The Beatles revolutionized popular culture in the 60s, and their influence is still being felt today. Music, culture, lifestyles, hairstyles, clothing styles and attitudes all changed radically because of them. They are given proper credit for inventing the music video, along with the creation of an entire genre of film-making – the mockumentary – thanks to A Hard Day’s Night. God only knows what pop culture would have been like without the Beatles!

Really lame, that’s for sure.

Their music, coupled with their first class humor and personalities, firmly established them as the rock ‘n roll kings for an entire generation. Their popularity still remains unequaled by any other popular music artists.

While there is no doubt that they were highly original, The Beatles themselves were greatly influenced by the early rock ‘n roll stars from America like Elvis Presley, Fats Domino, Buddy Holly, Gene Vincent, Carl Perkins and others. During the band’s infancy they spent a considerable amount of time listening to and copying the styles of their heroes. It’s fair to say that the musical style adopted by the Beatles has its roots in 1950’s American rock ‘n roll.

True artists such as The Everly Brothers and Buddy Holly where also beginning to emerge at this time. Although his life was tragically cut short in the same plane crash that killed the Big Bopper and Richie Valens – he had a major impact on The Beatles. John Lennon in particular was impressed with the fact that Holly wore glasses and wrote and played his own songs.

The Beatles would consider themselves more of a reflection of the times they lived in rather than as outright trendsetters: in every way except musically, of course. They knew they were breaking new ground in that regard. Other stuff…well, not so much: like finances. What they were good at, however – like all true geniuses – was the ability to synthesize and distil everything that had come before them musically and turning it into something new and better.

The Fabs dawned on the music scene in the very early ‘60s, and by 1963 had established themselves as the premiere rock ‘n roll band in all of England. Frenzied crowds greeted the Beatles wherever they appeared throughout all of England. ‘Beatlemania’ was born.

It’s important to remember that following Elvis, the pop music scene in America quickly declined and degenerated into vacuous, manufactured crooners such as Fabian, Dion, Pat Boone, Frankie Valli, Johnny Ray, Dean Martin and Frankie Avalon: none of whom wrote their own music or played any instruments. They were also patently awful. Corporate America jumped right on the Elvis bandwagon and summarily ruined pop music in this country – churning out mindless, mediocre pabulum for the masses. Everything was homogenized, sanitized and cleaned up – “white-washed” – to create a market for ‘rock & roll’ that did not offend puritanical American morality.

And then the Beatles appeared on the scene and really shook things up.

Early ‘60s America was very much like the 1950s: a time of utter conformity, banality and pent-up sexuality – with the bonus threat of nuclear annihilation. Until The Beatles came along, America’s youth culture was lagging far behind Britain and the rest of Europe. The Beatles changed all that, of course, and soon America – especially New York and L.A. – was back in the driving seat of global pop culture.

Up until that time, the America music press had all but ignored what was going on in England. But by January 1964, after the release of The Beatles’ second album in Britain, America could no longer resist the onslaught of these four loveable guys with mop-top haircuts. They stormed onto the American music scene with their historic appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show in February 1964. Later, they solidified their status with their historic performances in Washington DC, Carnegie Hall and Shea Stadium.

Steven Stark points out in his insightful book on the group Meet the Beatles that the band “challenged the definition that existed during their time of what it meant to be a man.” This ultimately allowed them to help change the way men feel and look.

The Beatles, as Dr. Joyce Brothers recognized at the time, “display a few mannerisms which almost seem a shade on the feminine side, such as tossing of their long manes of hair. Very young ‘women’ are still a little frightened of the idea of sex. Therefore they feel safer worshipping idols that don’t seem too masculine or too much the ‘he-man.’”

Not to mention the early Beatles’ preference for high falsetto leaps in their vocals.

During the early 1960s, young women in particular endured sexual repression and often unreasonable behavioral expectations. To achieve the societal goal of finding a husband, raising a family, and becoming a stay-at-home mom these young women had a very fine line to walk as they progressed through their adolescent years. They were expected to hold themselves in a manner so as to attract the attention of potential suitors.

The Fabs would not appear to be particularly androgynous in contemporary society, but the early ‘60s was a very different era. (Long hair was cool when I was growing up). At the time, America was not quite ready for a group of long-haired punks from England – possibly commies or atheists – to lead them out of the cultural dark ages and show them the way to the future. Paul McCartney has said that when The Beatles finally got to this county – the place where all the music  they adored was from – they found the teenaged culture “backward” and “old fashioned.” Sadly, that’s still the case.

The Beatles changed everything – not just music. Certainly the way they looked and acted was just as important to their fans as the incredible music. Soon, it became obvious to their fans – and everyone else – that their favorite band was – gasp! – on drugs. Pot was one thing, but LSD literally blew people’s minds, including The Beatles’. This was especially true for John – who naturally reveled in the drugs’ consciousness expanding qualities. He and George would trip together several times a week during the winter of ‘66. Acid was still legal until October of that year. Although it’s more obvious on Sgt. Pepper, Lennon often referred to Revolver as the ‘acid album.’ Rubber Soul was the ‘pot album.’

The Bands’ blatant endorsement of soft drugs also played a major role in the counter-cultural revolution happening all over the world. People saw their heroes advocating drug use, and of course that made it okay for them to experiment as well. Unfortunately, a lot of young people weren’t capable of handling the experience. They ruined it for everybody!

One of the great things about The Beatles is that after a certain point they were willing to take incredible risks with their music. The incredible musical diversity they demonstrated in later years may have turned off some fans, but they were heartily embraced by an entirely new group of admirers. By the end of the sixties, it was hard to imagine that those same guys ever sang She Loves You. The boys in A Hard Day’s Night are clearly not the same as the men in Let It Be. The difference is shocking.

The Beatles’ music was certainly revolutionary, but it didn’t need to carry any particular message – which is what the folkies always held against rock & roll. Rock was just lightweight pabulum as far as folk musicians like Pete Seeger were concerned. Then along came Bobby Zimmerman and the brilliant merging of folk music with rock. Dylan was considered a traitor to the folk cause when he brought a rock band with him for his second set at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965. I believe that Dylan had grown tired with the folk formula, and he wanted to emulate the Beatles – and their success. Like A Rolling Stone (1965) was the prefect statement of meaningful lyrics melded with a kick-ass beat.

Dylan, of course, had a profound effect on the Beatles as well: John and Paul began to see the limits of the songs they had been writing, and the juvenile nature of the subject matter encompassed in (most) rock music of the time. After ’65, the floodgates were opened.

This is when the counter culture truly began to take shape.