Beatle haircut

The English rock band the Beatles are commonly regarded as the foremost and most influential band in popular music history. With a line-up comprising John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr, they sparked the " Beatlemania" phenomenon in 1963, gained international superstardom in 1964, and remained active until their break-up in 1970. Over the latter half of the decade, they were often viewed as orchestrators of society's developments. Their recognition concerns their effect on the era's youth and counterculture, British identity, popular music's evolution into an art form, and their unprecedented following.

Many cultural movements of the 1960s were assisted or inspired by the Beatles. In Britain, their rise to national prominence signalled the youth-driven changes in postwar society, with respect to social mobility, teenagers' commercial influence, and informality. They spearheaded the shift from American artists' global dominance of rock and roll to British acts (known in the US as the British Invasion) and inspired many young people to pursue music careers. From 1964 to 1970, the group had the top-selling US single one out of every six weeks, and the top-selling US album one out of every three weeks. In 1965, they were awarded MBEs, the first time such an honour was bestowed on a British pop act. A year later, Lennon controversially remarked that the band were " more popular than Jesus now".

The Beatles often incorporated classical elements, traditional pop forms and unconventional recording techniques in innovative ways, especially with the albums ''Rubber Soul'' (1965), '' Revolver'' (1966) and '' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band'' (1967). Many of their advances in production, writing, and artistic presentation were soon widespread. Other cultural changes initiated by the group include the elevation of the album to become the dominant form of record consumption over singles, a wider interest in psychedelic drugs and Eastern spirituality, and several fashion trends. The band also pioneered with their record sleeves and music videos, as well as informed music styles such as jangle, folk rock, power pop, psychedelia, progressive rock and heavy metal. By the end of the decade, the group were seen as an embodiment of the era's sociocultural movements, exemplified by the sentiment of their 1967 song "All You Need Is Love".

Over the 1960s as a whole, the Beatles were the dominant youth-centred pop act on the sales charts. They broke numerous sales and attendance records, many of which they have or had maintained for decades, and continue to enjoy a canonised status unprecedented for popular musicians. Their songs are among the most recorded in history, with cover versions of " Yesterday" exceeding thousands. As of 2009, they were the best-selling band in history, with estimated sales of over 600 million records worldwide. ''Time'' included them in its list of the twentieth century's 100 most important people.

Scope

The Beatles formed in Liverpool in 1960; as a foursome comprising John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr, they gained international stardom in 1964, and remained active until their break-up in 1970. Throughout the band's career, they expanded collective notions regarding the limits of commercial and artistic achievement. In ''Rolling Stone'' magazine's ''Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll'' (2001), the editors define their "incalculable" influence as encompassing "all of Western culture". The writers state that the group's discography held the precedent for "virtually every rock experiment ... Although many of their sales and attendance records have since been surpassed, no group has so radically transformed the sound and significance of rock & roll." Writing for AllMusic, critic Richie Unterberger recognises the Beatles as both "the greatest and most influential act of the rock era" and a group that "introduced more innovations into popular music than any other rock band of the 20th century". He adds:

Many contemporary listeners viewed the Beatles as orchestrators of society's developments over the second half of the 1960s. Musicologist Allan F. Moore states that there have been occasions when "audiences gravitate towards a centre" of pop music culture, the most prominent of which was in the early to mid 1960s, a period in which it "seems that almost everyone, irrespective of age, class or cultural background, listened to the Beatles". Music critic Greil Marcus described the Beatles' impact as the second "pop explosion", after Elvis Presley's emergence in the 1950s, and defined the term as "an irresistible cultural explosion that cuts across lines of class and race, and, most crucially, divides society itself by age". In such a phenomenon, he continued, "The surface of daily life (walk, talk, dress, symbolism, heroes, family affairs) is affected with such force that deep and substantive changes in the way large numbers of people think and act take place." According to author and film-maker Hanif Kureishi, the Beatles are "the only mere pop group you could remove from history and suggest that culturally, without them, things would have been significantly different".

Detractors of the Beatles' legacy argue that the band are overrated and are often credited for innovations that other acts were the first to achieve. Music historian Bill Martin cites such notions as part of modern culture's inability to fully "understand them as a force", and says that although rock music has been defined by "synthesis and transmutation" since it began, "what was original about the Beatles is that they synthesized and transmuted more or less ''everything'', they did this in a way that reflected their time, they reflected their time in a way that spoke to a great part of humanity, and they did all of this really, really well." Ian MacDonald states that the band were keen observers who discovered trends in their infancy and were adept at mirroring the era's "social and psychological changes". He said that their connection with the times was such that the Beatles "did far more mind-liberating" than Bob Dylan, through their greater record sales and "because they worked in simpler, less essentially sceptical ways".

Sales and attendance records

Over the 1960s as a whole, the Beatles were the dominant youth-centred pop act on the sales charts. "She Loves You", the band's second number-one single on the '' Record Retailer'' chart (subsequently adopted as the UK Singles Chart), became the best-selling single in UK chart history, a position it retained until 1978. The band's first two albums, ''Please Please Me'' and ''With the Beatles'', each topped ''Record Retailer''s LPs chart, for a combined run of 51 consecutive weeks. Beginning with "From Me to You" in 1963, the Beatles had a four-year run of eleven consecutive chart-topping singles in ''Record Retailer'', ending when the double A-side single "Strawberry Fields Forever" / "Penny Lane" peaked at number two.

On 4 April 1964, the Beatles occupied the top five US chart positions – with "Can't Buy Me Love", "Twist and Shout", "She Loves You", "I Want to Hold Your Hand" and "Please Please Me" – as well as 11 other positions on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100. For nine consecutive weeks, they held the top two places on the ''Billboard'' Top LPs chart (subsequently the ''Billboard'' 200) with reconfigured versions of their first two albums. Until 2018, they were the only act to have filled the top five of the ''Billboard'' Hot 100. They also broke 11 other chart records on ''Billboard''s singles and albums charts at that time. Their chart domination was commonplace in countries around the world during 1964. In Australia, in late March, the band's songs filled the top six chart positions; during one week, they held nine positions in Canada's top ten.

On 15 August 1965, the Beatles became the first entertainment act to stage a concert in a sports stadium when they performed at Shea Stadium in New York City before an audience of 55,600. The event set records for attendance and revenue generation, with takings of $304,000 (equivalent to $ in ). The band's record run of six consecutive number-ones on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100 from January 1965 to January 1966 – with the songs "I Feel Fine", "Eight Days a Week", " Ticket to Ride", "Help!", " Yesterday" and "We Can Work It Out" – remained unbeaten until Whitney Houston achieved a seventh in 1988.

'' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band'' (1967) was the top-selling album of the 1960s in the UK, and on four occasions they had the best-selling album of the year there. As of 2019, with certified sales of 5.1 million copies in the UK, ''Sgt. Pepper'' is the all-time third best-selling album there and the best-selling studio album. The 1968 double LP ''The Beatles'' (also known as the "White Album") became the fastest-selling album in history; Capitol Records reported advance orders of 2 million in the US, with many stores selling their entire stock in one day.

In the UK, the Beatles are beaten only by Presley for their amount of number-one singles and combined weeks at number one. As of December 2018, the Beatles held the record for the most Christmas number-one hits there, with four, of which three were achieved in successive years between 1963 and 1965. In the list of the UK's top sellers for the decade, the band's albums filled the top ten, apart from the soundtracks to ''The Sound of Music'', '' South Pacific'' and ''West Side Story''. The Beatles took the next three positions, meaning that all ten of their UK number-one albums were among the thirteen best-selling albums of the 1960s. In the case of US sales for the 1960s, the Beatles were the top artist, ahead of Presley, in both singles and albums. Between February 1964 and July 1970, the band maintained the number-one single on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100 for a total of 59 weeks and topped ''Billboard''s LPs chart for 116 weeks. In other words, they had the top-selling single one out of every six weeks, and the top-selling album one out of every three weeks.

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 the Cunard Yanks working on the shipping routes. Like many Liverpool bands, the Beatles formed their sound from skiffle and a combination of American influences, especially rhythm and blues and girl groups, and honed their live act through seasons performing in the red-light district of Hamburg in West Germany. The music was performed with an emphasis on beat and guitars, at the expense of saxophones or other instruments commonly heard on the American records. Under pressure from Liverpool venues such as the Cavern, manager Brian Epstein persuaded the Beatles to swap their favoured look of black leather jackets and pants for more presentable stage suits. The group's emergence as leaders of the Liverpool beat scene represented a departure from the London-focused tradition of the UK music industry.

Released in October 1962, "Love Me Do", the band's debut single as EMI recording artists, contrasted with the polished style of contemporary UK hit songs. According to author Peter Doggett, the January 1963 follow-up, "Please Please Me", represented "the real birth of the new" as, aided by Lennon's impassioned vocal, the song was "more driven than any previous British pop record". As musicians and songwriters, the Beatles established working-class authenticity and informality as key aspects in British rock 'n' roll. Doggett adds that "Most of all, the Beatles sounded like a gang: forceful, persuasive and sexually potent."

Starting in 1963, according to music historian David Simonelli, the Beatles initiated the "original golden age" of British rock 'n' roll and reversed a tradition whereby domestic acts were a "pale imitation" of the original American purveyors of the style. During the first half of that year, the band usurped American acts including Roy Orbison to become the headline performers on their joint UK tours, something no previous British act accomplished while touring with artists from the US. Their initial success opened the way for many other Liverpool groups to achieve national success and encouraged the country's four main, London-based record companies to seek out talent in other areas of northern England. As a result, the Beatles and other British acts dominated the charts in 1963 at the expense of American artists.

Sociocultural 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 of National Service, the group "effectively signaled the end of World War II in Britain". For sociologists, the band typified new developments in postwar Britain such as social mobility, teenagers' commercial influence, and informality in society. In their 1965 book ''Generation X'', Charles Hamblett and Jane Deverson said the Beatles had supplied British youth culture with a unifying and liberating influence that departed from the usual American-inspired model and, together with other groups from outside London, had fostered a sense of celebration of provincial England. The authors commented that resistance to the Beatles' progressive social influence from establishment figures was because the band were "knocking the stuffing – and the stuffiness – out of the neo-Victorians".

The band's appeal registered with members of the royal family when the Beatles played a toned-down selection of songs at the Royal Variety Performance on 4 November 1963. The show was watched by a television audience of 26 million, around half the population of the UK, and helped establish the group as one of the first "spectacles" of the 1960s. Reluctant to play at such a formal event, Lennon told Epstein that he planned to sabotage the occasion. He instead charmed the theatre audience with his final comment: "For our last number Twist and Shout' I'd like to ask your help. The people in the cheaper seats, clap your hands. And the rest of you, if you'd just rattle your jewellery."

Political 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 a political football for the two major political parties; the ''New Statesman'' reported that Conservative candidates were told to "mention the Beatles whenever possible in their speeches", while a cartoon in the '' Daily Express'' showed the Conservative prime minister, Alec Douglas-Home, and Labour's leader of the opposition, Harold Wilson, consulting the Beatles over the Profumo affair. During the election campaign, both parties accused the other of trying to use the band's popularity for political gain. In March 1964, Wilson, who was contesting the outer Liverpool seat of Huyton, engineered a photo opportunity with the group as they received their Variety Club "Show Business Personality of the Year" awards. The association endured in the public's mind, securing Wilson the youth vote and aiding in his election win.

The Beatles' international success also benefited the country's tourism and fashion industries, and entertainment generally. In early 1965, '' Melody Maker'' initiated a campaign for the Beatles to be awarded MBEs, a move that Wilson supported and set in motion. When the band received their MBEs from Queen Elizabeth II in October, it was unprecedented recognition for pop musicians, anticipating the honours (including knighthoods) that were regularly bestowed on the country's entertainers in subsequent decades. The award was in acknowledgement of the Beatles' contribution to the national economy and reflected the value of their popularity to the Labour government. Wilson's Cabinet minister Tony Benn, who opposed the award, thought it was equally indicative of the royal family's wish to appeal to the masses in the new era of egalitarianism and meritocracy.

Britain's leadership of international culture

In his book on the 1960s, social historian Arthur Marwick identifies the Beatles' US breakthrough as the "single critical event" that established "the hegemony of youth-inspired British popular culture". With other countries succumbing to the Beatles' influence, according to Simonelli, the band "virtually redefined what it meant to be British", and British culture became "the most exciting culture on earth" for the first time since the start of the industrial age. The surge in exports revenue extended to film and other commercial artistic pursuits, and recognition of London as the " Swinging City" of international culture.

With the Beatles having moved to London in 1963, in Simonelli's description, they served as the "maypole" at the centre of the city's cultural influence throughout the 1960s. Marwick says they represented the popular image of a phenomenon in which "hitherto invisible swathes of British society became visible and assertive" and their 1966 single "Paperback Writer" was the song that best conveyed "the new class-defying tide of individualistic enterprise". Liverpool poet Roger McGough credited the Beatles with establishing the "mythology of Liverpool" through their 1967 songs "Strawberry Fields Forever" and "Penny Lane", in the manner that American rock 'n' roll songs had traditionally done for US cities and roads.

Beatlemania

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 ''Sunday Night at the London Palladium''; amid reports of wild crowd scenes outside the venue, and after 15 million viewers watched the broadcast, Britain was said to be "in the grip of Beatlemania". The "yeah, yeah, yeah!" refrain of "She Loves You" was a signature hook for their European audiences. Its falsetto "ooh!"s elicited further fan delirium when accompanied by McCartney and Harrison's exaggerated shaking of their moptop hair. Once it became an international phenomenon in 1964, Beatlemania surpassed in its intensity and reach any previous examples of fan worship, including those afforded to Presley and Frank Sinatra.

Displays of mania were repeated wherever the band played. When the group toured Australia in June 1964, the population afforded the visit the status of a national event. A crowd of 300,000 – the largest recorded gathering of Australians in one place – welcomed the Beatles to Adelaide. Sid Bernstein, the US promoter who arranged the band's Shea Stadium concerts, said that only Adolf Hitler had had such power over the masses. Bernstein was sure that the group "could sway a presidential election if they wanted to". Around 4,000 fans gathered outside Buckingham Palace in central London when the Beatles received their MBEs from the Queen. As the crowd chanted "God save the Beatles" and "Yeah, yeah, yeah!", some fans jostled with police officers and scaled the palace gates. Referring to this spectacle, journalist Robert Sandall later commented that "Never had a ruling monarch been so thoroughly upstaged by a group of her subjects as was Elizabeth II on 6 October 1965"

The Beatles became bored with all aspects of touring – including fans offering themselves sexually to the band, and the high-pitched screaming that rendered their performances inaudible. Beatlemania continued on a reduced scale after the band retired from touring, and after the members became solo artists. In their book ''Encyclopedia of Classic Rock'', David Luhrssen and Michael Larson write that while boy bands such as One Direction have continued to attract audiences of screaming girls, no act has "moved pop culture forward or achieved the breadth and depth of the Beatles' fandom".

US breakthrough and British Invasion

Most Americans were introduced to the Beatles' music with the single "I Want to Hold Your Hand" backed with "I Saw Her Standing There", rising to the top of US charts on 1 February 1964. Both songs featured a harder-edged guitar sound that stood out as a revival of the "rebellious" spirit absent from newer rock and roll acts and as a rejection of the regular assortment of novelty songs, teen idols, folk singers and girl groups that occupied US charts in the weeks and months previous. MacDonald wrote: "every American artist, black or white, asked about 'I Want to Hold Your Hand' has said much the same: it altered everything, ushering in a new era and changing their lives."

On 9 February, the Beatles gave their first live US television performance on ''The Ed Sullivan Show'', watched by approximately 73 million viewers in over 23 million households, or 34 per cent of the US population. The Nielsen rating service reported that it was the largest audience number ever recorded for an American television . Music journalist Neil McCormick, writing in 2015, described the Beatles' debut on the show as pop music's " big bang moment", while Stanley calls it "arguably the most significant postwar cultural event in America", adding that "Their rise, the scale of it and their impact on society, was completely unprecedented." Their second appearance on ''The Ed Sullivan Show'', on 16 February, was watched by around 70 million viewers.

Eleven weeks before the Beatles' arrival in the US, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, a source of profound national mourning that American commentators at the time linked to young people's embrace of the Beatles and their music. For many Americans, particularly young baby boomers, the Beatles' visit reignited the sense of excitement and possibility that had been taken by Kennedy's assassination. A teenage New Yorker in early 1964, author Nicholas Schaffner later wrote that the Kennedy link was "an exaggeration, perhaps", but the Beatles "more than filled the energy gap" left by the demise of 1950s rock 'n' roll for an audience accustomed to the "vacuous" music that had replaced it.

For decades, the US had dominated popular entertainment culture throughout much of the world, via Hollywood films, jazz, and the music of Broadway and Tin Pan Alley. In early 1964, ''Life'' magazine declared: "In 776England lost her American colonies. Last week the Beatles took them back." The Beatles subsequently sparked the British Invasion of the US and became a globally influential phenomenon. Recalling the Beatles' sudden popularity, Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys felt that the Beatles had "eclipsed ... the whole music world". Bob Dylan recalled that, by April 1964, "a definite line was being drawn. This was something that had never happened before ... I knew they were pointing the direction of where music had to go."

The Beatles' success in the US established the popularity of British groups and affected the musical style of American bands. In doing so, however, the Beatles inadvertently caused a sharp decrease in sales for black artists and the decline of many of the girl groups they admired. By mid 1964, several more UK acts arrived in the US, including the Dave Clark Five, the Rolling Stones, Billy J. Kramer and Gerry & the Pacemakers. Confirming the British Invasion of the US pop market, one-third of all top ten hits there in 1964 were performed by British acts. The depth of the Beatles' US impact was also reflected in a wave of easy listening adaptations of their songs, aimed at the adult market. This trend was led by the Boston Pops Orchestra recording "I Want to Hold Your Hand" and the Hollyridge Strings covering " All My Loving", after which the latter orchestra released the 1964 album ''The Beatles Song Book''.

The extent of the Beatles' impact on American music was disputed in a 2015 study conducted by the Queen Mary University of London and Imperial College London. By analysing shifts in chord progressions, beats, lyrics and vocals, the study indicated that American music was moving away from mellow sounds like doo-wop and into more energetic rock styles since the beginning of the 1960s. Professor Armand Leroi, who led the study on behalf of Imperial College, said: "They didn't make a revolution or spark a revolution, they joined one. The trend is already emerging and they rode that wave, which accounts for their incredible success." Beatles historian Mark Lewisohn said in response: "anyone who was a young person in the US when the Beatles arrived ... will tell you that the Beatles revolutionised everything." McCormick dismissed the study as "sensationalist".

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. Writer Sean O'Hagan recalled in 2016: "Everything about them – the clothes they wore, the way they spoke, the songs they created with an effortlessness that seemed almost alchemical – suggested new ways of being. More than any of their contemporaries, they challenged the tired conventions that defined class-bound, insular, early-60s Britain." According to author Jonathan Gould, in conveying "Youthfulness, stylishness, unpretentiousness, and nonchalance", their early image defied the widely held stereotype of Britishness, and through their presentation as Liverpudlians, "the Beatles personified an iconoclastic version of their national character that proved to be as compelling to the youth of North America, Europe, Australia and parts of Asia as it was to their British fans."

In his book ''Revolution in the Head'', MacDonald describes the band members as "perfect McLuhanites" who "''felt'' their way through life". He says of the group's initial impact:

Unlike 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.

Lou Christie recalled that the Beatles' emergence underlined the staidness of the US music scene, saying: "We were, in many respects, just these goofy white boys. We weren't allowed to be seen with a cigarette in our hands ... he Beatleswere more aggressive, they were funny and they were articulate. The minute they came to America, they literally put a halt to everything that was previously happening."

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'', authors Barbara Ehrenreich, Elizabeth Hess and Gloria Jacobs said that the Beatles' haircuts signalled androgyny and thus presented a less threatening version of male sexuality to teenage girls, while their presentable suits meant they seemed less "sleazy" than Presley to middle-class whites. Russian historian Mikhail Safonov wrote in 2003 that in the Brezhnev-era Soviet Union, mimicking the Beatles' hairstyle was seen as highly rebellious. Young people were called "hairies" by their elders, and were arrested and forced to have their hair cut in police stations. As a result of the Beatles, the traditional American male look of crewcuts or combed-back hair was replaced by a preference for long hair.

Clothing styles were similarly influenced, firstly by the band's Pierre Cardin suits and Cuban-heeled Beatle boots, and later by the Carnaby Street mod fashions they wore. Along with the Rolling Stones, Dylan and the Who, the Beatles inspired thousands of young men to wear pop art-themed designs. In the late 1960s, the band's adoption of Nehru jackets and other Indian-style clothing was highly influential on Western fashion. In his 1970 "Lennon Remembers" interview, Lennon complained: "When we got here o the US you were all walking around in fuckin' Bermuda shorts with Boston crew cuts and stuff on your teeth ... The chicks looked like 1940's horses. There was no conception of dress or any of that jazz." Writing in 2002, music journalist David Fricke said Lennon was "right" in his withering assessment of American youth, adding that Americans were "psychologically stuck in the surface white-bread calm of the 1950s" and "ripe for blindsiding".

Image 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'' 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 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'', which was made by 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' self-titled television show evoked the Beatles' personalities from Dick Lester's feature films ''A Hard Day's Night'' and ''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'' hoped to include the Beatles in a scene featuring four vultures with mop-top hairstyles singing "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. A major merchandising campaign accompanied the release of the band's 1968 animated 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 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 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 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 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 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", 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", "Eleanor Rigby", "Here, There and Everywhere", "The Fool on the Hill", " Hey Jude", " Blackbird", " 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" 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. 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, ''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 identifies the Beatles as pop music's "first recording ''artists''", whose body of work represents "very intricate art". Luhrssen and Larson say the Beatles "adeit mandatory that serious rock bands aspire to be artists, not merely entertainers".

With '' 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 ''Rubber Soul'' took place over a four-week period uninterrupted by touring, filming or radio engagements, making its creation highly unusual for the time. By the time of the album's release in December 1965, according to author Michael Frontani, each new Beatles record was received as "an expansion of the parameters of popular music, and the roup'simage reflected and promoted notions of the Beatles' artistry and importance". Simonelli describes ''Rubber Soul'' as "the first serious effort by a rock and roll act to produce an LP as an artistic statement", while author Christopher Bray deems it "the first long-playing pop record to really merit the term 'album'" and the LP that "turned pop music into high art". The standard of its all-original compositions was also responsible for a widespread shift in focus from singles to creating albums without the usual filler tracks.

The Beatles incorporated influences from the English counterculture (or London underground) more readily than any of their pop rivals. Led by McCartney's absorption in the London arts scene and interest in the work of Stockhausen and Bach, this resulted in what musicologist Walter Everett terms a "revolution in the expressive capacity of mainstream rock music". The band's August 1966 album '' Revolver'' was viewed as avant-garde and, in MacDonald's description, "initiated a second pop revolution ... galvanising their existing rivals and inspiring many new ones". According to music historian Simon Philo, ''Revolver'' announced "underground London"'s arrival in pop, supplanting the sound associated with Swinging London.

Released in May 1967, ''Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band'' is described by Doggett as "the biggest pop happening" to take place between the Beatles' debut on American television in February 1964 and Lennon's murder in December 1980. The album was a major critical and commercial success; through the level of attention it received from the rock press and more culturally elite publications, ''Sgt. Pepper'' achieved full cultural legitimisation for pop music and recognition for the medium as a genuine art form. Its win in the Album of the Year category at the 1968 Grammys Awards marked the first time that a rock LP had received this award. According to author Doyle Greene, the album provided "a crucial locus in the assemblage of popular music and avant-garde/experimental music – and popular culture and modernism". Chris Smith highlights ''Sgt. Pepper'' as one of the most "obvious" choices for inclusion in ''101 Albums That Changed Popular Music'', due to its continued commercial success, the wealth of imitative works it inspired, and its ongoing recognition as "a defining moment in the history of music".

''The Beatles'' represented a diverse collection of musical styles that one critic likened to a history of Western music, and its November 1968 release was viewed as a major cultural event. The album failed to inspire the level of creative writing that ''Sgt. Pepper'' had introduced to rock criticism, as reviewers were unable to locate it within the Beatles' canon. Music critic John Harris wrote of the White Album: "it was these 30 songs that decisively opened the way for musicians to extend their horizons beyond the standard LP format."

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", "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 collectivist thinking that distinguished the 1960s and the emergence of the 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 women's liberation, gay liberation and 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 was passed, and also that their first US LP, '' 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 country at the time, particularly in the South. When informed that the venue for their 11 September concert, the 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 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 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 second North American tour went ahead. From that year onwards, right-wing Christian leaders such as Bob Larson and 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''. 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 US involvement in the Vietnam War and 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 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 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", 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's description, ''Revolver'' presented the Beatles as "the world's first household 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 "All You Need Is Love" live on the BBC
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