Beatles Influence On Pop Culture

However, if the Beatles are not the only factor that sparked the cultural revolution of the 1960s, it can not be denied that the Beatles played a strong role as trendsetters. As discussed by (Millard, 2012), the Beatles leaded the change in music, fashion, and culture. John, Paul, George and Ringo Starr were wearing outfits that were at this time considered outrageous. The Fab Four's clothes and hairstyles were not approved by the older generation, and as a result the Beatles gained the status of rebels. Their look was new and different, and that made them highly fashionable. The Beatles strongly influenced the fashion of the sixties ; a lot of young people wanted to wear the Beatles' signature pieces of clothing, such as the collarless jacket

The definition suggested by the online Cambridge Dictionary is : a situation in which older and younger people do not understand each other because of their different experiences, opinions, habits, and behaviour (Cambridge University Press, 2016). The 1960's young generation rebelled, amongst others, against their parents. Teenagers and young adults were craving for changes, as there was a wide disparity between the point of view and values of the younger generation and the older generation. The author Elijah Wald discussed this issue in his book How the Beatles destroyed Rock'n'roll : An alternative History of American Popular Music. He explained that a young writer, in 1920, wrote in the Atlantic Monthly « The older generation had certainly pretty well ruined this world before passing it on to us » (Carter, 1920). Elijah Wald then explained that this quote could have been written in the 1960s, as it would still be relevant to the situation of this decade (Wald, 2009). As discussed by Paul Swendson, the larger than usual generation gap may have played a part in feeding an unusually intense youth rebellion. According to Swendson, the ultimate example of modern youth rebellion is the counterculture of the 1960's (Swendson , 2015). As pointed out by the author André Millard, in the 1960s, many of the important change in politics and popular culture were driven by the growing power of youth (Millard,

Indeed, the Fab Four were considered rebellious. The long hair, the strange outfits, the loud music, all these elements contributed to build their rebel status. Thanks to this status, they were considered representatives of the young people, they connected to the young generation easily. As pointed out by Joe McGasko, the Beatles made it clear that they were independent thinkers who were going to do what they wanted to do, whether the older generation approved of them or not (McGasko,