The Beatles - Legacy

Legacy

See also: The Beatles' influence on popular culture

The Beatles' influence on popular culture was—and remains—immense. Former Rolling Stone associate editor Robert Greenfield compares the band to Picasso as "artists who broke through the constraints of their time period to come up with something that was unique and original.... n the form of popular music, no one will ever be more revolutionary, more creative and more distinctive". From the 1920s, the United States had dominated popular entertainment culture throughout much of the world, via Hollywood movies, jazz, the music of Broadway and Tin Pan Alley and, later, the rock and roll that first emerged in Memphis, Tennessee. The Beatles not only sparked the British Invasion of the US, they became a globally influential phenomenon as well.

Their musical innovations and commercial success inspired musicians worldwide. Many artists have acknowledged their influence and enjoyed chart success with covers of their songs. On radio, their arrival marked the beginning of a new era; programme director Rick Sklar of New York's WABC went so far as to forbid his DJs from playing any "pre-Beatles" music. The Beatles helped to redefine the LP as something more than just a few hits padded out with "filler", and they were primary innovators of the modern music video. The Shea Stadium show with which they opened their 1965 North American tour attracted an estimated 55,600 people, then the largest audience in concert history; Spitz describes the event as a "major breakthrough...a giant step toward reshaping the concert business." Emulation of their clothing and especially their hairstyles, which became a mark of rebellion, had a global impact on fashion, wrote Gould.

According to Gould, the Beatles changed the way people listened to popular music and experienced its role in their lives. From what began as the Beatlemania fad, the group grew to be perceived by many fans and cultural observers as an embodiment of the ideals shared by the era's sociocultural revolutions. As icons of the 1960s counterculture, Gould continues, they became a catalyst for bohemianism and activism in various social and political arenas, fuelling movements such as women's liberation, gay liberation and environmentalism. According to Peter Lavezzoli, after the "more popular than Jesus" controversy in 1966, the Beatles felt considerable pressure to say the right things and "began a concerted effort to spread a message of wisdom and higher consciousness."