The Beatles

The Beatles are the most successful British figures to achieve international success, but also iconic and influential figures in music.

John Lennon (d. 1980), Paul McCartney (b. 1942), George Harrison (d. 2001) and Ringo Starr serve as notable members of the Beatles.

Having been the greatest and most successful act of the British Invasion phenomenon, the Beatles also opened the floodgates for rock music from the United Kingdom on a global level.

Just before the Beatles, rock music used a model dominated by solo artists and session musicians.

But the Beatles broke from tradition with a model of self-contained groups doing self-written tunes and self-played instruments.

Cliff Richard is one of the first acts in rock music to produce authentic hits being produced outside the United States, but also the most successful rock act in British music before the Beatles.

The Shadows serve as Cliff Richard's backing band, but also a successful instrumental group.

Hank Marvin (b. 1941), Bruce Welch (b. 1941) and Brian Bennett are some of the core members of the Shadows.

Alan Hawkshaw (1937-2021) and Warren Bennett (b. 1962) are the other members of the Shadows.

Whereas Cliff Richard had won success in both the UK and the Commonwealth (but not in the United States), the Beatles won truly successful global dominance.

Some of the innovations made by The Beatles are in recording techniques, including Artificial Double Tracking, complex soundscapes, the usage of the Leslie speaker, and multi-track vocals.

The other innovations by The Beatles are non-Western musical instruments, fuzz bass, expanded song structures and elevating albums as art forms.

Plus, The Beatles made short film clips to avoid in-person appearances, a precursor to music videos.