It was 50 years ago today....

It doesn’t matter what anyone, whether informed pedant or shameless ignoramus, thinks about The Beatles - good or bad. Popular music today would be something else altogether had they not existed. Apart from the music they created, they changed recording studio practices. Culturally and musically they were a seismic event that lasted the better part of a decade. They altered the landscape (to use that cliche) and there ain’t no going back. They weren’t operating in a vacuum of course, and no mention of the Fab 4 should be made without invoking the names of SS. Martin and Emerick.  Love ’em or hate ’em, doesn’t matter - The Beatles transformed popular music like no other group before or since. Some of us think the transformation was for the better.

Like any of the great artists the Beatles were entirely of their own time.

Sure, great artists are a product of their times...societies and cultures.  The great ones, however, owe a debt to what preceded them and their work speaks to others beyond their specific time.  Their work communicates something enduring and (universal?) - something meaningful to those that come after.  They might have been working in popular music alone and the entirety of their output certainly doesn't qualify them as such (i.e., "great artists), but there are excellent examples that do.      

Been meaning to add this to the Beatles "discussion"
(unrelated to the Ram & ATMP posts).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5UXnulANF8g

(It is interesting how opinions about Ram have changed over time.)