I'm going to say something obscene: The Beatles aren't a good band!
Yes, they were influential and for many people, they influenced their lives. If you grew up in the 1960s, their music was both popular and culturally significant. I didn't though. I'm part of that generation that followed: Generation-X.
The 1960s was the start of the counter-culture movement with hippie free love, antiwar radicalism, and questioning authority. For the most part, The Beatles weren't culture warriors. They were commercial pop music artists selling catchy songs and records. Seriously, "We're all in a Yellow Submarine!" is just daft. Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band is also just cheesy marketing. Besides the packaging, their collective works are only marginally interesting. Some songs have interesting lyrics. Some songs have good riffs. Some songs are very good. However, the majority are not interesting on a sonic level or lyrically.
For the past few years I've been re-listening to music from the 1970s and I think it is the best music ever made in human history! The decade was ugly. The tail end of the Vietnam war, oil embargoes, Nixon's impeachment, unresolved civil strife from the late 1960s, cities turned into criminal war zones, declining standards of living, and rampant racism and sexism, as minorities started to integrate into American society. Other countries may have had similar or none of these features, but that was what was going on in the USA.
You're saying how is this relevant, because The Beatles broke up in 1970. Well lets take a look at who didn't break up or were around in the 1970s.
- Led Zeppelin (1968-1980)
- Rolling Stones (1964- current)
- Pink Floyd (1964–1995)
- The Doors (1965–1973)
- Black Sabbath (1968–2006; 2011–2017)
- David Bowie (1962–2016)
- Rush (1974-2018)
- Aerosmith (1970- current)
- AC/DC (1973- current)
- Fleetwood Mac (1968- current)
- The Police (1978-1986)
I'm sure if you are a rock music aficionado you can add many more bands. Add in the emergence of other genres like punk, funk, electronic, house, New Wave... etc. and you have one of the greatest cultural moments in history.
Look at that list, especially the top three, and tell me The Beatles were better than them. No comparison.
I understand music is subjective and is largely a function of where you grew up and what era you lived through. However, I grow tired of boomers and others heralding the enormity of The Beatles as the preeminent music group of the second half of the the 20th Century. They are not even close. The Rolling Stones in the 60s alone, were better than The Beatles. Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin are vastly greater artists than The Beatles ever were.
