The group's origins can be traced back to 1960 when a teenage John Lennon set up The Quarrymen. The original line up included Stuart Sutcliffe and Pete Best. Paul McCartney and George Harrison joined at a later date. Sutcliffe eventually decided to leave the group but remained in good terms with the group until his early death in 1962 due to brain hemorrhage. Best on the other hand was let go and replaced by Ringo Starr.
It was not clear to Best why he was …show more content…
From the very start, Lennon and McCartney took the roles of songwriters and composers. Clearly though, the two composers differed significantly in style and form, a point of disparity that would later become more pronounced as relations among band members became strained. McCartney's music has been cited to be the more positive and extroverted of the two while Lennon's work is said to be more mature and grounded in reality.
Regardless of the differences between the composers though, they found common ground in merging a myriad of genres and influences. The revolutionary and inclusive approach of The Beatles is perhaps the main reason why their appeal has stretched across five decades. They are primarily labeled a rock and roll band but they have been known to integrate elements of folk, blues, pop, country, psychedelic and even classical and Celtic music.
What ultimately made the group special was that the variety of influences and styles did not appear to be the effect of evolution. The group's sound simply flowed naturally and smoothly wherever its focus lay. Listening to their albums today, there is no unbearable dissonant mixture of sound. There is only a mixing of elements into homogeneous masterpieces. This sat well with listeners all over the world as the group eventually took the US by storm in 1964 in a phenomenon that was to be permanently known in history as