If you go back and listen, really listen, tell me why their music was so great. Was it really all that great, or was it just different? Reminds me a little of a sales job; one of the best marketing jobs ever done. LOTS of others have written/performed just as well, if not better, but are not held in such reverence. Shame he was killed, but come on, why suggest sainthood for him?

Go listen, not only to the music, but the lyrics, from Credence, The Moody Blues, and some of the other overlooked music makers of the same time period. Lots of really GREAT music during that period, not only from the Beatles.

Never liked them in the '60's, would not go see them today if they were all still alive. Why remember so fondly John, and not George Harrison? Wasn't he part of that?

MY OPINION

After you get past the bubble gum music they started with they wrote some very complex pieces. They were the first band to orchestrate their songs. Paul wrote orchestra music that would be woven through their work. Like them or not, they were musical geniuses in their time. The started much of what followed into the 70's and even 80's.

Moody Blues were great too. But their really great stuff came after the Beatles. ELO and Procol Harum followed them.

We remember John because he was the master musician behind the beatles. The others contributed, but not to the same degree. Their solo work after the bad broke up didn't have the same magic.

John's murder was a shocker - no in their wildest dreams thought any of them would be shot. Musicians died of drug overdoses, not murder. The next shock down the road was George Harrison dying of cancer. Most of the musicians are no reaching an age where they die of heart attacks or strokes. But there's been few murders. Bobby Fuller and John Lennon.

I remember my boss at the time saying: "It's too bad it didn't happen 20 years ago; then maybe all this stuff would never have happened". I assumed that he meant the whole counter-culture of the '60's but I was too shocked to respond.

I would argue that the Beatles were the single most influential pop group in history. Singularly they were not that great of musicians (I don't agree that John was the master musician behind the Beatles, even though he was arguably the most creative), but together, they were magic. And, yes, I do listen still (the remastered CD's are incredible), really listen and I listen from a musician's standpoint. They have no peers.

Has it been that long? Wow, how time flies.

Seems just like yesterday, while at that the same time an eternity ago.

The fact that their music is still popular even though they haven't had a new album in 40 years speaks volumes. There have been only 2 surviving members since 2001. I saw a music site where a lot olf young people (pre-teens to early 20's) and the majority of them listen to Beatles music. Shocked me.

I think we think the Beatles were so great because their music reflected the major changes in the culture and society of the day. Think of the phases they went through--they were the same phases America was going through. They started with plain old rock and roll, reflective of the times, then moved to peace and love, drugs, meditation and spiritual awakening--all of the same things going on in society at the time--and what a time it was.

Blackbird was about a marcher during Civil Rights. Revolution could have been a treatise against groups like the Weathermen, SDS which made John call for a peaceful way to change the world. Let it be--marijuana? Across the Universe--transcendental meditation and all those little guru guys from India. They WERE the times.

We grew in tandem with the music of the Beatles.

I had little interest in the beatles until sgt. Peppers that i thought was art. strange i do not think there is a single song one can dance to, a requirement of mine that made a song worthwhile.