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The Beatles were an English rock band formed in Liverpool in 1960. The line-up of John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr led the band to be regarded as the foremost and most influential in history.[1] With a sound rooted in skiffle, beat and 1950s rock and roll, the group were integral to the evolution of pop music into an art form, and to the development of the counterculture of the 1960s.[2] They often incorporated elements of classical music, older pop forms, and unconventional recording techniques in innovative ways, and in later years experimented with a number of musical styles ranging from pop ballads and Indian music to psychedelia and hard rock. As they continued to draw influences from a variety of cultural sources, their musical and lyrical sophistication grew, and they came to be seen as embodying the era's sociocultural movements.

Led by primary songwriters Lennon and McCartney, the Beatles built their reputation playing clubs in Liverpool and Hamburg over a three-year period from 1960, initially with Stuart Sutcliffe playing bass. The core trio of Lennon, McCartney and Harrison, who had been together since 1958, went through a succession of drummers, including Pete Best, before asking Starr to join them in 1962. Manager Brian Epstein moulded them into a professional act, and producer George Martin guided and developed their recordings, greatly expanding their domestic success after their first hit, "Love Me Do", in late 1962. As their popularity grew into the intense fan frenzy dubbed "Beatlemania", the band acquired the nickname "the Fab Four", with Epstein, Martin and other members of the band's entourage sometimes given the informal title of "fifth Beatle".

By early 1964, the Beatles were international stars, leading the "British Invasion" of the United States pop market, and breaking numerous sales records. They soon made their motion-picture debut with A Hard Day's Night (1964). From 1965 onwards, they produced increasingly innovative recordings, including the albums Rubber Soul (1965), Revolver (1966), Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967), The Beatles (also known as the "White Album", 1968) and Abbey Road (1969). In 1968, they founded Apple Corps, a multi-armed multimedia corporation that continues to oversee projects related to the band's legacy. After the group's break-up in 1970, all four members enjoyed success as solo artists. Lennon was shot and killed in December 1980; Harrison died of lung cancer in November 2001. McCartney and Starr remain musically active.

The Beatles are the best-selling band in history, with estimated sales of over 800 million records worldwide. They are the best-selling music artists in the US, with certified sales of over 178 million units, and have had more number-one albums on the British charts, and have sold more singles in the UK, than any other act. The group were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1988, and all four main members were inducted individually between 1994 and 2015. In 2008, the group topped Billboard magazine's list of the all-time most successful artists; as of 2019, the Beatles hold the record for most number-one hits on the Hot 100 chart with twenty. The band have received seven Grammy Awards, an Academy Award (for Best Original Song Score for the 1970 film Let It Be) and fifteen Ivor Novello Awards. They were also collectively included in Time magazine's compilation of the twentieth century's 100 most influential people

History'

The Beatles were an English rock band formed in Liverpool in 1960. n March 1957, John Lennon, then aged sixteen, formed a skiffle group with several friends from Quarry Bank High School in Liverpool. They briefly called themselves the Blackjacks, before changing their name to the Quarrymen after discovering that a respected local group was already using the other name.[3] Fifteen-year-old Paul McCartney joined them as a rhythm guitarist shortly after he and Lennon met that July.[4] In February 1958, McCartney invited his friend George Harrison to watch the band. The fifteen-year-old auditioned for Lennon, impressing him with his playing, but Lennon initially thought Harrison was too young for the band. After a month of Harrison's persistence, during a second meeting (arranged by McCartney), he performed the lead guitar part of the instrumental song "Raunchy" on the upper deck of a Liverpool bus,[5] and they enlisted him as their lead guitarist.[6][7]

By January 1959, Lennon's Quarry Bank friends had left the group, and he began his studies at the Liverpool College of Art.[8] The three guitarists, billing themselves at least three times as Johnny and the Moondogs,[9] were playing rock and roll whenever they could find a drummer.[10] Lennon's art school friend Stuart Sutcliffe, who had just sold one of his paintings and was persuaded to purchase a bass guitar, joined in January 1960, and it was he who suggested changing the band's name to Beatals, as a tribute to Buddy Holly and the Crickets.[11][12] They used this name until May, when they became the Silver Beetles, before undertaking a brief tour of Scotland as the backing group for pop singer and fellow Liverpudlian Johnny Gentle. By early July, they had refashioned themselves as the Silver Beatles, and by the middle of August shortened the name to The Beatles.[13]

Allan Williams, the Beatles' unofficial manager, arranged a residency for them in Hamburg, but lacking a full-time drummer they auditioned and hired Pete Best in mid-August 1960. The band, now a five-piece, left four days later, contracted to club owner Bruno Koschmider for what would be a 3​1⁄2-month residency.[14] Beatles historian Mark Lewisohn writes: "They pulled into Hamburg at dusk on 17 August, the time when the red-light area comes to life ... flashing neon lights screamed out the various entertainment on offer, while scantily clad women sat unabashed in shop windows waiting for business opportunities."[15] Epstein began negotiations with record labels for a recording contract. In order to secure a UK record contract, Epstein negotiated an early end to the band's contract with Polydor, in exchange for more recordings backing Tony Sheridan.[36] After a New Year's Day audition, Decca Records rejected the band with the comment "Guitar groups are on the way out, Mr. Epstein."[37] However, three months later, producer George Martin signed the Beatles to EMI's Parlophone label.[35]

A flight of stone steps leads from an asphalt car park up to the main entrance of a white two-story building. The ground floor has two sash windows, the first floor has three shorter sash windows. Two more windows are visible at basement level. The decorative stonework around the doors and windows is painted grey. Main entrance at Abbey Road Studios Martin's first recording session with the Beatles took place at EMI's Abbey Road Studios in London on 6 June 1962.[38] Martin immediately complained to Epstein about Best's poor drumming and suggested they use a session drummer in his place.[39] Already contemplating Best's dismissal,[40] the Beatles replaced him in mid-August with Ringo Starr, who left Rory Storm and the Hurricanes to join them.[38] A 4 September session at EMI yielded a recording of "Love Me Do" featuring Starr on drums, but a dissatisfied Martin hired drummer Andy White for the band's third session a week later, which produced recordings of "Love Me Do", "Please Please Me" and "P.S. I Love You".[38]

Martin initially selected the Starr version of "Love Me Do" for the band's first single, though subsequent re-pressings featured the White version, with Starr on tambourine.[38] Released in early October, "Love Me Do" peaked at number seventeen on the Record Retailer chart.[41] Their television debut came later that month with a live performance on the regional news programme People and Places.[42] After Martin suggested rerecording "Please Please Me" at a faster tempo,[43] a studio session in late November yielded that recording,[44] of which Martin accurately predicted, "You've just made your first No.1."[45]

In December 1962, the Beatles concluded their fifth and final Hamburg residency.[46] By 1963, they had agreed that all four band members would contribute vocals to their albums – including Starr, despite his restricted vocal range, to validate his standing in the group.[47] Lennon and McCartney had established a songwriting partnership, and as the band's success grew, their dominant collaboration limited Harrison's opportunities as a lead vocalist.[48] Epstein, in an effort to maximise the Beatles' commercial potential, encouraged them to adopt a professional approach to performing.[49] Lennon recalled him saying, "Look, if you really want to get in these bigger places, you're going to have to change – stop eating on stage, stop swearing, stop smoking ..."[37] Lennon said: "We used to dress how we liked, on and off stage. He'd tell us that jeans were not particularly smart and could we possibly manage to wear proper trousers, but he didn't want us suddenly looking square. He'd let us have our own sense of individuality."[37)

Members:

-John Lennon was born in October in 1940.He was the first guitar of group. When he was fifteen years, he created his own band with Paul McCarthney and George Harrison .They eventually formed the most successful songwriting partnership in musical history. Lennon left the Beatles in 1969 and later released albums with his wife, Yoko Ono, among others. On December 8, 1980, he was killed by a crazed fan named Mark David Chapman.

-Paul McCarthne was born in June,1942.

At first he learned  how to play to piano but after he learned how to play to guitar.He was British vocalist, songwriter, composer, bass player, poet, and painter whose work with the Beatles in the 1960s helped lift popular music from its origins in the entertainment business and transform it into a creative, highly

-George Harrison was born in 1943 and dead in 2001.

He was the youngest and he need a lot of test to be accepted in the group.George Harrison formed a band with schoolmates to play clubs around Liverpool and in Hamburg, Germany. ... Post-Beatles, Harrison made acclaimed solo records and started a film production company. He died of cancer in November 2001.

-Ringo Starr Ringo Starr was born in 1940.

He joined in Beatles in 1960.He became the drummer for replacing Pete Best. He was an only child, and while his mother doted on him, his father lost interest in family life early on. ... His mother worked as a cleaning woman and then a barmaid to support them.

970–present: After the break-up

See also: Collaborations between ex-Beatles 1970s

Lennon and McCartney in 1975 and 1976 Lennon, McCartney, Harrison and Starr all released solo albums in 1970. Their solo records sometimes involved one or more of the others;[279] Starr's Ringo (1973) was the only album to include compositions and performances by all four ex-Beatles, albeit on separate songs. With Starr's participation, Harrison staged the Concert for Bangladesh in New York City in August 1971.[280] Other than an unreleased jam session in 1974, later bootlegged as A Toot and a Snore in '74, Lennon and McCartney never recorded together again.[281]

Two double-LP sets of the Beatles' greatest hits, compiled by Klein, 1962–1966 and 1967–1970, were released in 1973, at first under the Apple Records imprint.[282] Commonly known as the "Red Album" and "Blue Album", respectively, each have earned a Multi-Platinum certification in the United States and a Platinum certification in the United Kingdom.[283][284] Between 1976 and 1982, EMI/Capitol released a wave of compilation albums without input from the ex-Beatles, starting with the double-disc compilation Rock 'n' Roll Music.[285] The only one to feature previously unreleased material was The Beatles at the Hollywood Bowl (1977); the first officially issued concert recordings by the group, it contained selections from two shows they played during their 1964 and 1965 US tours.[286][nb 8]

The music and enduring fame of the Beatles was commercially exploited in various other ways, again often outside their creative control. In April 1974, the musical John, Paul, George, Ringo ... and Bert, written by Willy Russell and featuring singer Barbara Dickson, opened in London. It included, with permission from Northern Songs, eleven Lennon-McCartney compositions and one by Harrison, "Here Comes the Sun". Displeased with the production's use of his song, Harrison withdrew his permission to use it.[288] Later that year, the off-Broadway musical Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band on the Road opened.[289] All This and World War II (1976) was an unorthodox nonfiction film that combined newsreel footage with covers of Beatles songs by performers ranging from Elton John and Keith Moon to the London Symphony Orchestra.[290] The Broadway musical Beatlemania, an unauthorised nostalgia revue, opened in early 1977 and proved popular, spinning off five separate touring productions.[291] In 1979, the band sued the producers, settling for several million dollars in damages.[291] Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1978), a musical film starring the Bee Gees and Peter Frampton, was a commercial failure and an "artistic fiasco", according to Ingham.[292]

A wave of Beatles nostalgia and persistent reunion rumours in the United States during the 1970s led several entrepreneurs to make public offers to the Beatles for a reunion concert. Promoter Bill Sargent first offered the Beatles $10 million for a reunion concert in 1974. He raised his offer to $30 million in January 1976 and then to $50 million the following month.[293][294] On 24 April 1976, during a broadcast of Saturday Night Live, producer Lorne Michaels offered the Beatles $3,000 to reunite on the show. Lennon and McCartney were watching the live broadcast at Lennon's apartment at the Dakota in New York, which was within walking distance of the NBC studio where the show was being broadcast. The former bandmates briefly entertained the idea of going to the studio and surprising Michaels by accepting his offer, but decided not to.[295] Concert promoter Sid Bernstein ran full-page newspaper advertisements in September 1976, inviting the Beatles to reunite for a concert that would raise $230 million for charity.[296][297][298] In June 1976, entrepreneur Alan Amron created the International Committee to Reunite the Beatles, asking Beatles fans worldwide to send in one dollar to then offer the money to the Beatles to reunite.[299][300] In January 1977, Amron partnered with boxer Muhammad Ali for a proposal to the Beatles to reunite to help create a $200 million charity fund.[301][302] In March 1978, an environmental group called Project Interspeak announced to the media that they were planning a concert to raise money for anti-whaling efforts and suggested the Beatles would participate.[303][304][305] Bernstein again appealed to the Beatles with a full-page newspaper advertisement in September 1979, asking them to perform three concerts to benefit the Vietnamese boat people.[306] At the same time another effort to reunite the Beatles for the same cause was sponsored by United Nations Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim. Those discussions led to the Concerts for the People of Kampuchea in December featuring Wings but not the rumoured Beatles reunion.[307]

1980s In December 1980, Lennon was shot and killed outside his New York City apartment. Harrison rewrote the lyrics of his song "All Those Years Ago" in Lennon's honour. With Starr on drums and McCartney and his wife, Linda, contributing backing vocals, the song was released as a single in May 1981.[308] McCartney's own tribute, "Here Today", appeared on his Tug of War album in April 1982.[309] In 1987, Harrison's Cloud Nine album included "When We Was Fab", a song about the Beatlemania era.[310]

When the Beatles' studio albums were released on CD by EMI and Apple Corps in 1987, their catalogue was standardised throughout the world, establishing a canon of the twelve original studio LPs as issued in the UK plus the US LP version of Magical Mystery Tour.[311] All the remaining material from the singles and EPs that had not appeared on these thirteen studio albums was gathered on the two-volume compilation Past Masters (1988). Except for the Red and Blue albums, EMI deleted all its other Beatles compilations – including the Hollywood Bowl record – from its catalogue.[286]

In 1988, the Beatles were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, their first year of eligibility. Harrison and Starr attended the ceremony with Lennon's widow, Yoko Ono, and his two sons, Julian and Sean.[312][313] McCartney declined to attend, citing unresolved "business differences" that would make him "feel like a complete hypocrite waving and smiling with them at a fake reunion".[313] The following year, EMI/Capitol settled a decade-long lawsuit filed by the band over royalties, clearing the way to commercially package previously unreleased material.[314][315]

2000s The Beatles' 1, a compilation album of the band's British and American number-one hits, was released on 13 November 2000. It became the fastest-selling album of all time, with 3.6 million sold in its first week[321] and 13 million within a month.[322] It topped albums charts in at least 28 countries.[323] As of April 2009, the compilation had sold 31 million copies globally,[324] and is the best-selling album of that decade in the United States.[325]

Harrison died from metastatic lung cancer in November 2001.[326][327][328] McCartney and Starr were among the musicians who performed at the Concert for George, organised by Eric Clapton and Harrison's widow, Olivia. The tribute event took place at the Royal Albert Hall on the first anniversary of Harrison's death.[329]

In 2003, Let It Be... Naked, a reconceived version of the Let It Be album, with McCartney supervising production, was released. One of the main differences from the Spector-produced version was the omission of the original string arrangements.[330] It was a top ten hit in both Britain and America. The US album configurations from 1964 to 1965 were released as box sets in 2004 and 2006; The Capitol Albums, Volume 1 and Volume 2 included both stereo and mono versions based on the mixes that were prepared for vinyl at the time of the music's original American release.[331]

As a soundtrack for Cirque du Soleil's Las Vegas Beatles stage revue, Love, George Martin and his son Giles remixed and blended 130 of the band's recordings to create what Martin called "a way of re-living the whole Beatles musical lifespan in a very condensed period".[332] The show premiered in June 2006, and the Love album was released that November.[333] In April 2009, Starr performed three songs with McCartney at a benefit concert held at New York's Radio City Music Hall and organised by McCartney.[334]

A photograph of two older men, one using a microphone, in front of a large electronic display Starr and McCartney introduced the video game The Beatles: Rock Band at the 2009 E3 convention. On 9 September 2009, the Beatles' entire back catalogue was reissued following an extensive digital remastering process that lasted four years.[311] Stereo editions of all twelve original UK studio albums, along with Magical Mystery Tour and the Past Masters compilation, were released on compact disc both individually and as a box set.[335] A second collection, The Beatles in Mono, included remastered versions of every Beatles album released in true mono along with the original 1965 stereo mixes of Help! and Rubber Soul (both of which Martin had remixed for the 1987 editions).[336] The Beatles: Rock Band, a music video game in the Rock Band series, was issued on the same day.[337] In December 2009, the band's catalogue was officially released in FLAC and MP3 format in a limited edition of 30,000 USB flash drives.[338]

2010s Owing to a long-running royalty disagreement, the Beatles were among the last major artists to sign deals with online music services.[339] Residual disagreement emanating from Apple Corps' dispute with Apple, Inc., iTunes' owners, over the use of the name "Apple" was also partly responsible for the delay, although in 2008, McCartney stated that the main obstacle to making the Beatles' catalogue available online was that EMI "want[s] something we're not prepared to give them".[340] In 2010, the official canon of thirteen Beatles studio albums, Past Masters, and the "Red: and "Blue" greatest-hits albums were made available on iTunes.[341]

In 2012, EMI's recorded music operations were sold to Universal Music Group. In order for Universal Music to acquire EMI, the European Union, for antitrust reasons, forced EMI to spin off assets including Parlophone. Universal was allowed to keep the Beatles' recorded music catalogue, managed by Capitol Records under its Capitol Music Group division.[342] The entire original Beatles album catalogue was also reissued on vinyl in 2012; available either individually or as a box set.[343]

In 2013, a second volume of BBC recordings, titled On Air – Live at the BBC Volume 2, was released. That December saw the release of another 59 Beatles recordings on iTunes. The set, titled The Beatles Bootleg Recordings 1963, had the opportunity to gain a 70-year copyright extension conditional on the songs being published at least once before the end of 2013. Apple Records released the recordings on 17 December to prevent them from going into the public domain and had them taken down from iTunes later that same day. Fan reactions to the release were mixed, with one blogger saying "the hardcore Beatles collectors who are trying to obtain everything will already have these."[344][345]

On 26 January 2014, McCartney and Starr performed together at the 56th Annual Grammy Awards, held at the Staples Center in Los Angeles.[346] The following day, The Night That Changed America: A Grammy Salute to The Beatles television special was taped in the Los Angeles Convention Center's West Hall. It aired on 9 February, the exact date of – and at the same time, and on the same network as – the original broadcast of the Beatles' first US television appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show, 50 years earlier. The special included performances of Beatles songs by current artists as well as by McCartney and Starr, archival footage, and interviews with the two surviving ex-Beatles carried out by David Letterman at the Ed Sullivan Theater.[347][348]

In December 2015, the Beatles released their catalogue for streaming on various streaming music services.[349] On 18 May 2017, Sirius XM Radio launched a 24/7 radio channel, The Beatles Channel. A week later, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band was reissued with new stereo mixes and unreleased material for the album's 50th anniversary.[350] A similar box set for The Beatles, the band's 1968 double album, was released in November 2018.[351]

Musical style and development See also: Lennon–McCartney In Icons of Rock: An Encyclopedia of the Legends Who Changed Music Forever, Scott Schinder and Andy Schwartz describe the Beatles' musical evolution:

In their initial incarnation as cheerful, wisecracking moptops, the Fab Four revolutionised the sound, style, and attitude of popular music and opened rock and roll's doors to a tidal wave of British rock acts. Their initial impact would have been enough to establish the Beatles as one of their era's most influential cultural forces, but they didn't stop there. Although their initial style was a highly original, irresistibly catchy synthesis of early American rock and roll and R&B, the Beatles spent the rest of the 1960s expanding rock's stylistic frontiers, consistently staking out new musical territory on each release. The band's increasingly sophisticated experimentation encompassed a variety of genres, including folk-rock, country, psychedelia, and baroque pop, without sacrificing the effortless mass appeal of their early work.[352]

In The Beatles as Musicians, Walter Everett describes Lennon and McCartney's contrasting motivations and approaches to composition: "McCartney may be said to have constantly developed – as a means to entertain – a focused musical talent with an ear for counterpoint and other aspects of craft in the demonstration of a universally agreed-upon common language that he did much to enrich. Conversely, Lennon's mature music is best appreciated as the daring product of a largely unconscious, searching but undisciplined artistic sensibility."[353]

Ian MacDonald describes McCartney as "a natural melodist – a creator of tunes capable of existing apart from their harmony". His melody lines are characterised as primarily "vertical", employing wide, consonant intervals which express his "extrovert energy and optimism". Conversely, Lennon's "sedentary, ironic personality" is reflected in a "horizontal" approach featuring minimal, dissonant intervals and repetitive melodies which rely on their harmonic accompaniment for interest: "Basically a realist, he instinctively kept his melodies close to the rhythms and cadences of speech, colouring his lyrics with bluesy tone and harmony rather than creating tunes that made striking shapes of their own."[354] MacDonald praises Harrison's lead guitar work for the role his "characterful lines and textural colourings" play in supporting Lennon and McCartney's parts, and describes Starr as "the father of modern pop/rock drumming".[355]

Influences Elvis in a tuxedo Elvis was one of many musicians who influenced The Beatles The band's earliest influences include Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins, Little Richard and Chuck Berry.[356] During the Beatles' co-residency with Little Richard at the Star-Club in Hamburg, from April to May 1962, he advised them on the proper technique for performing his songs.[357] Of Presley, Lennon said, "Nothing really affected me until I heard Elvis. If there hadn't been Elvis, there would not have been the Beatles."[358]

Other early influences include Buddy Holly, Eddie Cochran, Roy Orbison[359] and the Everly Brothers.[360] The Beatles continued to absorb influences long after their initial success, often finding new musical and lyrical avenues by listening to their contemporaries, including Bob Dylan, the Who, Frank Zappa, the Lovin' Spoonful, the Byrds and the Beach Boys, whose 1966 album Pet Sounds amazed and inspired McCartney.[361][362][363][364] Referring to the Beach Boys' creative leader, Martin later stated: "No one made a greater impact on the Beatles than Brian [Wilson]."[365] Ravi Shankar, with whom Harrison studied for six weeks in India in late 1966, had a significant effect on his musical development during the band's later years.[366]

Genres Originating as a skiffle group, the Beatles quickly embraced 1950s rock and roll and helped pioneer the Merseybeat genre,[367] and their repertoire ultimately expanded to include a broad variety of pop music.[368] Reflecting the range of styles they explored, Lennon said of Beatles for Sale, "You could call our new one a Beatles country-and-western LP",[369] while Gould credits Rubber Soul as "the instrument by which legions of folk-music enthusiasts were coaxed into the camp of pop".[370]

Two electric guitars, a light brown violin-shaped bass and a darker brown guitar, resting against a Vox amplifier A Höfner "violin" bass guitar and Gretsch Country Gentleman guitar, models played by McCartney and Harrison, respectively; the Vox AC30 amplifier behind them is the model the Beatles used during performances in the early 1960s. Although the 1965 song "Yesterday" was not the first pop record to employ orchestral strings, it marked the group's first recorded use of classical music elements. Gould observes: "The more traditional sound of strings allowed for a fresh appreciation of their talent as composers by listeners who were otherwise allergic to the din of drums and electric guitars."[371] They continued to experiment with string arrangements to various effect; Sgt. Pepper's "She's Leaving Home", for instance, is "cast in the mold of a sentimental Victorian ballad", Gould writes, "its words and music filled with the clichés of musical melodrama".[372]

The band's stylistic range expanded in another direction with their 1966 B-side "Rain", described by Martin Strong as "the first overtly psychedelic Beatles record".[373] Other psychedelic numbers followed, such as "Tomorrow Never Knows" (recorded before "Rain"), "Strawberry Fields Forever", "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" and "I Am the Walrus". The influence of Indian classical music was evident in Harrison's "The Inner Light", "Love You To" and "Within You Without You" – Gould describes the latter two as attempts "to replicate the raga form in miniature".[374]

Innovation was the most striking feature of their creative evolution, according to music historian and pianist Michael Campbell: "'A Day in the Life' encapsulates the art and achievement of the Beatles as well as any single track can. It highlights key features of their music: the sound imagination, the persistence of tuneful melody, and the close coordination between words and music. It represents a new category of song – more sophisticated than pop ... and uniquely innovative. There literally had never before been a song – classical or vernacular – that had blended so many disparate elements so imaginatively."[375] Philosophy professor Bruce Ellis Benson agrees: "the Beatles ... give us a wonderful example of how such far-ranging influences as Celtic music, rhythm and blues, and country and western could be put together in a new way."[376]

Author Dominic Pedler describes the way they crossed musical styles: "Far from moving sequentially from one genre to another (as is sometimes conveniently suggested) the group maintained in parallel their mastery of the traditional, catchy chart hit while simultaneously forging rock and dabbling with a wide range of peripheral influences from country to vaudeville. One of these threads was their take on folk music, which would form such essential groundwork for their later collisions with Indian music and philosophy."[377] As the personal relationships between the band members grew increasingly strained, their individual tastes became more apparent. The minimalistic cover artwork for the White Album contrasted with the complexity and diversity of its music, which encompassed Lennon's "Revolution 9" (whose musique concrète approach was influenced by Yoko Ono), Starr's country song "Don't Pass Me By", Harrison's rock ballad "While My Guitar Gently Weeps", and the "proto-metal roar" of McCartney's "Helter Skelter".[239]

Contribution of George Martin

Martin (second from right) in the studio with the Beatles in the mid-1960s George Martin's close involvement in his role as producer made him one of the leading candidates for the informal title of the "fifth Beatle".[378] He applied his classical musical training in various ways, and functioned as "an informal music teacher" to the progressing songwriters, according to Gould.[379] Martin suggested to a sceptical McCartney that the arrangement of "Yesterday" should feature a string quartet accompaniment, thereby introducing the Beatles to a "hitherto unsuspected world of classical instrumental colour", in MacDonald's description.[380] Their creative development was also facilitated by Martin's willingness to experiment in response to their suggestions, such as adding "something baroque" to a particular recording.[381] In addition to scoring orchestral arrangements for recordings, Martin often performed on them, playing instruments including piano, organ and brass.[382]

Collaborating with Lennon and McCartney required Martin to adapt to their different approaches to songwriting and recording. MacDonald comments, "while [he] worked more naturally with the conventionally articulate McCartney, the challenge of catering to Lennon's intuitive approach generally spurred him to his more original arrangements, of which 'Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!' is an outstanding example."[383] Martin said of the two composers' distinct songwriting styles and his own stabilising influence:

Compared with Paul's songs, all of which seemed to keep in some sort of touch with reality, John's had a psychedelic, almost mystical quality ... John's imagery is one of the best things about his work – 'tangerine trees', 'marmalade skies', 'cellophane flowers' ... I always saw him as an aural Salvador Dalí, rather than some drug-ridden record artist. On the other hand, I would be stupid to pretend that drugs didn't figure quite heavily in the Beatles' lives at that time ... they knew that I, in my schoolmasterly role, didn't approve ... Not only was I not into it myself, I couldn't see the need for it; and there's no doubt that, if I too had been on dope, Pepper would never have been the album it was. Perhaps it was the combination of dope and no dope that worked, who knows?[384]

Harrison echoed Martin's description of his stabilising role: "I think we just grew through those years together, him as the straight man and us as the loonies; but he was always there for us to interpret our madness – we used to be slightly avant-garde on certain days of the week, and he would be there as the anchor person, to communicate that through the engineers and on to the tape."[385]

In the studio See also: The Beatles' recording technology Making innovative use of technology while expanding the possibilities of recorded music, the Beatles urged experimentation by Martin and his recording engineers. Seeking ways to put chance occurrences to creative use, accidental guitar feedback, a resonating glass bottle, a tape loaded the wrong way round so that it played backwards – any of these might be incorporated into their music.[386] Their desire to create new sounds on every new recording, combined with Martin's arranging abilities and the studio expertise of EMI staff engineers Norman Smith, Ken Townsend and Geoff Emerick, all contributed significantly to their records from Rubber Soul and, especially, Revolver onwards.[386]

Along with innovative studio techniques such as sound effects, unconventional microphone placements, tape loops, double tracking and vari-speed recording, the Beatles augmented their songs with instruments that were unconventional in rock music at the time. These included string and brass ensembles as well as Indian instruments such as the sitar in "Norwegian Wood" and the swarmandal in "Strawberry Fields Forever".[387] They also used novel electronic instruments such as the Mellotron, with which McCartney supplied the flute voices on the "Strawberry Fields Forever" intro,[388] and the clavioline, an electronic keyboard that created the unusual oboe-like sound on "Baby, You're a Rich Man".[389]

Legacy Main article: Cultural impact of the Beatles

The Beatles Monument in Almaty, Kazakhstan Former Rolling Stone associate editor Robert Greenfield compared the Beatles to Picasso, as "artists who broke through the constraints of their time period to come up with something that was unique and original ... [I]n the form of popular music, no one will ever be more revolutionary, more creative and more distinctive..."[337] The British poet Philip Larkin described their work as "an enchanting and intoxicating hybrid of Negro rock-and-roll with their own adolescent romanticism", and "the first advance in popular music since the War".[390]

They not only sparked the British Invasion of the US,[391] they became a globally influential phenomenon as well.[392] From the 1920s, the United States had dominated popular entertainment culture throughout much of the world, via Hollywood movies, jazz, the music of Broadway and Tin Pan Alley and, later, the rock and roll that first emerged in Memphis, Tennessee.[322] The Beatles are regarded as British cultural icons, with young adults from abroad naming the band among a group of people that they most associated with UK culture.[393][394]

Their musical innovations and commercial success inspired musicians worldwide.[392] Many artists have acknowledged the Beatles' influence and enjoyed chart success with covers of their songs.[395] On radio, their arrival marked the beginning of a new era; in 1968 the programme director of New York's WABC radio station forbade his DJs from playing any "pre-Beatles" music, marking the defining line of what would be considered oldies on American radio.[396] They helped to redefine the album as something more than just a few hits padded out with "filler",[397] and they were primary innovators of the modern music video.[398] The Shea Stadium show with which they opened their 1965 North American tour attracted an estimated 55,600 people,[140] then the largest audience in concert history; Spitz describes the event as a "major breakthrough ... a giant step toward reshaping the concert business".[399] Emulation of their clothing and especially their hairstyles, which became a mark of rebellion, had a global impact on fashion.[98]

According to Gould, the Beatles changed the way people listened to popular music and experienced its role in their lives. From what began as the Beatlemania fad, the group's popularity grew into what was seen as an embodiment of sociocultural movements of the decade. As icons of the 1960s counterculture, Gould continues, they became a catalyst for bohemianism and activism in various social and political arenas, fuelling movements such as women's liberation, gay liberation and environmentalism.[400] According to Peter Lavezzoli, after the "more popular than Jesus" controversy in 1966, the Beatles felt considerable pressure to say the right things and "began a concerted effort to spread a message of wisdom and higher consciousness".[166]

Other commentators such as Mikal Gilmore and Todd Leopold have traced the inception of their socio-cultural impact earlier, interpreting even the Beatlemania period, particularly on their first visit to the United States, as a key moment in the development of generational awareness.[96][401] Referring to their appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show Leopold states: "In many ways, the Sullivan appearance marked the beginning of a cultural revolution...The Beatles were like aliens dropped into the United States of 1964".[401] According to Gilmore Category:THE BEATLES Category:History Category:Members