Cultural impact of the Beatles

The Beatles were an English rock band, formed in Liverpool in 1960. With members John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr, they became widely regarded as the foremost and most influential act of the rock era. In the early 1960s, their enormous popularity first emerged as "Beatlemania", but as the group's music grew in sophistication, led by primary songwriters Lennon and McCartney, they came to be perceived as an embodiment of the ideals shared by the counterculture of the 1960s.

Their continued commercial and critical success assisted many cultural movements—including a shift from American artists' global dominance of rock and roll to British acts (British Invasion), the proliferation of young musicians in the 1960s who formed new bands, the album as the dominant form of record consumption over singles, the term "Beatlesque" used to describe similar-sounding artists, and several fashion trends. Some of their unusual production techniques later became part of normal recording practice.

As of 2009, the Beatles are the best-selling band in history, with estimated claimed sales of over 600 million records worldwide. They have had more number-one albums on the British charts, fifteen, and sold more singles in the UK, 21.9 million, than any other act. They ranked number one on Billboard magazine's list of the all-time most successful Hot 100 artists, released in 2008 to celebrate the US singles chart's 50th anniversary. As of 2016^[update], they hold the record for most number-one hits on the Billboard Hot 100, with twenty. They've also had myriad cover versions from a variety of artists, while "Yesterday" is one of the most covered songs in the history of recorded music. In 1999, the Beatles were collectively included in Time magazine's compilation of the twentieth century's 100 most influential people.

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