The Beatles

United Kingdom, 1960–1970

Liverpool band of John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr, active 1960-1970. Their move from live performance to studio composition across Rubber Soul, Revolver and Sgt. Pepper reshaped what a pop record could be.

MusicRoots documents 9 artists who influenced The Beatles and 72 artists The Beatles influenced in turn. Every connection cites a published source.

Who influenced The Beatles?

• Carl Perkins — The Beatles recorded four Perkins songs; McCartney and Lennon cited him as a primary model.
• The Everly Brothers — The Everly Brothers' two-part harmonies were the blueprint for the Lennon–McCartney vocal blend.
• Chuck Berry — The Beatles performed and recorded Chuck Berry's songs.
• Elvis Presley — Elvis was the band members' formative teenage model.
• Little Richard — Paul McCartney took his scream vocal from Little Richard.
• Buddy Holly — The band's very name and format were inspired by Buddy Holly's Crickets.
• Karlheinz Stockhausen — The Beatles' studio experiments ('Revolution 9', tape loops) trace back to Stockhausen; he appears on the 'Sgt. Pepper' cover.
• Arthur Alexander — The Beatles recorded Alexander's 'Anna (Go to Him)' on their debut — Lennon named him a favourite writer they were 'trying to sound like'.
• Roy Orbison — 'Please Please Me' was written as a Roy Orbison-style song by Lennon's own account — the Beatles toured under Orbison in 1963 and studied him nightly.

Which artists did The Beatles influence?

• Blur — The Beatles' melodic English pop is a foundation of Blur's Britpop songcraft.
• Neutral Milk Hotel — Jeff Mangum and his Elephant 6 circle shared a passion for 1960s pop, the Beatles above all, behind Neutral Milk Hotel's melodic core.
• Guided by Voices — Robert Pollard's whole method chases Beatles-style pop craft — 'we always wanted to be The Beatles on record'.
• Boris Grebenshchikov — The Beatles — George Harrison most of all — were a primary influence on Grebenshchikov's songwriting.
• Okean Elzy — Svyatoslav Vakarchuk has repeatedly named The Beatles as his first and formative musical inspiration growing up in the 1980s.
• The Byrds — Seeing the Beatles in 'A Hard Day's Night' sent McGuinn to the Rickenbacker 12-string that became the Byrds' signature sound.
• Love — The Beatles' orchestral experimentation on Revolver and Sgt. Pepper directly influenced Forever Changes.
• The Zombies — The Beatles inspired The Zombies to make Odessey and Oracle as a complete artistic statement.
• Small Faces — The Beatles inspired the psychedelic turn Small Faces took on Ogden's Nut Gone Flake.
• Procol Harum — The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper era directly inspired Procol Harum's ambitious studio approach.
• The Hollies — The Beatles raised the bar for craftsmanship that The Hollies were always trying to match.
• The Monkees — The Monkees were explicitly conceived as an American answer to The Beatles for a TV series.
• Sly and the Family Stone — The Beatles' studio experimentation gave Sly Stone the freedom to experiment on There's a Riot Goin' On.
• Kate Bush — Bush has credited the Beatles with inspiring her 'on every level', named Sgt. Pepper among her favourite albums and covered their songs in her early career.
• The Beach Boys — 'Rubber Soul' was the direct impulse for Pet Sounds — Wilson stated this publicly.
• Motörhead — Lemmy saw the early Beatles live and considered them a tough rock band.
• Big Star — The Beatles were Big Star's model above all others — Chris Bell's blueprint was a superbly recorded, melodic, guitar-dominated group paying homage to them.
• Mahavishnu Orchestra — McLaughlin came of age 'tripping out' on the Beatles alongside Coltrane — the psychedelic-rock half of Mahavishnu's fusion.
• Thin Lizzy — The Beatles shaped drummer Brian Downey's musical development — part of the band's 60s pop-rock foundation.
• Travis — The Beatles were Healy's bedrock — the band's original name 'Glass Onion' came straight from a Beatles song.
• Alice Cooper — The first time Cooper heard 'She Loves You' on the radio at around 15 set him on the path to music — he has repeatedly called the Beatles a defining influence.
• Ramones — The Ramones' melodicism and short songs are a Beatles inheritance.
• Queen — Freddie Mercury and Brian May cited the Beatles as their primary model for melodic songwriting, studio ambition and vocal harmony.
• Phil Collins — Collins appeared as a screaming teenage extra in A Hard Day's Night (1964) and has named the Beatles the reason he became a musician.
• Kiss — Stanley and Simmons have both said Kiss began with the Beatles on Ed Sullivan — 'four distinct personalities' was the explicit model.
• Pink Floyd — Piper at the Gates of Dawn was recorded in Abbey Road while the Beatles made Sgt. Pepper next door — the documented model of studio psychedelia.
• Aerosmith — Aerosmith's hit cover of 'Come Together' (1978) is a documented act of Beatles devotion Tyler has affirmed in interviews.
• Tom Petty — Seeing the Beatles on Ed Sullivan showed Petty the way out — 'the idea of a band, a self-contained unit — that was the way'.
• The Police — Sting has named the Beatles his songwriting school — the melodic craft under the new-wave surface.
• Oasis — Noel Gallagher's Beatles obsession is Britpop's most documented fact — 'they are the reason I do this, full stop'.
• Yes — Anderson has named the Beatles the band's melodic foundation — Yes began as a covers act reworking Beatles songs.
• Genesis — Tony Banks and Peter Gabriel have named the Beatles their songwriting school — the melodic core beneath Genesis's theatre.
• The Verve — The Beatles' melodic structures were part of the classic-rock foundation The Verve built on, and among the band's shared touchstones.
• Cutting Crew — MacMichael arrived in the band having played guitar in a Nova Scotia Beatles covers group and learned more than two hundred of their songs. Van Eede wrote to that enthusiasm: he has described 'Silhouette' as deliberately Beatlesque because of it, and has compared the construction of '(I Just) Died in Your Arms' to 'Help!'.
• a-ha — Paul Waaktaar-Savoy's songwriting was built on the Beatles — the band's melodic ambition beneath the synth surface, a debt he has named repeatedly.
• Ryuichi Sakamoto — The Beatles were among the pop records that pulled the conservatory student Sakamoto outside classical music.
• Bee Gees — The young Bee Gees were a Beatles-modelled harmony-pop group — the songwriting and studio ambition of their 60s baroque pop.
• ABBA — Andersson and Ulvaeus built their songwriting on the Beatles — the melodic and studio ambition beneath ABBA's pop.
• Toto — The Beatles' melodic and studio ambition was the pop foundation beneath Toto's songwriting.
• Sting — Sting has named the Beatles his songwriting school — the melodic craft under everything from the Police to his solo work.
• The Pretenders — The Beatles were part of the British Invasion melodic foundation Hynde grew up on.
• Cheap Trick — Cheap Trick built on the melodic foundation the Beatles laid — Beatlesque hooks are the pop half of their power-pop.
• Electric Light Orchestra — ELO's founding aim was to pick up 'where the Beatles left off' — orchestral pop-rock built on Beatles harmony and studio craft.
• Heart — The Beatles were the other formative love behind Heart — 'Sgt. Pepper' among the albums the Wilsons named as shaping them.
• The Moody Blues — The late-Beatles' acoustic folk-rock and Indian textures pushed the Moody Blues past R&B into symphonic psychedelia.
• Billy Joel — Seeing the Beatles on Ed Sullivan set Joel on his path — their melodic pop craft runs through all his writing.
• Jackson Browne — The Beatles were among the acts Browne cited as musical influences.
• James Taylor — The Beatles were a defining influence on Taylor — he was among the first artists signed to Apple Records.
• Keane — Keane began as a covers band playing the Beatles; Rice-Oxley likened his piano to the Beatles' instrumentation, and their melodic craft is the band's foundation.
• Caetano Veloso — The Beatles' studio collage is what Veloso and Gil set against bossa nova to make Tropicalia.
• Gilberto Gil — The Beatles' pop is the foreign element Tropicalia insisted on swallowing.
• Roxette — Per Gessle's songwriting drew on the melodic craft of the Beatles, a foundational influence for Roxette's power-pop.
• The Raconteurs — The Raconteurs' power-pop craft is shot through with Beatles-esque melody, audible across their first two albums.
• The Vines — The Beatles are Nicholls's favourite band — the Vines were first named Rishikesh after the Indian town the Beatles visited — and their melodic, psychedelic side shapes the Vines' softer songs.
• Collective Soul — Ed Roland's melodic, hook-first songwriting draws on the Beatles' pop craft beneath Collective Soul's rock sheen.
• Cornershop — Cornershop channelled the Beatles' fascination with Indian music, even recording a Punjabi 'Norwegian Wood'.
• The Cardigans — The Cardigans' sweet, melodic '60s-tinged pop draws on the Beatles and the broader palette of 1960s pop.
• Foo Fighters — Grohl was raised on the Beatles and the White Album — that melodic grounding sits under the Foo Fighters' punk drive.
• Type O Negative — The Beatles were Steele's other main influence — their harmony and melody give Type O Negative's doom its gothic romance.
• REO Speedwagon — The Beatles' melodic pop craft shapes the hook-driven side of REO Speedwagon's arena rock.
• Tame Impala — Kevin Parker's psychedelic songwriting is steeped in the Beatles — their melodic, studio-experimental pop is Tame Impala's core template.
• Cyndi Lauper — The Beatles were a foundational influence on Lauper's melodic pop songwriting and adventurous, genre-spanning approach.
• Ofra Haza — Alongside the Yemenite tradition she was raised in, Haza grew up on 1960s pop — the Beatles among her formative Western influences — which she fused with ancient Jewish song.
• Danger Mouse — The Beatles are woven through Danger Mouse's work — The Grey Album mashed their White Album with Jay-Z — and their late-'60s psychedelic studio craft is a touchstone for his production.
• Harry Nilsson — Pandemonium Shadow Show is openly indebted to them — its Beatles cover quotes seventeen other Beatles songs, and the Beatles heard it and became his advocates.
• Crvena Jabuka — The band is named for them: jabuka is apple, after Apple Records. Arslanagic and Ricl built the group on 1960s British guitar pop while Sarajevo around them was making something harder.
• Prefab Sprout — One of the guitar bands Paddy McAloon grew up on, before the songwriting turned toward Broadway.
• Franz Ferdinand — Cited by the band among their influences, with Talking Heads and Kraftwerk.
• Jet — Part of the 1960s and 70s rock collection the Cesters grew up on.
• Kasabian — Part of the record collection that shaped the band's direction, beside Neu!, DJ Shadow and Primal Scream.
• The Kooks — One of the key influences Luke Pritchard names, with Dylan and Buddy Holly.
• Wolfmother — One of the 'old classics' Andrew Stockdale names, with Zeppelin, Sabbath, Dylan and Hendrix.