MO-DESIGN
it was a Saturday ON July 6th, 1957
 and in St Peter's Church in Liverpool,
on the occasion of the parish's annual party, there was a performance by the Quarrymen, the skiffle group led by 16-year-old John Lennon. Ivan Vaughan, former classmate of John's elementary school, and member of the band, introduced him to 15-year-old Paul McCartney, his schoolmate at the Liverpool Institute at the time. During his performances John used to change words and chords to his liking; he was therefore struck by the memory of Paul who remembered perfectly lyrics and melodies. Although John knew full well that inviting Paul to join the group would mean sharing leadership, he soon resolved to ask him to join the Quarrymen.
A year after Paul joined the group, Paul contacted another boy from the Liverpool Institute, friend and school bus mate George Harrison, for an audition.
John admitted George into the group after an audition that took place right on a bus. to-indulgent in which the Beatles staged, highlighting more than anything else the good acting talent of Ringo Starr and a certain disinterest of John Lennon for filming (he himself will later get film awards with the film How I won the war). The record highlighted on the one hand John Lennon's passion for Dylan and his search for increasingly elaborate and committed lyrics, on the other hand Paul McCartney's continuous search for melodic, romantic, but unforgettable songs and culminating in the evergreen Yesterday. Help was released in August 1965 and only 4 months later their artistic evolution led them to the extraordinary result of Rubber Soul, a refined and sought-after album, in which the sound of the Indian sitar appears for the first time in Western pop music, whose sonority took over the themes dealt with in the first years of his career, deliberately not committed and frivolous, aimed at winning as much public as possible.
 A real transformation began in Hamburg.
Forced by the demanding owner of the venue in which they performed long performances in which they had to produce the maximum volume, their music acquired power and awareness. Paul's desire to take the place of Stuart on bass began to emerge, and the style and repertoire that would characterize the early years of their activity was formed. They were soon forced to return to Liverpool due to some problems with the German police. George was a minor and could not work legally; Pete and Paul, left their old and precarious accommodation because they moved into the accommodation procured by their new employer, returning at night to get their things lit the room by setting fire to a condom that they had hung on the wall, thus setting fire to the wallpaper. . Event that resulted in their arrest and therefore expulsion. However, a few months later they returned to the German city with a contract signed without the intermediation of their manager, thanks to the admirers they had conquered. Stuart Sutcliffe, admitted to the Hamburg Academy of Art, left music to devote himself to painting, his real interest and so Paul McCartney took over the bass. On their return from Hamburgthey began to attract attention with their pounding music and their appearance: the hair combed forward with bangs, the leather jackets or without cuffs, all complemented by ankle boots, were the contribution to the image. of the Beatles given the German girlfriend of Stuart and also the look that substantially characterized the band in the years of the explosion. They started playing in a venue on Mathew street, the Cavern club, where they had previously performed with little success, but where they now attracted a large audience, especially women.
 A short distance from the Cavern club was an appliance and record store, owned by a certain BRIAN EPSTEIN. 
One day a guy came to the shop to ask for “My Bonnie”, a record they recorded in Hamburg, when they were accompanying the soloist Tony Sheridan. The shop owner was impressed by that request, and, intrigued, went to the Caern Club to meet them. Impressed by their charisma and the appeal of the public, he offered to be their manager. By that time the Beatles had broken up with their first manager, Allan Williams, and limited their business almost exclusively to daily shows at the Cavern club, and so after an initial hesitation, they agreed.
It was the end of 1961.
Brian Epstein became the manager of the group and looked after their interests until his death in 1967.
For his part Epstein managed to broaden the circle of their writings, he undertook to "clean up" them, to "civilize" them. adequately to then get an audition for the Beatles with Decca records for New Year's Day 1962.
 Arriving in London for the audition, the Beatles unveiled the best of their repertoire, preserved for history in the recordings left in the record company archive.
Despite the approval of Mike Smith, an observer of Decca Records, Decca preferred to sign another group, due to the fact that the latter was from London and not from the relatively distant Liverpool.
The fact became anecdotal and became part of the classic gallery of errors of evaluation of the series The word to the experts. After this failure, by pure chance, during the making of a record, organized by Brian Epstein in the famous HMV store in Oxford street in London, a technician was struck by the music he had heard, he directed Brian Epstein to EMI, another house record company.
It was only Brian Epstein's insistence and the fact that he was, with the family shop, an important distributor in the north of England, that convinced the executives of EMI, who entrusted George Martin with the task of listening to some tracks recorded by the Beatles.
Martin was at the time responsible for EMI of the subsidiary Parlophone label, which dealt with jazz and classical music.
He was therefore not very attuned to the style of the Beatles, but having listened to some of the material they produced at Epstein's insistence, he decided to grant them an audition which was held on June 6, 1962 in London.

Four pieces were recorded, including a version of the classic Besame Mucho sung by Paul, and three original compositions: Love Me Do, P.S. I Love You and Ask Me Why. It was only at that point that the Beatles were able to have a real record deal, albeit not very profitable for them. Martin was convinced that something good could be drawn from the group, but certainly no more than a few thousand copies before the band fell into oblivion and disbanded, as was the case in pop music of the time. When the Beatles returned to the recording studio on September 4, 1962, Ringo Starr replaced Pete Best on drums. Immediately after the first audition, in fact, George Martin, dissatisfied with Best's drums, told Brian Epstein that he would prefer a sessionman for studio recordings, while Best could be fine for live performances (the sessionman is a house musician). discographer who is "loaned" for studio recordings to groups that need it). There was no real relationship between Best, with a very introverted character, and the other members of the group. They also knew RINGO STARR well, they had met him in Hamburg, had played there on occasion and were convinced that he was the right replacement for Best. Thus it was that on August 16, 1962 the replacement took place.
 Love Me Do was the first song to be recorded. Martin, who knew nothing of the lineup change, had called a drummer to replace Best, sessionman Andy White, who recorded Love Me Do and P.S. I Love You.
Ringo he adapted to playing the tambourine in Love Me Do, while in P.S. I Love You was at the maracas.
The version with Andy White was released as a single, while the album version featured Starr on drums.
The record peaked at number seventeenth on the UK charts, but sold a lot in Liverpool. After the success of Love Me Do, the Beatles returned to the studio to follow up on their debut.
George Martin, a good professional in the business, had found a song for them that he thought they could climb the sales chart with. The Beatles made it clear that it was their new composition, Please Please Me, which they intended to record.
Martin was of a completely different opinion, but it was enough that they played it to him for the producer to change his mind. Please please me was their second single and it reached the top of the British hit parade. It would be the first of countless Lennon-McCartney hits. The success of the song began to make the group known on a national scale: released on 11 January 1963 it immediately received positive reviews. 
Two months later,
the self-titled album was released, which quickly sold 500,000 copies and reached the top of the LP sales chart.
It was in fact the first step in their entry into the history of pop music. Remarkable was the fact that for the first time it was not a cover, that is, songs by other authors.
In fact, eight out of fourteen pieces were of their own composition.
With television appearances on music shows, their innovative image, hairdo, clothes, they gained an instant following among British teenagers. Beatlemania thus exploded, which we will talk about later. It was early 1963, and a new phase in pop music had begun.
 
The following album With the Beatles was released on November 22, 1963 and received such great acclaim from both audiences and critics that it was not even necessary to promote it with the release of a single. The cover was very artistic and original, as were the eight songs signed by Lennon-McCartney and the first one signed by Harrison.
They became famous All My Loving, revived by many other artists and I Wanna Be Your Man with which the Rolling Stones hit their first commercial success. Alongside the intense activity in the studio, concerts and tours in various countries of the world continued unabated.
The scenes of collective frenzy that had occurred across the Atlantic in February 1964, on the occasion of their appearance on the "Ed Sullivan show" and concerts at the Washington Coliseum, and in Miami, seemed timeless.
While appearing on the "Ed Sullivan show" the number of reported crimes in New York was very close to zero, and juvenile crimes practically zeroed.

George Harrison stated in the film "The Beatles Anthology": "Even the criminals stopped to look at us!" inspired by the news, perhaps a bit sensational, that appeared in the Anglo-American newspapers of the time. On July 10, 1964, A Hard Day's Night was released: the film of the same name was a real tribute to Beatlemania; the main idea was to film 36 hours of the life of the Fab Four (the fabulous 4) in the style of a documentary. The record turned out to be the best ever made and all the songs were composed by them. John Lennon with A Hard Day's Night began to compose a long series of passages with a philosophical-existential-political-social background and it is no coincidence that his books, in that period, obtained literary prizes and awards almost everywhere.
Paul McCartney specialized more and more in the production of melodic, sentimental and captivating songs such as And I Love Her and If I Feel, showing however an ever greater technical accuracy. They tirelessly continued their tours after the 14-day hiatus due to the recording of the album and the scenes of delusional crowds, composed mostly of screaming girls, culminated with the historic concert of August 1965 at Shea Stadium in New York, in front of an audience of 55,000 people, and would have been repeated always the same from Europe to Australia except for their last American tour.
 This tour was contested by some groups of religious fanatics due to some rash statements by John Lennon about the alleged greater popularity and impact of the Beatles, compared to that of Jesus Christ. The American journalists continually pestered them on this issue until John Lennon was able to clarify his thesis once and for all and to calm the waters a little; the Fab Four, however, lived the last phase of the tour all the same with the terror of being the target of some attack. The last live concert took place in San Francisco's Candlestick park in August 1966. At the height of their careers, the members of the complex were appointed - by popular acclaim, but above all thanks to an illuminating political move by Prime Minister Harold Wilson in search of consensus - Members of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II. (it seems that the four on the occasion did not spare an appreciation not royally correct towards the august sovereign, while even more certain, despite the subsequent denials, it seems the legend that the Fab Four consumed a joint in the royal toilettes of the Palace, also if in reality, as confirmed later by the Beatles themselves, they consumed only an "innocent" cigarette). The official motivation of the recognition highlighted more than their artistic merits the economic ones;
infact, the “Fab Four” were the driving force behind the limping English economy which found an immediate benefit from the artistic made in England which by now spread throughout almost the entire planet. In the past, Britain had rarely exported singers, songs and compositions and was now considered an American colony for pop music and an Italian colony for bel canto. Years later, in 1969, Lennon renounced the honors by returning the medal to the queen: it was a sensational gesture with which he intended to protest for the role of the United Kingdom in Biafra and against support for the United States in Vietnam.
 Many years later Paul McCartney was promoted to the rank of Knight of the Order of the British Empire, which entails the right to the title of "Sir" in front of the name. The little time left free by the tours that followed one another at a beating rhythm caused the backward step of the Beatles for Sale album, released on November 27, 1964. The title, devised by John Lennon, reflected the same impressions as the hugely popular track that was Eight Days A Week; fatigue hovered between the notes of the album despite the highest number of covers present, as many as six, and moreover borrowed from famous authors such as Buddy Holly, Chuck Berry, Little Richard. It is considered the least incisive album of the group. This work, however, was a necessary step to allow the musical evolutionary path begun with Help !. It was a support album for a rather self-indulgent film of the same name in which the Beatles hustled, highlighting more than anything else the good acting talent of Ringo Starr and a certain disinterest of John Lennon for the filming (he himself will later get film awards with the film How I Won the War). The record highlighted on the one hand John Lennon's passion for Dylan and his search for increasingly elaborate and committed lyrics, on the other hand Paul McCartney's continuous search for melodic, romantic, but unforgettable songs and culminating in the evergreen Yesterday. Help was released in August 1965 and only 4 months later their artistic evolution led them to the extraordinary result of Rubber Soul, a refined and sought-after album, in which the sound of the Indian sitar appears for the first time in Western pop music, whose sonority took over the themes dealt with in the first years of his career, deliberately not committed and frivolous, aimed at winning as much public as possible.
 In this period the use of drugs began, such as LSD, which directly inspired the text and the psychedelic suggestions of many of their songs. According to a periodical of the time, the one who first induced the Beatles to use drugs was Bob Dylan. It is said that the great folk-singer, among other things one of the idols of the group, during the US tour of 1964, found himself with them in the bathroom of a hotel. Touching on the subject, Lennon offered Dylan some pills of "Dexies", a stimulant that the Beatles took during their apprenticeship in Hamburg to better support the stressful rhythms of those nights. Dylan refused, proposing to smoke some weed. The first to try was Starr who after a few puffs started laughing like crazy.
 Expected spasmodically also in Italy, in June 1965, the Beatles carried out an Italian mini-tour and in each of the concerts - one in the afternoon and one in the evening - they played for just over half an hour (preceded by Italian rock artists such as Angela, Peppino Di Capri, Fausto Leali and the New Dada); but the fans who came to listen to them at the Vigorelli Velodrome in Milan, at the Palasport in Genoa and at the Adriano Theater in Rome were anything but disappointed. That was the only time they played in Italy.

 We are at the prelude to the stage of artistic maturity. After Help, published in mid-1965, it was Revolver's turn. With this album began the phase in which the music of the Beatles took shape in long and articulated sessions in the studio.
The album talked about love, drugs, but also taxes with the opening piece Taxman, a musically brilliant piece, but with an acid lyric towards the English politicians of the time, composed and sung by George Harrison. He also spoke of death with John Lennon's Tomorrow Never Knows who was inspired by the Tibetan Book of the Dead with his voice immersed in the sounds of tapes played backwards in a perfect anticipation of Sgt. Pepper's. Paul McCartney's songs Eleanor Rigby, For no one, Good day sunshine and Here, there and everywhere will reach a clarity no longer equaled. The sounds are enriched with Indian instruments, and many other innovations elaborated in the studio in an artisanal way but with a great final result. The years of long recording sessions in the studio began: not being able to reproduce live the complex sounds of the songs on their records starting from Revolver, but also exhausted by world tours with tumultuous performances in which the sound of the group was literally submerged by screams of the fans, worried about the first threats rained down by religious fanatics and finally enticed by the ambition to enter history books, not only musical, the Beatles stopped their live activity and devoted themselves exclusively to the recording studio.
 (this choice saddened Brian Epstein who at that point felt even useless and cumbersome, even if it was he who pushed the Fab Four towards the project of an independent label). On June 1, 1967, the album considered by many to be the most important in rock history was released: Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, initially conceived as a concept album that was supposed to recall their childhood and adolescence years in Liverpool. The title was born from an idea of Paul McCartney who wanted to create a new identity for the group. However, contractual requirements dictated that the two tracks of the project already recorded were marketed as 45s: Penny Lane and Strawberry Fields Forever. For the first time a single was released on double side A, that is, with two pieces of the same level. Nevertheless Sgt. Pepper kept an apparent compactness, due to the sonic innovations introduced and at the moment particularly receptive of the public. The release of the album caused a tear in the musical panorama: everything, from the cover, to the sounds, to the closing with the "epic" and "apocalyptic" A Day in the Life, was the re-presentation of the milestones in a "moderate" and popular key. 1966 American, or the albums of Birds, Beach Boys and Bob Dylan. Finally Europe first and then the great international public legitimized texts and sounds that until then had represented alternative culture.
 we were at a point of no return ... from this moment pop music could rightfully be considered art. On the cover there is an ironic message to the address of their rival group, consisting of the phrase "Welcome The Rolling Stones" printed on the shirt of a puppet with the features of a child with the face of Shirley Temple. Jimi Hendrix honored the album's release by quickly producing a cover of the opening track, often performed during his concerts.
 On 25 June of the same year, 1967,
the group recorded live in the EMI studios the Lennonian All You Need Is Love which will rise to the role of anthem of the flower children and of the 1968 protest movements. Launched worldwide during the first international satellite television broadcast, it symbolically represented the entire British musical art movement and the rising generation of love. Famous but not infallible: so the Beatles discovered themselves in that summer: among other things, their third film (destined for television) Magical Mystery Tour, of which they signed - and will be the only time - the direction, will prove to be a fiasco . That same summer, finally, their "discoverer" and historical manager Brian Epstein will be found dead in his room, from a lethal mix of alcohol and psychotropic drugs. The complex organizational and above all administrative machinery of the group thus suddenly found itself without a guide. 1968 opened with a trip to India to the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, whose school of thought of "spiritual regeneration" the Beatles had meanwhile become adepts. Upon returning from India, John and Paul flew to New York for the launch of their production company renamed "Apple" and which had a green apple as its symbol. With their society, they explained, they wanted to give the possibility to all artists who had something to say, whether they were musicians, writers or filmmakers, to be able to express themselves without going through the hard apprenticeship and the spasmodic search for someone who would trust him as he was. happened to them. Paul said at a press conference that the idea was that of "Western Communism". In fact, Apple's main business was the production of their records, which from the White Album onwards began to appear with the green apple label, whole on one side of the record and cut in half on the other. It was an unrealistic undertaking that sucked up a lot of money and gave very modest results compared to artistic expectations, even if in the end records of talented authors, such as the young James Taylor, were released for Apple. With the contribution of many songs composed during their stay in India, which ended with a certain disappointment on their part, the double The Beatles was born (nicknamed White Album for the completely white cover), released in November of '68. On the record it is evident that the group was losing its cohesion, as each song bears the identifiable stylistic code of its author, but George Harrison's talent as a composer also emerges. The record did not receive the same consensus as the previous ones, and they themselves, observing the contemporary music scene, realized that many artists, even emerging ones, had released albums containing more innovative and sophisticated sounds.
 The Beatles sensed that it was no longer they who were driving the locomotive of musical change. For these reasons and to remedy the increasingly frequent internal conflicts (also due to the bulky presence of Lennon's new partner, Yoko Ono), the idea was born of "going back to basics" with a more spontaneous and less sought-after album, recorded live. without the refinements and studio elaborations of their latest works. The project, called Get Back, also included a film about its making and the return to a live performance. The filming of the recording sessions was entrusted to director Michael Lindsay Hogg. Thus was immortalized a quarrel between Paul and George over the way in which the guitarist "interpreted" McCartney's music: an episode that well reflected the latent tensions in the group. The shoot, which began in the inhospitable Twickenham film studios in London, then abandoned for an Apple home studio in Savile Row, would become a film released with the same title as the album, destined to remain - and make them remain - in the history of music. pop. After many hypotheses, including that of holding a closing concert on a ship or playing in a "surprise" venue and unbeknownst to the public, the stage, the last stage, became the terrace of their London headquarters, the Apple, at 3 Savile Row, where their last live concert took place on January 30, 1969. The audience was made up, in addition to the operators involved in the filming of the concert, by a handful of onlookers, mostly employees of the same building who flocked to the chimneys without perhaps imagining that they would have witnessed an event. On the street, on the other hand, dozens of bobbies (term to indicate the English policemen) struggled to keep at bay once again (the last) swarms of fans who had somehow learned the news of the performance. But soon after the interest of the four in Get Back waned and they devoted themselves to several solo projects that they had ready in the drawer. A few months later,
the four returned to the studio for a new album: they recalled George Martin, their producer, who had abandoned them after the White Album, tired of the constant quarrels, and produced with a last effort Abbey Road, the artistic testament that with masterpieces such as Come Together, Here Comes The Sun, Something and Get back gave the latest shining example of their art. After the release of Abbey Road, Harrison and Lennon (unbeknownst to McCartney) called the established producer Phil Spector to entrust him with the tapes of Get Back: Spector radically reworked many songs, but had the merit of making salable material that was often too often raw. The product is the album Let It Be, which will be released a month after McCartney's interview with which he announced his departure from the group. it was the final act which will be followed by several lawsuits, but also four solo careers certainly not comparable to each other (and hardly comparable to that of the united complex) and a very heavy inheritance.
 the cinema. From the very beginning, the personality of the four, and the media image that had made them famous, inspired the possibility of exploiting the notoriety of the complex on a cinematographic basis. The Beatles' cinematic experience was certainly not equal to the musical one, in which they imprinted a brand destined to mark pop music for decades to come.
 Their films had a raison d'etre only by virtue of their stage presence and as a phenomenon destined to move entire masses of youth. Not to mention the towing function they had for their upcoming songs. According to the critics, the only added value provided by the Beatles and their films to the cinema scene of their time is contained in the imagination of the images, in the skilful and modern use of editing (the video clips were still to come) and , of course, in the music, however recognizable and appreciable. The first film was
A Hard Day's Night 1964 - In Italy released under the title Tutti per uno, by Richard Lester Originally the film (the title phrase refers to a slang expression used by Ringo Starr) should have been called Beatlemania. Cutting between semi-documentary and inventive musicals, the four musicians are followed by the camera as they travel by train from Liverpool to London for a concert. Hunted by the fans, the musicians will be able to show up for the appointment (but not before going undercover in a club, leaving the rehearsal session in a carefree way). The film premiered at the London Pavillon in the presence of the royal family. It had two Oscar nominations and the takings covered ten times the cost of making it. Director Lester will say that he limited himself to moving the camera to the rhythm of the music, but the film will prove to be the Beatles' biggest blockbuster.
 In 1965, Help! Also directed by Richard Lester. In a chaotic adventure, the Beatles interpret themselves, complete with mad scientists, excursions to the Bahamas, chases by followers of a Hindu sect worshiping the Goddess Kali, stolen rings (by Ringo Starr) and improbable skiing in the Austrian mountains; however, between one sequence and the next, they manage to sing seven new songs.

Two years later, in 1967,
the 3rd Beatles movie was released: Magical Mystery Tour It was the Beatles' only attempt to shoot a film in full autonomy, but the outcome was not as happy as on previous occasions. Conceived during a trip to the United States by Paul McCartney, the film was shot practically without a script but only on the basis of small scattered tracks. During the two weeks that the Magic Mystery Bus traveled to southern England, each Beatle made their contribution in terms of inventing gags. Presented on television, the film was harshly criticized by the media and only subsequently re-evaluated and distributed in cinemas and on videotape. Again the film served to launch a new LP by the Liverpool quartet.
 The 4th film was in 1968:
Yellow Submarine, an animated feature film inspired by the song of the same name, where the Beatles appear only in a short final sequence. In the rest of the film they are replaced by their own drawn image; the work, as a whole, was defined by critics in various ways: apology for the myth, promotional operation of the album that was to be launched, but also a synthesis of the most innovative figurative experiences, from Art Nouveau, to Surrealism, to Pop art. The kingdom of Pepperland is invaded by the evil blue who want to abolish music and colors; but the director of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band will take care of putting everything in place: sailing on the yellow submarine he will reach Liverpool to ask for help from the Beatles themselves. 
The last film, in 1970, was: Let it be Contractual reasons are the basis of this production, interpreted collectively by the group. United Artists had signed a contract for three films: the two directed by Lester and a third title, precisely Yellow Submarine; this last film, however, did not satisfy the producer: a further third film had to be shot. Probably no one could have imagined that this film - Let it Be, made by Michael Lindsay-Hogg in 1969 and released in 1970, the year of the group's dissolution - would be a document destined in many ways to enter the history of rock music. It was in fact the Last Beatles concert, the farewell concert, resumed live on the roof of a London building, with the four baronets with drawn faces busy throwing the (last) chords to the wind for a handful of onlookers, mostly employees working in the same building, while undeterred fans flocked to the street in (vain) hope of seeing their idols once again. Around the end of the 1950s in America,
but also in Europe, the economic boom had brought the radio into every living room, and families gathered around it, as if it were the new home, a family environment, in which, that is, the whole family was gathered, they played songs for everyone. The target was very large, so much so that it was very easy to find kids whose dream was to sing like Frank Sinatra or Elvis Presley.
 music-mania was born. 
Turn your back on the Second World War and with the Cold War a little less looming, thanks to an ever greater family opulence, even the very young began to pursue a social identity. In short, the very young aspired to count socially, to consume, to autonomously make decisions on their choices, on their tastes, and above all they yearned for strong emotions that would make them come out of that limbo of boredom and obviousness that the post-war society seemed to offer them. As for the music, it was Frank Sinatra's fans who were the first to scream and manifest states of alteration during the otherwise fleeting public appearances of their idol in front of a hotel or an air-rail station. With the advent of rock'n'roll, however, tempers woke up. For example, the first appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show by Elvis Presley unleashed teenagers and various industries (cinema, music, magazines, which previously did not have much space) from that moment began to broadcast commercials, films and records aimed only at young people. The very young became the main target of the productive world. The Beatles broke into Britain, entered America (in 1964) just as it all went crazy. But above all, 1963 was again a year of very high socio-political tensions, instability and enormous worries. The murder of President Kennedy, M.L. King's speech "I have a dream ..." plunged Westerners back into the nightmare of a nuclear massacre.
 The Beatles came out at the right time to collect the requests of the very young who wanted to live happily, love and distinguish themselves from adults. The lyrics of their songs, original, fresh, were perfectly in line with the words that the very young wanted to pronounce. The same could be said for their look, their statements, their attitudes, their behaviors and their music. And here is that millions of teen-agers, including boys and girls, rushed to buy their new record, their jacket, their clothes, their boots, but also the notebook or the pencil or the ball having some reference with their name, with their music or with their faces, and even go hunting for all the FabFour's favorite consumer goods (from cigarettes to food ...), or to see their concert in the nearest town, or to cut themselves their hair like them and finally repeating the lyrics of their songs at the top of their lungs.
 Beatlemania had broken out,a term that was coined by some reporters and insiders to describe the chronicle of the concert held in Cheltenham, in southern England. Beatlemania was a sociological phenomenon hitherto never detected before: the unconditional worship beyond social background, culture, sex and age for idols of nascent pop music, which manifested itself in hysterics, gatherings of crowd, euphoria, obsession, screams, tears, very frequent fainting, frantic consumption of objects concerning the group. The attention of the mass media became morbid, as did the calculations of the record companies. At the same time the manager, Brian Epstein, did his utmost to avoid letting the group reach the threshold of saturation and rupture. From this moment every public and private step of the Beatles became a national fact and their every movement was followed by a mass of fans, as infatuated and passionate as uncontrollable even for the police.
Each of their concerts was soon characterized by the deafening screams of the fans that made it impossible to hear the sound they produced. They were also forced to make daring escapes to avoid the onslaught of the hordes of admirers. Soon other bands imitated their look and repertoire. 
The events that most impressed public opinion were the FabFour concert at the London Palladium, also broadcast on television on 13 October 1963, which immobilized practically the whole district due to the crowd formed by thousands of crazy fans and their return from the following tour in Scandinavia.
which was greeted by thousands of raving fans at London airport. The Beatles at the peak of their popularity were the first singers to perform in stadiums to satisfy the greatest number of fans and were practically the only ones, together with heads of state and popes, to cross entire cities sitting inside armored cars, with difficulty cutting two wings of an endless cheering crowd.
 The talent of Lennon and the other three Beatles is responsible for some of the best pages of modern pop music. Nobody can think of the Beatles as the absolute geniuses of composition or, after all, as the virtuosos of their respective instruments. But the fact remains that almost 40 years after the band's dissolution, the songs with the Lennon-McCartney brand have shown extraordinary resistance to the ravages of time, becoming a source of inspiration for more than a generation of pop musicians. If even today, on a global scale, there are guys - as well as nostalgics over forty - who buy and listen to Beatles records, it means that, beyond the fashions of the moment, the charm of their songs remains, of that strange alchemy of sounds. and words that have probably never been realized in the history of pop music, not even in its happiest episodes. Not that at the time, in 1968 and thereabouts, the Beatles were loved by everyone. Many, especially in the harshest circles of youth protest, considered them too sweet and intimate, preferring rougher or more "committed" expressions than rock. But time has proved the four guys from Liverpool right And while many bands of the time have been lost, the Beatles star still appears timeless.  space for the protagonists.
 • John Lennon (John Winston Lennon) He lead vocals, he played rhythm guitar, harmonica and piano and banjo (the instrument with which he came into contact with music). He was, along with Paul McCartney, the author of most of the songs. He was labeled the somewhat extravagant and contradictory revolutionary intellectual, both for the high quality of his music and lyrics, and for his public role as leader of the hippy, pacifist and radical communist movements. for supporting movements in favor of black rights and women's emancipation. He was killed in front of the Dakota Building in New York, where he lived, on December 8, 1980 by Mark David Chapman, a deranged admirer of him. • Paul McCartney (James Paul McCartney) Bass, lead vocals, guitar, piano, drums and sometimes the mandolin. He shares with John Lennon the authorship of the vast majority of the Beatles songs. He was labeled the "handsome" Beatle, the composer of cheesy and frivolous songs. After the Beatles he founded the Wings band, which dissolved in 1980. It is still in full operation. Curious detail: he is the drums in Back in the USSR, Dear Prudence and The Ballad of John and Yoko, songs recorded in the absence of Ringo Starr. • George Harrison Solo guitar, sitar, sometimes lead voice and songwriter. His songs are often innovative and different from the group's melodic line, such as While My Guitar Gently Weeps and Something. He died on November 29, 2001 during a stay in Los Angeles (California) due to a malignant carcinoma. • Ringo Starr (Richard Starkey junior) Drums, percussion and sometimes lead vocals. During his career with the Beatles he composed only two songs: Do n’t Pass Me By and Octopus' s Garden written during a stay in Sardinia. He was also cast as lead vocals on Act Naturally, Yellow Submarine and With a Little Help From My Friends. Being particularly inclined to acting, he was the protagonist of the film Help!, And while he was still part of the group, he acted alongside Peter Sellers. There were characters who characterized the group both before its explosion and during its activity. They have taken part in various ways in the events of the Beatles and are, however, worthy of mention.
 • Stuart “Stu” Sutcliffe Long considered the "Fifth Beatle", "Stu" Sutcliffe met the contemporary John Lennon at the art school in that city. Bassist of the band, when the Beatles returned to England in 1961 he stayed in Hamburg to continue his artistic studies and above all for the love of Astrid Kirchherr, the German photographer and stylist who invented the group's hairstyles and with whom he was engaged. A brain aneurysm killed young Stu in 1962. He was never treated and considered as a friend by Paul, so much so that disputes often arose between the two. In spite of everything, it was Stu's girlfriend who unwittingly started the fashion of the “Beatles cut”, first experimenting with the new look, then copied by the rest of the group. Over time he became one of John's best friends, so much so that, in memory of him, he wanted to put his face on the cover of the Sgt Pepper album. • Pete Best Drummer, he was one of the best instrumentalists (as well as one of the most famous musicians) in Liverpool. Much of the initial success of the Beatles before the first recordings was due precisely to his notoriety. For reasons never fully understood, he was "fired" by John Lennon and Paul McCartney a few weeks before his contract. However, the responsibility seems to be attributable to George Martin, the producer, who after the first audition of the band was not satisfied with his abilities. Pete's place was taken by Ringo Starr. Later, while never completely out of the music scene, he worked in a public office in Liverpool, where he remained until retirement. Recently, after the publication by the surviving Beatles of some unreleased songs that saw him on drums, it seems that Pete Best was rewarded with a check in the order of one million pounds, posthumous compensation for the unexpected dismissal of more than thirty 'years ago. Two people in particular, among the many who surrounded the quartet, had a decisive weight: • Brian Epstein Of Jewish origin, owner of a record shop in Liverpool, he was the "discoverer" of the complex, of which he became manager at the end of 1961. He was all his life sidelined from the rest by other people due to his homosexuality of him except by John Lennon. He looked after the interests of the group (sometimes in a reckless and inexperienced way) until his death, which occurred due to an overdose of drugs, perhaps intentional, in August 1967. • George Martin He was the producer of all the Beatles albums (with the exception of Let It Be). Classically trained, he is considered by many to be the person who was able to translate the ideas of the four, completely lacking in musical theory, in the arrangements that have become historic and in the innovative sound technique. Part of the credit for the success of the Beatles goes to him, behaving towards them like a father, sometimes generous and sometimes rude.
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