THE BEATLES

Over the last 30 years rock and pop music have been very popular in Britain and have become an important part of Britain’s ‘pop’ culture. In the 1960s and 1970s several groups achieved international success. Their music became the common language of a generation. The influence of the Beatles was especially strong. Nothing expressed the youthful ‘pop’ culture of the sixties better than the Beatles, whose music quickly became internationally known. They were to bring a new sound to Britain.At first the group performed music that was influenced by American rock’n’roll and rhythm-and-blues. Lennon and McCartney’s songs, however, became increasingly sophisticated and experimental, and their imagnitive lyrics and memorable melodies soon contributed to the distinctive Mersey sound. Their records were consistently top of the music chart in the mid-1960s.

The Beatles soon became famous in Liverpool clubs, and their first recordings, "Love Me Do" (1962) and "Please Please Me" (1963), quickly made them Britain's top rock group. Their early music was influenced by the American rock singers Chuck BERRY and Elvis PRESLEY, but they combined their musical form with freshness, vitality, and wit. The release of "I Want to Hold Your Hand" in 1964 marked the beginning of the phenomenon known as "Beatlemania" in the United States. The Beatles' first U.S. tour aroused a universal mob adulation. Their concerts were scenes of mass worship, and their records sold in the millions.

The group disbanded in 1970, after the release of their final album,” Let It Be”,. On Dec. 8, 1980, John Lennon was fatally shot in New York City. In 1991, Paul McCartney's classical composition Liverpool Oratorio was performed to some acclaim in Britain and the United States.