Music History · Riley Haas
The Beatles are the Greatest Rock Band of All Time and I Can Prove It
by Riley Haas
Popular music in the UK and the United States was a bunch of disparate genres, performed by amateurs, often to audiences of teenagers – or adults who weren't exactly discerning, in the case of folk music and mainstream American pop music – and whose musicians didn't have much to do with each other. At the end of the 1960s, it had undergone a change identical to the fracturing of “classical” and “jazz,” only in a far more rapid fashion than either of the art genres discussed did. The Beatles were more responsible for this logarithmic change than anyone else. We can't go back to a pre-Beatles popular music even if we wanted to. Their influence is that far-flung and diverse. Their songs have transcended their era but even though they are less popular than they used to be, their influence is still incalculable. I will show that throughout this podcast. The pop rock world we live in is a world built by the Beatles. That is why they are – and will forever remain – the greatest rock band of all time.
