It is simply irrefutable that The Beatles are the most significant band of all time. They were the bridge between blues, R&B, rock ‘n’ roll and the future, and their brave experimentation with sonics, aesthetics and business essentially established the blueprint for modern music and the industry at large. Without them, music, culture and life itself would be completely different, and this is true to such an extent that no other musical artist has even come close to enacting change like they did.
Although the Fab Four started out as a rock ‘n’ roll group, inspired by the innovators of the 1960s such as Bob Dylan, and the proliferation of narcotics such as marijuana, they gradually evolved. After 1965’s stoned folk rock masterpiece, Rubber Soul, they became increasingly experimental and pioneering.
READ MORE: The classic Pink Floyd song Nick Mason wants to “avoid” with his Saucerful of Secrets
While the first half of the decade was characterised by youth rebellion and Beatlemania, it was in the second half that The Beatles became the most important group of all time. They became a truly singular outfit whose next turn was impossible to call, releasing classics such as the 1967 psychedelic masterpiece Sgt. Pepper’s, the eye-wateringly diverse The Beatles – featuring the proto-metal hit ‘Helter Skelter’ – and the meditative grandiosity of Abbey Road. The quartet listeners found on these albums were a far cry away from the young upstarts behind ‘Love Me Do’.
Given that The Beatles were such fearless innovators, their spirit spread to their contemporaries, including psychedelic brethren Pink Floyd, who had been fans since the start. They helped make 1967 the year of hippidom, LSD, and all things psychedelia with their debut, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn.
The bands would even cross paths when recording their respective psychedelic classics at Abbey Road on March 21st, 1967. For the relative newcomers Pink Floyd, meeting the Fab Four, who were by that point veterans of the scene, proved to be a game-changing moment. Going to see them in action confirmed that they did not want to be a singles band, but wanted to take time and record refined full-length albums like the Liverpudlians.
During an interview, Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason picked the Sgt. Pepper’s classic ‘Lovely Rita’ as one of his favourite songs of all time. It reminds him of that special day, and The Beatles album that showed bands like his exactly how to do it.
He recalled: “I put this in because it was such a great moment for us,” recalled the drummer. “We were recording our first album in Abbey Road. We were in studio three recording The Piper at the Gates of Dawn and down the corridor, The Beatles were recording Sgt. Pepper. There was an invitation to go and visit the gods on Mount Olympus.”
“It was a pivotal moment because actually without The Beatles, we probably wouldn’t have existed,” continued Mason, “because Sgt. Pepper was the album that absolutely changed the face of the record industry because up until then, it was all about singles. Sgt. Pepper was the first album that actually outsold singles. That enabled bands like us to have more studio time and more freedom to do what we wanted,” the drummer said.
