The Beatles - 50 Years Later
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On Jan. 1, 1962, The Beatles flunked an audition at Decca Records in London.
Label executive Dick Rowe's brush-off:
"Guitar groups are on the way out."
It was an inauspicious start for the group that would soon dominate global society
and a downbeat Day 1 in the year that saw the scrappy Liverpool lads evolve into
the Fab Four who forever altered the course of pop music.
No other entertainers in history have been as popular, as influential, as important or
as groundbreaking. The best-selling act ever sold 600 million albums worldwide and
racked up 20 No. 1 U.S. singles, a Billboard record that still stands. The band hijacked
the entertainment media and transcended music to become a chapter in world history.
Its members had political clout, spiritual authority, cultural sway and the ears of the planet.