Gabrielle Bryce

ENG111-05

11/2/17

Intawiwat

The Beatles and their Influence

One of the most popular bands ever, if not the most popular band ever, is the Beatles.

The band consisted of four British men: John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and

Ringo Starr. These four men would make over 40 Top 40 songs before the end of their music

careers. (Kamien) The Beatles are an influential band because of the time period they were in,

starting a new genre of music, and their affect they had on people.

In the late 1950s the Beatles started doing some covers of early rock & roll, before they

were discovered and started making their own music. In February 1964 America was a

wounded country. President Kennedy had been assassinated in Dallas three months before. The

Vietnam War was heating up. Civil rights clashes became street battles. Nothing seemed to be

going right. (CBS News) The Beatles music was cheerful, and helped give a country something

new and good to focus on. The group's first single, Love Me Do/P.S. I Love You, briefly dented

the U.K. Top Twenty in October 1962, but their next 45, Please Please Me, formally ignited

Beatlemania in their homeland, reaching the Number Two spot. It was followed by four

consecutive chart-topping British singles, issued throughout 1963: From Me to You, She Loves

You, I Want to Hold Your Hand, Can't Buy Me Love. They conquered the U.K., the London
Sunday Times to declare them the greatest composers since Beethoven. (Kamien) Clearly

their music was popular, and people, especially from the U.S., loved the new British band that

had their own type of music theyd never heard before. (CBS News) CBS shares a quote saying:

Rock music was not the soundtrack to a generation, it WAS the generation, Stark said. It was

the air, it was considered to be the central, and a revolutionary and new -- kind of the way the

people think of the Internet is now -- communication force that would change everything. It

would change our politics, our culture, our fashion, and The Beatles were the crown princes of

this movement. (CBS News) The Beatles really were the face of this new movement of music

that was being brought in. Thats what made them so popular, because the music they had to

offer was something that people hadnt heard before.

The Beatles are well known because they were the main band that brought in the

British Invasion of music. This was the British Invasion, and the Beatles were its undisputed

leaders. (Puterbaugh) In the U.S. so far the main music people had was Chuck Berry, and Elvis

Presley. The Beatles had long hair, different clothes, from a different country, and just a

different type of band than Americans were used to. A quote shared in a CBS article says: The

country was in a collective depression, essentially, said Stark, and to have these incredible fun

and funny guys show up, almost from outer space -- which is about the equivalent of what

England was in those days -- was incredibly energizing for people. (CBS News) Not only was

the music strange but the musicians as well. The band members would definitely effect more

than just music but would go on to influence the fashion industry of the time, and just the

general culture from the time that they were most popular.
 Of course one of the things that made them popular was that a few of their songs talked

about drugs. The Beatles did pot and LSD, and that was clearly reflected in their music. (Rolling

Stone) Songs such as: Strawberry Fields Forever, I Am the Walrus, and of course Yellow

Submarine. (Rolling Stone) People liked the fact that a music group was open about drugs. The

openness about drugs drew people in, and especially to younger people who were curious.

Younger people would want to have the same hairstyles, clothes, attitudes, and various other

things that they liked about the four band members. The Beatles went through different stages

of the type of music they wrote, clothes they wore, and message they gave. With each stage it

would effect their fans. Millions of fans. The Beatles moved into another phase. They were

turning inward, and their music was greeted not with screams but with a more mature

appreciation of the new places the Beatles were taking their audience. (Puturbaugh) The music

the Beatles made was healing as the CBS news article says. People needed their music. They

met a need that was there, that only music could meet. CBS goes on to say: Most pop culture

figures become well-known, and then they stop growing, they keep doing what got them there.

The Beatles constantly reinvent themselves. They don't want to keep doing the same thing even

more than once, and in a way as they reinvent themselves, they reinvent all of their followers --

and we're talking hundreds of millions." (CBS News) The Beatles had more fans that one can

imagine, and one thing that artists then and now need to realize is that they affect each of their

fans. Fans loved that the band would reinvent itself and that they could constantly get

something new and unexpected.

 The Beatles affected many people back when they were most popular and continue to

affect people today. When they first became popular, and the U.S. needed their music did not

fail to disappoint. The new age of music that they brought in with the British Invasion changed

music in America forever and opened the doors for many other British musicians to share the

work in this country. The most important thing that for any musician though is the effect that

their music has on its listeners. Music has gotten people through hard times for longer than

people can remember. The same idea goes for the time period the Beatles started. Their music

is exactly what the country needed at that exact time and that is what makes them most

influential.
Works Cited
CBS News. When the Beatles Changed Everything. 2 Febuary 2014. 29 November 2017.
<https://www.cbsnews.com/news/when-the-beatles-changed-everything/>.
Kamien, Roger. Music: An Appreciation. McGraw Hill Education, 2017.
Puterbaugh, Parke. The British Invasion: From the Beatles to the Stones, The Sixties Belonged to
Britain. 14 July 1988. 29 November 2017.
<http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/the-british-invasion-from-the-beatles-to-
the-stones-the-sixties-belonged-to-britain-19880714>.