BEATLEMANIA: It began 50 years ago today Edna Gundersen
Fri Oct 05 2012 09:04:49
On Jan. 1, 1962, The Beatles flunked an audition at Decca Records in London. Label executive Dick Rowe’s brush-off: “Guitar groups are on the way out.”
It was an inauspicious start for the group that would soon dominate global society and a downbeat Day 1 in the year that saw the scrappy Liverpool lads evolve into the Fab Four who forever altered the course of pop music.
No other entertainers in history have been as popular, as influential, as important or as groundbreaking. The best-selling act ever sold 600 million albums worldwide and racked up 20 No. 1 U.S. singles, a Billboard record that still stands. The band hijacked the entertainment media and transcended music to become a chapter in world history. Its members had political clout, spiritual authority, cultural sway and the ears of the planet.
Fifty years later, the melodic, instantly memorable tunes of The Beatles are ingrained in the DNA of modern civilization. On this golden anniversary, their golden oldies sound as vital and fresh as ever and continue to bewitch new generations.
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