The "British Invasion". A question for you old farts out there.

I've never understood the Beatles craze, personally.  With a few exceptions, they fit my description of bubble gum pop drivel (yes, I know I'm in the minority - as my wife fondly reminds me).  Grateful Dead? Well, now, no good coma would be complete without GD accompaniment.

Now, The Stones, Kinks, Humble Pie (...talkin 'bout black Lebanese..), Led Zep, Black Sabbath, Strawbs, Tull, Gentle Giant, Steeleye Span, Bloodwyn Pig...*That* was the British Invasion to me. Still listening to them 50-odd years later, still good tunes, although symphonic metal is my newest love.
As always, YMMV. Listen to what speaks to you.

Rolling Stones at age 9 was my favorite, everyone else was into the Beatles. Replaced by Jefferson airplane at age 13. Liked the Doors also. 
At age 16, I was a clique of one in my Catholic HS listening to “(It’s a Chill Wind That) Blows Against the Empire” by Paul Kantner (R.I.P.) and PERRO (Planet Earth Rock & Roll Orchestra. 

My crowd were Rolling Stones fans because we were rebellious and and close to being juvenile delinquents. The Beatles were all so well scrubbed and that didn't go over well. When they went psychedelic I really liked them. We had a sadistic music teacher in school, an ex Marine, who made a big show of ripping up any Beatles memorabilia he found on students. 

@rtorchia - LOL, you had one of those music teachers as well eh? We had one in middle school that said ALL music fell into three categories: Classical, Opera, and The Big Beat.  He viewed everything outside of Classical and Opera as indistinguishable trash that was nothing more than primitives beating on something to make noise so they could jump around in synchronicity.

He was a thrill a minute, let me tell you. To be fair, we did learn about troglodytes at an earlier age than most...

It wouldn't be right if one of us old farts didn't give a big thank you to television shows like The Ed Sullivan Show, Shindig, Hullabaloo and American Bandstand.   

The Beatles, The Dave Clark 5, Rolling Stones, The Who, Marvin Gaye, Sam Cooke, James Brown, The Beach Boys, The Supremes, Roy Orbison, The Animals, etc. 

Without music video or YouTube, these shows were our only opportunity to "see" our favourite musicians perform. All pre-lip syncing, so the performances were 100% real and were usually performed exactly like we heard on whatever AM station you listened to. Even Bob Dylan.    

Great times and great memories from the golden age of pop music.