The Beatles, The Sixties and Popular Culture – clip

Jeremy Yudkin / Boston University

Between 1962 and 1970 The Beatles released 22 singles, several EPs and 11 albums. Sales records charted more than 50 top-forty hit singles. They were the first British pop group to achieve major success in the United States and they scored 22 number-one hits in the USA alone. It is calculated that the band has now sold over two billion albums, and a few years ago we celebrated the 50th anniversary of The Beatles’ first appearance in the United States. That evening, the Ed Sullivan Show was watched by 73 million people – at that time over a third of the entire population of the country. And of course, The Beatles produced lots of different kinds of music – folk, rock, country, rockabilly, soul blues, doo-wop – and they invented new genres like psychedelic music and heavy metal. Stringed instruments and baroque trumpets and horns brought their music into the realm of art music.

Jeremy Yudkin

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