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How do you sum up The Beatles? It's an impossible task to try to explain the full impact this one band had on music of all genres afterward. The Beatles lasted only eight years from "Love Me Do" to "Let It Be," (although they existed in Hamburg and under different monikers in Liverpool before that,) and they are credited with not only bringing sophistication to pop music, but with contributing to and often leading the major cultural revolution that took place in the 1960's. It is rightly said that The Beatles are still today part of every person's consciousness.

Since it is so hard to pick and choose "the best" songs and albums in their catalog, it's best to try to name a few from these general categories: The Early Beatles (1962 to 1964), The Movies (1964-1965), The Contemporary (1965-1966), The Psychedelic (1966-1967), and The Late Beatles(1968-1970).

During the "early" period, The Beatles put out a masterpiece of a first album with Please Please Me.  It captures the energy and enthusiasm of the early Beatles. Songs like "I Saw Her Standing There," "Anna," "Boys" and "Twist and Shout" are perfectly performed pop songs.

When The Beatles made their first two movies A Hard Days Night and Help they were at the height of their teenybopper fame and recorded songs that characterized the early British Invasion like "I Should've Known Better," "Help" and "Ticket to Ride". The first movie, A Hard Days Night (1964), is still counted as one of the best movies in film history. This movie could turn anyone into an Anglophile, or at least a Beatlemaniac.

After Help (1965), the band took a more sophisticated turn. During the filming of Help The Beatles got high for the first time with Bob Dylan and John Lennon had a significant conversation with Dylan about song writing. Dylan criticized Lennon's "fluffy" subjects and subsequently Rubber Soul was released. Revolver came after and the two albums had a contemporary sound that finally prompted one critic to call Rubber Soul "art."

The Beatles' psychedelic period began with Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, maybe the most critically acclaimed pop album of all time. Supposed to be the first "concept album," Sgt. Pepper was so unlike anything that had come out before it. It opened up possibilities for other bands as far as writing, sound and imagery.

The late Beatles' sound is truly where the rest of the world took their last cue from the band. On The White Album (actually called The Beatles) they did dabble in the earthy, natural sounds and subjects that were beginning to become popular, but they also added a sophistication that took the others a little longer to attain. Think of the polish of Abbey Road. All the wisdom in songwriting The Beatles had attained in the sixties show up on this album, seamlessly orchestrated. They mixed the pop appeal of their early music with the deeper meanings of their psychedelic period with the simplicity of their later sound. The song "The End" is the drama of the sixties closing.

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