris, the turning point was ''Magical Mystery Tour'', which was broadcast on Boxing Day 1967 and earned the group their first scathing reviews. In October 1968, Lennon and Ono were arrested on charges of cannabis possession; Lennon maintained he had been warned of the raid and that the drugs were planted by the arresting officers from the London Drug Squad. The same senior officer, Norman Pilcher, arrested Harrison and Boyd for possession in March 1969. Harrison also said that the evidence, which was found on a carpet, was planted, since: "I keep my socks in the sock drawer and my stash in the stash box. Anything else they must have brought." With the release of "Cold Turkey", which the other Beatles had rejected as a possible single, Lennon made heroin addiction the subject of a pop hit for the first time. As part of an escalating national debate that had triggered an investigation by the United States Congress, US Congress, Vice-president Spiro Agnew launched a campaign in 1970 to address the issue of American youth being "brainwashed" into taking drugs through the music of the Beatles and other rock artists.Spirituality and Transcendental Meditation
The Beatles' interest in Eastern religions is described by MacDonald as arguably the "most striking example" of the band's ability to transform a minor social trend into a world-wide phenomenon and thereby "magnify" cultural developments during the second half of the 1960s. From 1967 to 1968, the group were promoters of Transcendental Meditation and the teachings of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, which resulted in Transcendental Meditation becoming a worldwide phenomenon. As a result of the coverage given to the Beatles' interest, words such as "mantra" and "guru" became commonly used in the West for the first time. While the band's new, anti-LSD message was met with approval, their championing of the Maharishi and his TM technique was often the subject of confusion and ridicule in the mainstream press, particularly in Britain. Before departing for the Maharishi's ashram in Rishikesh in February 1968, the Beatles recorded two songs that reflected their interest in TM: Lennon's "Across the Universe" and Harrison's "The Inner Light (song), The Inner Light". Philip Goldberg, in his book ''American Veda'', writes that the band's stay in Rishikesh "may have been the most momentous spiritual retreat since Jesus spent those forty days in the wilderness". Despite their later rejection of the Maharishi, the Beatles generated wider interest in Transcendental Meditation, which encouraged the study of Eastern spirituality in Western popular culture. MacDonald credits Harrison with inspiring "the West's mainstream acquaintance with Hindu religion and creat[ing] the late-'60s so-called Spiritual Revival", and he deems this "a fundamental cultural sea-change ... [and] an abiding testimony to Harrison's importance as a counter-cultural figure". Spiritual biographer Gary Tillery also recognises the Beatles, or more specifically Harrison, as having "abruptly brought Indian spirituality to everyday awareness" through their association with the Maharishi. Tillery writes that, while the influence of Indian gurus such as Vivekananda, Yogananda, the Maharishi and Prabhupada was well established by the late 1960s, it was the Beatles' endorsement of their respective philosophies that most contributed to yoga and meditation centres becoming ubiquitous in Western cities and towns over subsequent decades. According to author Andrew Grant Jackson:The Beat Generation, Beats had promoted Buddhism since the 1950s, but it was George Harrison's songs espousing Hindu philosophy and featuring Indian musicians, and the Beatles' study of Transcendental Meditation, that truly kick-started the human potential movement of the 1970s (rebranded New Age in the 1980s). In this way, the musicians helped expand the freedom of religion the United States was founded on to encompass options outside the Judeo-Christian tradition.
Artistic presentation
The Beatles introduced new methods of artistic presentation for pop musicians. They were the first band to be fully marketed through television and continued to find new ways to disseminate their music through the medium. As live performers, they pioneered the world tour and stadium concerts, as sports stadiums became the primary venues for rock tours. Gould says that, aside from their influence on pop songwriting, the Beatles played "a leading role in revolutionizing the way that popular records were made, the way that popular records were listened to ... and the role that popular music itself would play in people's lives". The band's achievements were a key factor in the music industry becoming a multi-million-dollar enterprise and one that approached Hollywood film-making in terms of worldwide influence and turnover. In 1965, the Beatles' music publishing company Northern Songs was floated on the London Stock Exchange, a move that was unprecedented for a band's song catalogue. The flotation defied analysts' predictions by becoming a major financial success.Record formats
Both sides of the Beatles' singles were often major US hits, an achievement that helped elevate the perception of a B-side from its role as a disposable song. The group's December 1965 single pairing "Day Tripper" and "We Can Work It Out" was the first example of a double A-side single in Britain. Its success popularised the format and, in giving equal treatment to two songs, allowed recording artists to show their versatility. The band issued further double A-sides – "Eleanor Rigby" / "Yellow Submarine (song), Yellow Submarine", "Strawberry Fields Forever" / "Penny Lane" and "Something" / "Come Together" – when they thought that both songs in the pairing were equally strong. Their ''Magical Mystery Tour'' double EP, containing the six new songs from the TV film, was also the first example of that format being used in the UK. In January 1966, ''Billboard (magazine), Billboard'' magazine cited the initial US sales of ''Rubber Soul'' (1.2 million copies over nine days) as evidence of teenage record-buyers increasingly moving towards the LP format. According to Gould, ''Sgt. Pepper''s impact was such that it "revolutionize[d] both the aesthetics and the economics of the record business in ways that far outstripped the earlier pop explosions triggered by the Elvis phenomenon of 1956 and the Beatlemania phenomenon of 1963". Although ''The Beatles'' was not the first rock double album, it was the longest up to that time, at close to 94 minutes.Album artwork
The Beatles' album covers furthered the medium as an art form and were widely imitated. Doggett recognises the cover photos for ''With the Beatles'' and ''Rubber Soul'' as examples of the band's image being used to "test the limits of the portrait", a movement that was also reflected in the cover designs for contemporary albums by Dylan and the Rolling Stones. Robert Freeman (photographer), Robert Freeman's monochrome cover shot for ''With the Beatles'' (or Capitol's ''Meet the Beatles!'' in the US) departed from convention, and alarmed EMI, by showing the band members looking austere and unsmiling. This stance was heightened in Freeman's cover portrait for ''Beatles for Sale'', which departed further from the standard pop LP by reducing the album title to minuscule type and otherwise making no mention of the band's name. According to Schaffner, each Beatles LP cover represented a "revolution in artwork" starting with ''Rubber Soul''. The latter featured a distorted image of the band's faces, which were nevertheless so instantly recognisable by 1965 that no artist credit was necessary. For the US LP ''Yesterday and Today'' in 1966, the Beatles supplied Capitol with a cover showing them in butcher's white coats and clutching raw meat and dismembered dolls. Known as the "butcher cover", it was intended as a comment on the Vietnam War, although the photo was also interpreted as a criticism of Capitol's policy of altering the content of Beatles albums for the North American market. American disc jockeys and retailers were appalled by the image; ''KRLA Beat'' magazine described it as "the most nauseating album cover ever seen in the US". Capitol soon recalled all copies of the album and replaced the cover with a less provocative band portrait. The episode predated cover controversies such as those for LPs by the Rolling Stones (with ''Beggars Banquet'') and Blind Faith in the late 1960s and by Alice Cooper, Mom's Apple Pie, Roxy Music and Golden Earring in the 1970s. Writing in their book ''The Art of the LP'', Johnny Morgan and Ben Wardle say the Beatles were arguably the leaders in "creating identity" through album artwork, an approach they consider motivated by the group's retirement as live performers, as well as the catalyst for record company art designers to incorporate drug allusions in their LP covers following the example set by ''Revolver'' and ''Sgt. Pepper''. The design for ''Revolver'' was markedly different from LP covers of 1966, particularly in its eschewing of vibrant psychedelic colours for black-and-white; in Gould's view, it supported the aesthetic of the music and the Beatles' determination to reinvent themselves on record. Created by Klaus Voormann, the band's friend from their The Beatles in Hamburg, years in Hamburg, the cover combined line-drawing caricatures of the Beatles' faces with a collage of older photos. In the line drawings, Voormann drew inspiration from the work of the nineteenth-century illustrator Aubrey Beardsley, who was the subject of a long-running exhibition at London's Victoria and Albert Museum and highly influential on fashion and design themes of the time. Voormann placed the various photos within the tangle of hair connecting the four faces, thereby, in Rodriguez's description, capturing both the long hair synonymous with the band's public image and "the explosion of ideas that were pouring out of their heads". According to author Ian Inglis, the cover for ''Sgt. Pepper'' is widely recognised for demonstrating an "unprecedented correspondence between music and art, time and space", and it initiated an acceptance of album artwork as an "integral component" of the listening experience. The LP's gatefold packaging included cardboard cutouts and, for the first time in a pop album, printed lyrics. The inclusion of the lyrics infuriated sheet music publishers, who lost the revenue from sales of the songs' sheet music. In the late 1990s, the BBC included the ''Sgt. Pepper'' cover in its list of British masterpieces of twentieth-century art and design, placing it ahead of the red telephone box, Mary Quant's miniskirt, and the Mini motorcar. The cover of ''The Beatles'' contrasted with that of ''Sgt. Pepper'' by featuring a Minimalism, minimalist concept of plain white, with the title rendered in plain type. Each copy was individually numbered on the cover, thereby lending a uniqueness to each one and reflecting a tenet of conceptual art.Film and music videos
''A Hard Day's Night'' broke new ground in the field of British and American musical feature films, particularly in its abandoning of the genre's standard rags-to-riches premise for a comedic presentation of the artists playing themselves. Film historian Stephen Glynn describes it as "the canonical pop music film". He highlights the innovative techniques Lester uses in the sequence for "Can't Buy Me Love", as does Saul Austerlitz, who deems it the precursor to the modernAs dedicated recording artists
In Gould's description, the Beatles' career trajectory was largely self-determined and free of the show business considerations that had limited and defined the model of stardom represented by Presley and Sinatra. The band's decision to retire from live performance in 1966 and become a group focused solely on studio recording had no precedent. Given the premium placed on concerts, the press assumed the Beatles were due to break up. From that year onwards, according to Everett, their albums "each suggested ... a different set of rules and that these rules were dictated by the artists". Barry Miles, a leading figure in the 1960s London underground, described ''Revolver'' as the "step-change" that signalled "the way forward for all rock musicians who wondered if there was life after teen scream status". According to Doyle Greene, while academics disagree on whether the Beatles were modernists or Postmodernism, postmodernists, ''Sgt. Pepper'' "arguably marked rock's music's entry into postmodernism as opposed to high-modernism". At McCartney's suggestion, the group adopted alter egos as members of the fictitious Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, an approach that inspired similar practices by glam rock acts of the 1970s. McCartney assumed an unofficial leadership role of the Beatles following Epstein's death in August 1967, but his bandmates soon challenged this position after the critical failure of ''Magical Mystery Tour''. Stark cites the TV film as the first example of the Beatles being afflicted by "Michael Jordan syndrome", in that they excelled as songwriters and recording artists but mistakenly believed that their talents would transfer effectively to film and business projects. The group recorded their 1968 double album in an often divisive atmosphere, which was partly a backlash against the level of McCartney's involvement in the band's activities. The postmodern traits of politics, parody and pastiche were the subject of adverse scrutiny on ''The Beatles''. Everett says that for the majority of baby boomers, the White Album represents "the double album" of the era. Cultural critic Camille Paglia likened the Beatles' final recording projects – the ''Get Back'' filmed rehearsals, which subsequently produced ''Let It Be (Beatles album), Let It Be'', and ''Abbey Road'' – to the last phase in a "tripartite pattern" that typified the early, high and late periods of painters such as Picasso and Donatello; within this final phase, just as "major artists revolt, resimplify", the band sought to abandon the studio sophistication of ''Sgt. Pepper''. ''Abbey Road'' reflected a compromise in the diverging artistic visions of Lennon and McCartney but became the Beatles' best-selling album. In Stark's description, some critics came to view the LP as the band's "farewell to their fans and an attack on 'selfishness and self-gratification'", particularly through McCartney's closing statement in the side two "Abbey Road#Medley, Long Medley".Apple Corps
The Beatles founded Apple Corps in January 1968. The company was intended as an alternative system of cultural production and consumption, run on countercultural principles whereby artists would not have to conform to established industry practice. McCartney likened its ethos to "Western communism". Schaffner described Apple Corps as "a Pepperland of their own" and "the first multi-million dollar, multi-media conglomerate to be operated both by and for the turned-on generation without any interference from the 'men in suits'". One of several divisions within the conglomerate was Apple Records, which Burns calls "the first record label of any consequence started by a band". The EMI-distributed label allowed the band members to further their individual interests and support artists of their choice, and it was a rare example of an artist-run label that progressed beyond a vanity project. Philo writes that, with the international success of the singles "Hey Jude" and Mary Hopkin's "Those Were the Days (song), Those Were the Days", "Apple's launch was comfortably the most successful label launch of all time." By 1970, with Harrison and McCartney as its principal producers, it had launched the international careers of acts such as Billy Preston, James Taylor and Badfinger. Along with its subsidiary Zapple Records, Apple provided an outlet for Lennon to present himself as a fully fledged avant-garde artist in his collaborations with Ono, a direction that was at odds with the Beatles' work. In doing so, according to Schaffner, Lennon attracted ridicule and admiration alike as his work resembled "a one-way mirror that offered the world a clearer, more intimate picture of a celebrity than it had ever before known on such a scale". Harrison also issued solo albums on the label in the late 1960s, starting with the ''Wonderwall Music'' soundtrack. Author Peter Lavezzoli's describes the top 20 UK chart placing of the Radha Krishna Temple's "Hare Krishna Mantra (song), Hare Krishna Mantra" single, which Harrison produced in 1969, as an "astonishing achievement" that was indicative of the Beatles' ability to influence by association. Until the label's closure in the mid-1970s, Apple had the highest success rate of any British record company with regard to UK chart hits. While Apple Corps soon floundered, it provided the inspiration for corporate philosophies adopted by companies such as Ben & Jerry's, Apple Computer, Inc. and Google. Beatles historian Bruce Spizer identifies the iPod, Apple iPod as the realisation of Lennon's idea of combining music, film and electronics.Music and recording aesthetics
Jangle, folk rock and power pop
Music journalist Mark Kemp credits the Beatles with leading pop music's expansion into styles such as world music, psychedelia, avant-pop and electronica, and attracting a bohemian audience that had previously focused on jazz and folk. According to Luhrssen and Larson, the Beatles affected every genre of rock music except jazz rock. Together with the Byrds, they are commonly credited with launching the popularity of the "jangly" sound that defined Jangle, jangle pop. Harrison was one of the first people to own a Rickenbacker 360/12, an electric guitar with twelve strings. His use of this guitar during the recording of ''A Hard Day's Night'' helped to popularise the model, and the jangly sound became so prominent that '' Melody Maker'' termed it the Beatles' "secret weapon". Roger McGuinn liked the effect so much that he made it his signature guitar sound with the Byrds. Within a year of their 1964 meeting, the Beatles and Dylan adopted elements of each other's respective genres, rock and folk, into their music. Both acts became a significant influence on theRecording practices and electronic music
In his role as the Beatles' record producer, George Martin is generally credited with helping to popularise the idea of the recording studio as an instrument used for in-studio composition. Although he was nominally the Beatles' producer, however, from 1964 he ceded control to the band, allowing them to use the studio as a workshop for their ideas and later as a sound laboratory. Musicologist Olivier Julien writes that the Beatles' "gradual integration of arranging and recording into one and the same process" began as early as 1963, but developed in earnest during the sessions for ''Rubber Soul'' and ''Revolver'' and "ultimately blossomed" during the sessions for ''Sgt. Pepper''. In acquiring control over the recording process, whereby Martin and his engineers became facilitators of the musicians' ideas, the Beatles reversed the strict hierarchy that had long been in place atPsychedelia and progressive music
Western classical fusion
Music critics Robert Christgau and Mark Ellen each identify ''Rubber Soul'' as the album that laid the foundations for Psychedelic music, psychedelia. Citing a quantitative study of tempos in music from the era, Everett identifies it as a work that was "made more to be thought about than danced to", and an album that "began a far-reaching trend" in its slowing-down of the tempos typically used in pop and rock music. Many baroque rock, baroque-rock works appeared soon afterwards, particularly due to Martin's harpsichord-like solo on the track "In My Life", while the album also marked the introduction into pop of the pump organ or harmonium. ''Revolver'' ensured that psychedelic pop emerged from its underground roots and into the mainstream, while "Rain" originated British psychedelic rock. The chamber-orchestrated "Eleanor Rigby" is cited by Simonelli as an example of the Beatles' influence being such that, whatever the style of song, it helped to define the parameters of rock music. The 1967 double A-side single "Strawberry Fields Forever" / "Penny Lane" comprised two songs in which Lennon and McCartney, respectively, celebrated their Liverpool upbringing. Simonelli writes that the songs instilled the Romanticism, Romantic artistic tradition as a central tenet of psychedelic rock. In MacDonald's view, "Strawberry Fields Forever" launched both the "English pop-pastoral mood" typified by bands such as Pink Floyd, Family (band), Family, Traffic (band), Traffic and Fairport Convention, and English psychedelia's LSD-inspired preoccupation with "nostalgia for the innocent vision of a child". The Mellotron's appearance on the track remains the most celebrated use of the instrument on a pop or rock recording. Together with the resonant tone of Starr's drums, the cello arrangement on "Strawberry Fields Forever" (as with "I Am the Walrus" from ''Magical Mystery Tour'') was much admired by other musicians and producers, and proved highly influential on 1970s bands such as Electric Light Orchestra and Wizzard. According to Everett, the Beatles' "experimental timbres, rhythms, tonal structures, and poetic texts" on ''Rubber Soul'' and ''Revolver'' "encouraged a legion of young bands that were to createRaga rock and Eastern fusion
Indian culture, in the form of music and mysticism, was a significant component of the Beatles' image. Following on from the Kinks, the Yardbirds and the Beatles themselves (with "Ticket to Ride") incorporating droning guitars to mimic the qualities of the Indian sitar, ''Rubber Soul''s "Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown), Norwegian Wood" featured the first use of the instrument by a Western pop musician. Played by Harrison, the sitar part launched a craze that Indian classical musician Ravi Shankar termed "the great sitar explosion", as the instrument became a popular feature in raga rock and psychedelic music. The song is often identified as the first example of raga rock, a subgenre that was officially launched by the Byrds with their March 1966 single "Eight Miles High". ''Revolver'' featured two overtly Music of India, Indian-styled songs: "Tomorrow Never Knows", with its foundation of heavy Tanpura, tambura drone, and "Love You To". According to the ''Garland Encyclopedia of World Music'', ''Revolver'' was the first major American-derived popular music to incorporate Asian techniques and instrumentation. In his book ''Popular World Music'', Andrew Shahriari writes that the Beatles are not usually recognised as world music artists, yet their use of Indian musical instruments, which was led by Harrison's interest, was "revolutionary" in the context of 1960s European and American popular music. While Harrison was not the only rock musician to experiment with Indian styles in the mid-1960s, the Beatles' association with the genre ensured that Indian classical music reached its widest audience, through songs such as "Within You Without You". In his 1997 book ''Indian Music and the West'', ethnomusicologist Gerry Farrell said that "nearly thirty years on, the Beatles' 'Indian' songs remain among the most imaginative and successful examples of this type of fusion – for example, 'Blue Jay Way' and 'The Inner Light.'"Rock 'n' roll revival and heavy metal
The Beatles' March 1968 single "Lady Madonna" was at the forefront of a contemporary rock 'n' roll revival, which marked the end of the psychedelic era. In the song, McCartney sought to create a boogie-woogie piece in the style of Fats Domino. Harris says that in addition to anticipating similar revival recordings by the Rolling Stones and Eric Clapton, "Lady Madonna" ensured that Berry and Little Richard returned to "the rarified pedestals where the British Invasion groups had originally placed them". The Beatles directly influenced the development of heavy metal in the late 1960s. "Helter Skelter" was a product of McCartney's attempt to create a sound as loud and dirty as possible, and the recording has been noted for its "proto-metal roar" by AllMusic's Stephen Thomas Erlewine. Recorded in the hard rock style with heavily distorted guitars, "Revolution" was the subject of complaints at retail level in 1968, since many listeners assumed the sound was the result of a manufacturing error. Discussing Lennon's "I Want You (She's So Heavy)", ''Guitar World''s Josh Hart and Damien Fanelli called the song a "bluesy rocker" that "might have inadvertently started doom metal". Jo Kendall of ''Classic Rock (magazine), Classic Rock'' magazine similarly commented that the song predated "Black Sabbath's creation of doom rock by several months" and noted the "Santana (band), Santana-like Latin blues section" in the song. James Manning, of ''Time Out London'', describes the song as the foundation for stoner rock.Continued interest and influence
Literature, academia and science
In his biographical article on the Beatles for AllMusic, Richie Unterberger states, "Their supremacy as rock icons remains unchallenged to this day, decades after their breakup in 1970." Writing in 2009, Gary Burns commented that the Beatles continue to "enjoy a canonized status" unprecedented for popular musicians and that they are "canonical figures" in each of the three categories within the rock canon: sociological, literary and musicological. He identifies them as a key influence in the foundation of hundreds of organisations and publications dedicated to serious appreciation of rock music, including the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Cambridge University Press's journal ''Popular Music'', the International Association for the Study of Popular Music, and the University of Liverpool's Institute of Popular Music. Hundreds of books have been written about the Beatles' career. Jonathan Gould says that the band "represent a bibliographical phenomenon as well as a musical one", with the group's history having become a folk tale that "has been put to many different uses by its many different narrators". He comments that the range and variety of literature is "all the more remarkable considering that, prior to the Beatles, not a single significant book had been written on the subject of rock 'n' roll". Burns states that the quality and preponderance of "scholarly, quasi-scholarly, journalistic, and fan attention" given to the band far surpasses that given to Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones and the Beach Boys. In her book ''The Rock Canon'', Carys Wyn Jones affords them an elevated status akin to William Shakespeare, Shakespeare's position of eminence in Harold Bloom's canon of Western literature. Relevant scholarly studies range from discussions of the band's history and cultural impact to musicological work on such subjects as chord progressions, melody and automated analysis. * In 2009, Liverpool Hope University started to offer a Master's degree in "The Beatles, Popular Music and Society". The program focuses on the political, social, and cultural aspects related to the Beatles and their music. * In 2014, Thomson Reuters analyst and ''ScienceWatch'' editor Christopher King investigated 12,000 journals and books and found that 500 mentioned the Beatles in their topics or titles. * A 2017 study of AllMusic's catalogue indicated the band as the most frequently cited artist influence in its database. Of the 2000 artists selected for the study, 1230 were stated to be influenced by the Beatles, ahead of Dylan, with 669. * In 2019, a scientific study involving over 80,000 different chord progressions and conducted by the Max Planck Institute in Germany indicated "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da" as "the perfect pop song" based on how enjoyable recipients found its chord changes. * In 2021, the University of Liverpool announced a "The Beatles: Music Industry and Heritage" MA, which would examine the group's influence on popular music and culture and how the band's influence could be replicated in different places, industries and contexts around the world. That same year, Liverpool University Press announced an upcoming ''Journal of Beatles Studies'', with the first issue scheduled to be released September 2022. Since the early 2000s, historian Mark Lewisohn has been writing ''The Beatles: All These Years'', a three-part set of Beatles biographies whose first volume exceeds 1,700 pages. The impetus for the project was his disappointment that none of the group's biographies had approached a depth or breadth comparable to Robert A. Caro's ongoing book series, ''The Years of Lyndon Johnson''.Twenty-first-century relevance
The Beatles continue to be viewed as representing the ideals of the 1960s. In Inglis's description, "their voices and faces were the most recognized symbols of the 'swinging sixties' and they became – and remain – the iconic images of the decade." In 2004, the band were the most-represented act in ''Rolling Stone''s list of the "Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time, 500 Greatest Songs of All Time", with seven out of 23 Beatles songs making the top 30. In 2009, Global Beatles Day was founded as an international celebration of the band's music and social message. The event takes place on 25 June each year in memory of the ''Our World'' performance of "All You Need Is Love". Writing in ''The New York Times Magazine'' in 2016, cultural commentator Chuck Klosterman said that the group were "only slightly less popular now" than they were in the 1960s. He wrote that the group were "arguably" responsible for everything related to rock music, "including the very notion of a band's breaking up", and noted that no other rock group had faced unrelated assassination attempts against half its members. Klosterman concluded that, "In any reasonable world, the Beatles are the answer to the question "Who will be the John Philip Sousa, Sousa of rock?" In the 2000s, Presley had been the only other defunct musical act to generate as much continued news and interest as the Beatles. His mass appeal curtailed significantly by the end of the 2010s, while the Beatles' popularity has endured with younger generations. The amount of Google searches for "Beatles" spiked by 48.59% in 2019, relative to the previous four years. That same year, the Beatles' music was streamed on Spotify 1.7 billion times; 30% of listeners were between the ages of 18 and 24, followed by 25- to 29-year-olds, at 17%. In other words, almost half of listeners were aged under 30. As of June 2019, "Yesterday" remained one of the most covered songs in the history of recorded music, with over 2,200 versions. According to figures published by Broadcast Music, Inc., Broadcast Music Incorporated (BMI), the song was played over 7 million times on American radio during the twentieth century.See also
* List of awards and nominations received by the Beatles * The Beatles in popular culture * The Beatles in film * Tributes to the Beatles * Beatlesque * Tomorrow Never Knows (Beatles album), ''Tomorrow Never Knows'' (Beatles album) * Cultural impact of Elvis PresleyNotes
References
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* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Beatles' Influence On Popular Culture, The The Beatles, Influence on Popular Culture Cultural depictions of the Beatles, Beatles, The 1960s in music 1970s in music Cultural impact by musician