Originally Posted by schnable

Right on. The Beatles biggest influence was PRODUCTION. Yes, John and Paul wrote some damn catchy songs, and George may have helped to popularize Ravi Shankar and the whole sitar/enlightenment thing, but they were far from the best artists of their time. (Ringo sucked.)

Even in rock music, similar things were going on all around them. They sold the most records. Listen to The Mothers of Invention (Zappa) albums Freak Out and We're Only In It For The Money, and you will see that the Beatles were not really pushing the envelope as far as Rolling Stone may want you to believe. WOIIFTM, in particular, acts as the perfect foil to Sgt. Pepper and really shows the other side of the "psychadelic rock" movement.