The Beatles

Well, how many times do you hear a Beatles influence in current pop music - constantly. A CD of their 27 (!!) #1 hits that's selling in the Britney / NSync range. They still have a huge sales appeal and are extremely influential in music being produced today - transcending all other musical artists of this era would be a strong statement, but hardly dismissable.

You're irritated by everything musical your kids like and define rock and roll as "anything musical that irritates the parents" - hmmmm, sounds like a nice objective starting point for evaluating the merits of the genre. For somebody who has such a distaste for it, I'm wondering why you spend as much time as you apparently do listening to or researching the playlists of Classic Rock radio stations - who, pray tell, still listens to FM at all regularly, much less a classic rock station? To hold up their playlists as evidence of the significance of a band's contributions is just irrelevant.

Shubertmaniac - Actually, I agree that selling a jillion albums has nothing to do with their influence and, to a large extent, significance. I only brought it up since your line of reasoning seemed to be centered on measures of popularity.

Who did they influence in the '80's and '90's? Squeeze, Marshall Crenshaw, Crowded House, Fountains of Wayne, Moxy Fruvous, Oasis, Charlatans UK. These are just bands that come immediately to mind that I listen to often.

I'm not personally arguing that the Beatles transcend the ages, mainly because I'm not enough of a student of music history to say that with any authority. But their influence, success and skill are all but inarguable. Go read the entry on them on All-Music Guide (www.allmusic.com) - they quite eloquently explain how the Beatles transcended everybody else.

I have a 14 year old daughter and I'm very aware that the Beatles hold no particular interest to her or her friends. Again, though, aren't we back to talking about popularity issues as opposed to significance or skill?

I think it's quite possible that you don't understand based on being in a different musical universe than I and many others. Your example of Hank Williams Sr. is a good example - he's definitely not in my musical universe - there are clearly many to exist in and very few people can be in very many at once.