Difference between Pop Band and Boy Band at the heart of this mass debate. You can be manufactured as both Pop and Boy/Girl band. I mentioned The Monkees but would qualify that by saying I think of them more as a manufactured Pop band than a boy band as well as throwing in TV . Same with Bay City Rollers, all slung together to get teenies moist in the gusset but could actually play their instruments. Pistols were a manufactured anti-pop band. Boy Band to me includes the likes of Take That, East 17, Westloife, Boyzone etc. The Beatles were willing participants in having their image polished by Epstein but he had little to do with their song writing, that was Lennon & McCartney tapping into the market. Couple of proper shrewdies who knew their sound had to keep changing if they wanted any kind of longevity in the business hence how different their albums sounded from each other. Improved for the market yes, manufactured no.
Bollocks. Lennon and McCartney were totally overrated. Dreadful songs and lyrics. The talented one in The Beatles was actually Harrison but Lennon and McCartney would not let him in. The Beatles were crap and didn't last very long at all.
You don't have to like it to admit it. Hands down the most influential band ever. I've never heard anyone say that they remember sitting in front of the TV when Wet Wet Wet came on Top of the Pops and said that it had a life-changing effect on them and they met up with their mates who'd also seen it and decided to form a band of their own. Some twerp just got to number 1 on the Billboard chart having only sold 800 odd albums, everything else was digital downloads to get the top spot. The fact that I can't even remember who it was from a week ago shows how vapid and irrelevant most music of today is. The Beatles used to sell millions of just one single, that's something tangible in the hands of kids across the world. Were they the best? Do you have to like their music to appreciated it? Maybe not but you won't find any other band that can be considered more of an influence on music and pop culture in general.
It's commonly accepted and acknowledged by those who are really in the know that if Mark Chapman had been in possession of four bullets and visited the cavern Club in 1965 the world would have been a happier place and future generations would have been grateful to not have to listen to the same old hackneyed ****e about a middle of the road band year after year after year.
I heard that on a tour of Scandinavia The Beatles always tried to get groupies to give them blow jobs backstage. The girls from Sweden were always reluctant but the Norwegians would.