English band from Liverpool that dominated the American music market from their appearance on the “Ed Sullivan Show” in February 1964 until their break up in 1970.

Inspired by Elvis Presley and other rock ’n’ roll musicians, the Beatles combined blues music with ballads popular among Motown’s girl groups and the Beach Boys (both of whom suffered from the “invasion”). Although the group’s popularity was threatened by John Lennon’s comment that they were almost as big as Jesus, fundamentalist backlash consolidated the Beatles radical chic. This radicalism was further enhanced by comments opposing the Vietnam War, and by Lennon’s protests with Yoko Ono on behalf of world peace.

Meanwhile, “Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” (1967) and the “White Album” (1968) helped alter the direction of popular music. The former, one of the first “concept” albums, was the last major collaboration of Lennon and Paul McCartney.

Highlighting the band’s move into more orchestrated melodies with influences ranging from English music-hall ballads to Indian music, the album seemed to represent the holistic, optimistic aspects of 1960s counterculture. The more anarchic “White Album,” where each artist went off in his own direction, seemed to shatter all icons associated with “Sergeant Pepper’s,” a movement best summed up by McCartney’s “Helter Skelter” (later connected to the Charles Manson slayings).

Following the break up, each member went on to varying degrees of success as solo artists. Lennon, the most politically vocal, became a resident of New York City, NY (with his own lengthy FBI file) until his murder in 1981 at the hands of a deranged fan who believed he had “sold out.”