The Beatles

About The Beatles

Biggest pop band ever? Liverpool boys The Beatles took the world to school and reinvented everything from music to social consciousness. Young fans might be tempted to dismiss The Beatles John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr as over-hyped if they weren't so damn good. Historical context aside, the tunes speak for themselves, cutting through radio playlists and racking up platinum sales 30+ years after the band broke up. The Beatles' first period saw them release a string of early hits, any one of which would rank as a career high for just about any other pop band "Love Me Do," "I Wanna Hold Your Hand," "Eight Days A Week" and "I Saw Her Standing There" are deceptively simple pop perfection. When Beatlemania wigs and bell-bottoms for everyone! broke, the lads made it onto the silver screen with the very goofy and very British A Hard Day's Night and Help! Things began to get really interesting on what is considered their first "mature" album Rubber Soul, which features the standout tracks "Drive My Car," "In My Life" and the trippy, sitar-drenched "Norwegian Wood." Things only got more out-there from there, as avante garde psych culture and LSD became as influential as Chuck Berry used to be. On the 1965 classic Revolver The Beatles more or less define the 60's, as much paranoia and confusion as peace and love. Notable tracks include "Taxman," "Yellow Submarine" and "Eleanore Rigby." Revolver was the boy's seventh album in only three years, and they followed it up with the epic Sgt. Pepper's. The track-list includes "Lucy In the Sky With Diamonds," the title track and, perhaps one of rock's most chilling album closers, "A Day In the Life." This last song proved to be a jumping off point for what is considered the band's darkest and most difficult release, the double LP The White Album. Before recording, John Lennon had met his second wife, the infamous Yoko Ono and the band released two more classic albums Abbey Road and the elegiac Let It Be before breaking up and pursuing solo careers in 1970.