Now For Something Completely Different

This spot-on piece by culture journalist and blogger Terry Teachout of About Last Night on the enduring appeal of the Beatles:

In one sense, “the Beatles” can be understood as a shorthand term for the songs written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney, separately and together, between 1962 and 1970. [...] Most of the Beatles’ hit singles were Lennon-McCartney songs, many of which would later be performed and recorded by other artists. It was the best of these songs that initially won them the respect of musicians who had hitherto been indifferent or hostile to rock-and-roll.

[...]

It soon became clear to Lennon and McCartney that the sound of “the Beatles” on record need not be restricted to the simple guitar-bass-drums instrumentation of their live concerts. McCartney, for example, recorded “Yesterday” accompanied by his own acoustic guitar and a string quartet arranged by [producer, George] Martin. In 1965 the band released Rubber Soul, an album of extensively overdubbed studio performances in which Lennon, McCartney, and Harrison (as well as Martin) could also be heard playing piano, harmonium, sitar, bouzouki, and other instruments. Not only was Rubber Soul too complex in texture to be reproduced in concert — at least not under the conditions prevailing in 1965 — but it was meant to be experienced not as a collection of fourteen individual and free-standing songs but as something considerably more ambitious. “For the first time,” Martin explained, “we began to think of albums as art on their own, as complete entities.”

[...]

After the Beatles, rock-and-roll would never be the same. What started out as a stripped-down, popularized blending of country music and rhythm-and-blues intended for consumption by middle-class teenagers evolved into a new musical dialect in which it was possible to make statements complex and thoughtful enough to seize and hold the attention of adult listeners.

Indeed, indeed.