The Beatles Achievements: Part I

It has been well-known for years that the Beatles are the most successful band in the history of rock. Maybe, it's not so known that they are widely considered the most influential band ever. And definitely, it's much less known what the Beatles achievements are in fact.

John Lennon met Paul McCartney at one of the Quarrymen's performances in 1957 and Paul showed him how to tune a guitar. You should know the rest anyway so we are not going to tell you the story of the most famous Liverpool rock band. Instead, we'll try pointing out how much those boys grew up and evolved since that lucky for mankind meeting event happened. With some of the band's greatest musical achievements and influence over the rock history we hope at the end, you'll have at least a small idea what the rock world has got with the Beatles and that it would never be the same without them.

A self-contained rock group

Have you noticed that there are still some performers that do not write their own songs but rather play somebody else's material. This tendency depends on the genre or the country, which the performer is coming from but in general such artists are not a rarity. Well, 50 years ago, it was nearly a rule for the rock bands: almost no band performed its own songs. So, in that time (1963) the Beatles released a first album containing 8 (out of 14) songs written on their own. They continued in this direction and when the time for their third album A Hard Day's Night came in 1964, the record was completely compiled of material written by the band members. To stress that fact, note, that it was 1964 again when the Beatles' main competitors in the 60s, the Rolling Stones, issued their first album and it was almost entirely comprised of songs written by other authors. Elvis Costello said about the Beatles: "They made writing your own material expected, rather than exceptional."

Rock music as international phenomenon

While nobody denies that rock music came from the United States, the British Invasion was the force that made rock internationally popular music genre and established the basis for rock to become the most successful musical monster ever. Of course, the British Invasion started with Beatlemania and sure, the main suspects for the latter were the Beatles. Their first album Please Please Me, loaded with infectious melodies and harmonies topped the British charts for 30 weeks. It was replaced at the top slot by With The Beatles, their second LP record. The latter stayed at the top of the charts for 21 weeks helping for the total of 51 consecutive weeks in which the quartet held the 1st place on the album charts. The United Kingdom had been constantly amazed for a year when the time for conquering the world came. The Beatles appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show in February 1964 and Beatlemania arrived in the United States too. It was spreading so fast and widely that in the first week of April 1964, the Beatles had the top five spots on the best-selling singles charts in the States plus the first two entries on the album charts with other entries spread throughout the Billboard Top 100 also. They became monstrously popular all over the world and they traced the route for other British bands like the Rolling Stones, the Kinks, the Animals, the Who, etc. to storm and take the USA and the whole planet almost effortlessly.

Read the second part of our article by following the link The Beatles Achievements: Part II.