I'm writing a paper...

I'm writing a paper, taking the stance that Beatlemania and the music that came with it was the most influential and important musical movement in modern history.

But I'm having a hard time articulating why, exactly.

Opinions?

It wasn't.

See: The Velvet Underground

>But I'm having a hard time articulating why, exactly.
because it wasn't
the stones were better anyways

The "influential" part is easy, there are myriad examples of how the Beatles influenced other artists.

The "important" thing is a little more tricky, what do you mean by "important"?

Beatles fan here, rock in general was a bigger movement. Beatlemania was just a marketing outburst that kicked American rock in the balls and triggered the British Invasion. If you're writing a paper, I'd choose the British Invasion, much more to talk about.

Well, The Beatles brought a lot of new things to the table, not just musically, but lyrically (Paperback Writer, Norwegian Wood, etc.) so my stance is that this kind of opened the floodgates for more experimental music.

I'm mainly asking what exactly changed in the music itself when The Beatles first blew up in America

the important thing about the beatles influence is that, even though they weren't always (or usually) the first to do something they had a unique place commercially and culturally that meant the novel ideas they used were able to be heard widely
so while sgt pepper's isn't the first concept album, it is one of the most important to the development of concept albums.

I am, I should have been more specific in what I was asking. It is about the British invasion, but I'm asking what the Beatles did differently that made them so different from the rock n roll of the 50's

It would be easy to write about how they influenced the development of folk rock.

Maybe you're having a hard time because you're wrong. :^)

I'm writing about how they influenced rock and pop in general, but I'm not sure how to describe the transition from 50s rock n roll to The Beatles

Go to bed Scaruffi

skiffle>merseybeat>beatles at hambourg>epstein>more polished version>pop

What made the Beatles good
>Merseybeat
Finally rock that isn't those same fucking chords
>British
They were cute
>Personalities
They were caricatures of themselves that worked wonderfully for marketing
>Lennon-McCartney
A duo-writing AND performing rock team. The boomer version of Rodgers & Hammerstein, Ira & George Gershwin, a British Goffin & King
>Style changes
Every album they did was embracing a new idea or genre. The formula was for the most part the same but the delivery varied enough to make every song single-worthy. They were also excellent at spotting upcoming trends (pot with Rubber Soul, acid with Revolver, hippies with Sgt Pepper)
>Late-career experimentalism
To coincide with counterculture, they made some pretty weird shit Mystery Tour+
...

read scaruffi

bye rddit

One has to understand wat was happening in the world from when John Lennon discovered rock and roll to when they officially broke up in 1970. Once you have an understanding of that then you can begin to understand The Beatles their music and the phenomenon known as Beatlemania. For the beginning of The Beatles you should study England after World War 2 and how the U.S. helped them economically. To understand their popularity in the U.S. one should study what was happening in 1963 and why they were just what that country needed after JFK was killed.

@69366595
your a dorable

Their stardom led to the emergence of Tropicalia, Argentine rock, and other international styles

>died early
They ended right where their ideas did, and at a young enough age. The timing of their breakup was perfect
>British Invasion
Their presence broke the levy and triggered a marketing boom in hiring overseas acts for labels inevitably leading to a global cultural renaissance
>Publicity stunts
There are too many to list really. "We're more famous than Jesus", John cheating with Yoko, their bed-in, the concept album, reversed music, televised studio gigs for Vietnam, Across the Universe on a political collab-ish album, quitting touring, multiple feature films, etc

it didn't, really

the beatles repackaged experimental music as radio pop. in that regard, you'd have a solid 15 pages of examples to use.

The fact that so many books still name the Beatles "the greatest or most significant or most influential" rock band ever only tells you how far rock music still is from becoming a serious art. Jazz critics have long recognized that the greatest jazz musicians of all times are Duke Ellington and John Coltrane, who were not the most famous or richest or best sellers of their times, let alone of all times. Classical critics rank the highly controversial Beethoven over classical musicians who were highly popular in courts around Europe. Rock critics are still blinded by commercial success: the Beatles sold more than anyone else (not true, by the way), therefore they must have been the greatest. Jazz critics grow up listening to a lot of jazz music of the past, classical critics grow up listening to a lot of classical music of the past. Rock critics are often totally ignorant of the rock music of the past, they barely know the best sellers. No wonder they will think that the Beatles did anything worth of being saved.

Here are just a few of their accomplishments:
>inventors of baroque rock
>inventors of heavy metal
>inventors of doom metal
>inventors of progressive rock
>inventors of the concept album
>inventors of the split album
>inventors of not putting an artist name/title on the front cover (more relevant today than ever)

OP, if you're gonna listen to this guy, make sure you mention that vietnam soldiers detested the beatles, the beatles themselves were disillusioned by the hippie movement, and almost all of their influences broke more important ground before they did. the beatles were literally just marketers with an understanding for hooks

>the beatles themselves were disillusioned by the hippie movement
you say this like it's a bad thing

it's a bad thing when you appropriate it and act like free love and drug use can solve problems in your music, but then cringe at the horror it caused in san francisco. the best thing they did for psychedelia was have a shit ton of money to play with. pink floyd didn't even have to try to outdo them

OP here. One more question:
What other bands innovated popular music in the 60s?

Big deals at the time:
>The Beach Boys (in economic conflict with the Beatles and made Pet Sounds/SMiLE)
>The Rolling Stones (dirtier-than-the-Beatles rock)
>Jefferson Airplane (psychedelic)
>Cream (blues/acid rock)
>Led Zeppelin (heavy metal)
>The Yardbirds (distortion)
>MC5 (punk)
>The Who (mod)
>The Jimi Hendrix Experience (blues/acid rock)
>King Crimson (prog)
>The Monkees (fake beatles)
>Small Faces (rock)
>The Kinks (garage)
>The Zombies (garage)
>The Byrds, The Bee Gees (Wannabe beatles)
>Chicago (early version of the band was jazz-rock)
>Mammas & the Papas (psychedelic)
>The Doors (psychedelic, poem rock)
>Bob Dylan (everyone wanted to be him)
>The Band (roots)
>CCR (roots)
>Van Morrison (soul)
>Aretha Franklin (soul)
>James Brown (soul)
>Janis Joplin (white soul)
>Santana (latin psychedelic)
>The Supremes, Shirilles, Ronnettes, Temptations, Four Seasons, Jackson 5, Miracles, Martha and the Vandellas (doo wop, wall of sound, and motown)
>Tim Buckley (folk)
>Marvin Gays, Sam Cooke (soul/gospel)

I can get more specific if you want

How can you say they do those things if you don't any examples or reasoning? You're just finding information to confirm your beliefs

Some more in case you want it:
>The Stooges (punk)
>Stevie Wonder (soul)
>Dusty Springfield (soul/R&B)
>Dionne Warwick (soul/gospel)
>Patsy Cline (country)
>Loretta Lynn (country)
>(early) Fleetwood Mac (blues)
>(early) Pink Floyd (psychedelic)
>(late) Judy Garland (broadway/classic pop)
>Barbra Streisand (broadway/classic pop)
>(early) Nina Simone (soul)
>John Coltrane (jazz)
>Miles Davis (jazz)
>(early) David Bowie (rock, pop)
>The Velvet Underground (art-rock, indie)
>Simon & Garfunkel (folk pop (Big Deal))
>Carole King, George Goffin, Phil Spector (songwriters/producers)
>Crosby, Stills, Nash (& Young) (folk/roots)
>Captain Beefheart (definitely not pop)
>The 5th Dimension (R&B, psychedelic)
>Leonard Cohen (folk)
>Shelley Fabares, Skeeter Davis, (1-hit wonders)
>Dion (teen)
>The Shaggs (not pop either)
>Gets, Gilberto, Jobim, Charlie Byrd (Bossa nova)
>Johnny Cash (country)
>The Foundations (soul)
>Harry Nilsson (folk pop)
>Fred Neil (folk)
>The Tornados (surf)
>Peter, Paul, & Mary (folk)
>Joni Mitchell (folk)
>Pete Seeger (folk)
>Big Brother and the Holding Company (blues)
>B. J. Thomas (pop)
>The Righteous Brothers (pop)
>Ike & Tina Turner (R&B, rock)
>The Ohio Express (pop)
>Ravi Shankar (indian)
>Jacqueline du Pré (cello)
>Serge Gainsbourg (...French)
>Os Mutantes (tropicalia)
>The Electric Prunes (pschedelic)
>Procol Harum (prog)
>Vikki Carr (pop)
>Moby Grape (psychedelic)
>Buffalo Springfield (psychedelic)
>Sonny & Cher (pop)
>The Archies (pop)
>The Crystals, Shangi-Las, Starlets (pop)
>Petula Clark (pop)
>Lesley Gore (pop)
>Booker T. & the M.G.'s (surf)
>Bruce Channel (pop)
>The Contours (doo wop)
>Little Eva (pop)
>Elvis, Muddy Waters, Chubby Checker, Duke Ellington, Ray Charles, Louis Armstrong (late careers)

The Velvet Underground and Nico < Revolver

>Led Zeppelin
>heavy metal
Jesus Christ

And you're missing so many important things to post unimportant things instead

The Beatles were popular because they were incredibly accessible

They were influential in that it showed any talentless hack like John Lennon can make it in the music business

Did you know they were recorded at the same time? And one was the last good album by the band while the other was the first of a great number of interesting and influential careers.

That's what it issss.

Besides OP asked for pop anyway so I posted everything I could think of

The Beatles were the first mega-popular boy band as well as the first important rock band to spend time in the studio layering tracks and experimenting with effects.

That's basically it:

Early Beatles -- world's first big deal internationally-famous boy band

Late Beatles -- world's first successful super-serious baroque symphonic prog-ass concept-album-making studio band

Okay, I'm finished! Thanks, you've all been wonderful! [spoiler]except for those of you who insisted the Rolling Stones were more influential than The Beatles. personal preference =/= influence[/spoiler]
Love you all!

not to mention the Beatles/Harrison's link to Ravi Shankar and the hard line between pre-Help! and post-Help!

this. They took ideas that had been thrown around in the avante-garde scene and made them easily digestible for normies. This allowed progressive ideas to become integrated into mainstream music and pushed popular music forward as a whole.

>believing wikipedia