The Beatles

The Beatles were the world's most famous pop group, selling more records in the twentieth century than anyone else. Experimenting with wide range of musical styles, they also starred in several films, and they had a profound long-term influence on fashion, politics and popular culture.

The Beatles, initially called The Quarrymen, were formed in 1957 in Liverpool, . Their name, chosen by John Lennon, was a pun on beat-less and a reference Buddy Holly's The Crickets. Besides Lennon, the band included Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and other members who came and went - notably Pete Best, Stuart Sutcliffe (who died of a brain haemorrhage) and Ringo Starr (who stuck around). With a striking image based around the artistic ideas of Lennon and of Sutcliffe's lover, photographer Astrid Kirchherr, they instantly made an impact despite the fact that guitar music was then considered unfashionable. Their cheerful personalities and irreverent sense of humour endeared them to music industry professionals like Brian Epstein, who became their manager, and George Martin, who signed them to EMI.

Considering their immense popularity now, it seems odd to note that The Beatles' first two singles, Love Me Do and Please Please Me, enjoyed only modest chart success when they were initially released in the . Their success was slow to build, but over the course of the next year they built up a substantial fan base. In 1963, with I Want to Hold your Hand, they finally cracked the market, which had formerly been resistant to British acts, and Beatlemania began. Hysterical scenes ensued whenever the group appeared in the flesh at record shops and airports, and their televised performances attracted tens of millions of viewers. Their 1965 concert in New York was the first ever music gig to be held in a stadium, before a crowd of over fifty thousand fans. The same year they were honoured with an MBE by Queen Elizabeth II. Lennon famously observed that they were "more popular than Jesus now", sparking hostile reactions in Bible Belt America and South Africa, but the band rallied, noting in regard to their destroyed records "They've got to buy 'em before they can burn 'em."

Over the course of their career, The Beatles recorded twelve original hit albums. They also starred in three feature films, as well as appearing in cartoon form in the cult animated movie Yellow Submarine and featuring in the documentary movie Let in Be. A fourth live action feature was scripted by playwright Joe Orton but, due to escalating tensions between band members, never came to pass. As the band became tired of pop their work grew more experimental and was generally regarded as being musically more impressive, but it was less popular with fans. They also attracted controversy for their involvement with the developing drug culture of the Woodstock generation, a factor which was significant in their exploration of psychedelic music. After the release of Abbey Road in 1969, tensions between Lennon and McCartney, in part relating to Lennon's relationship with conceptual artist Yoko Ono, led to the break-up of the band.

After The Beatles stopped recording together, with each of their members going on to enjoy successful solo careers, a series of best-of albums and bootleg releases ensured that they continued to make sales, and they remain massively popular across the generations, to this day.