Beatles a rock n' roll band? Who says. Pop by all definitions. Like Goodman, Kenton, Ellington, Sinatra, and Gilligan. Prolific masters within their genre. But, for bloody sakes, give the boys credit for the expansion of mega-stardom into creativity. Drug induced? Likely. Time enhanced? Undoubtedly. Promulgated by the masses and their needs? Seems so. Propelled by their engineers musical acumen? For sure. All necessary ingredients in manifestatation of a time, a culture, an outpouring of radical transformation. The music was exploratory, innovative, especially to the ears thinking Pat Boone, Sinatra, and Elvis were the end-all. From the early days in Hamburg, and later the Cavern, most things written/filmed/critiqued the Beatles as taking their penchant as entertainers and musicians (again, of their ilk)to new levels. To attain such world notoriety and massive appeal, and yet diverge from the formula, with exploratory syncopations, utilization of non-conventional instrumentations is tribute to the greatness they acheieved. To compare most any composer to Beethoven, much less a contemporary pop band, is truly ludicrous. If you perceive The Stones as the ultimate rock band, as I do, it still does not diminish the creativity and the impact wrought upon virtually the entire Earth. Some have opined the Beatles influence as early stages of Russian downfall. Pervading arrested minds with potentiality. Song after song; melody, lyrically. Each selection carries a uniqueness few groups or individuals have replicated. Anyone who does not recognize their influence on the present world of "music" has not truly researched it's evolution.
