What it was
Formed in Liverpool in 1960 out of Lennon and McCartney’s schoolboy group and hardened by long residencies in Hamburg, the band settled its final line-up when Ringo Starr joined in 1962. Managed by Brian Epstein and recorded by George Martin at EMI’s Abbey Road studios, they released Please Please Me in 1963 and set off the frenzy the press called Beatlemania.
Role
Their 1964 appearance on American television opened the British Invasion of the US charts, and their run of albums from Rubber Soul (1965) through Revolver, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967) and Abbey Road (1969) turned the pop record into a studio art form, absorbing Indian music, the avant-garde and orchestral writing. Lennon and McCartney’s songbook became the most covered in popular music, and the band’s films, fashions and Apple venture made them the emblem of 1960s youth culture.
Fate
Strained by Epstein’s death in 1967 and business disputes, the band broke up in 1970; all four pursued solo careers, and John Lennon was murdered in New York in 1980. Their recordings have sold on the order of a billion units, and their influence remains the standard case of popular music treated as art.