Interchange station
The Beatles
1960 to 1970 · on Beat (Merseybeat) and Rock
Active years
- Active 1960 to 1970
- Beat (Merseybeat), 1963 to 1966
- Rock, 1967 to 1970
The journey
- 1963Beat (Merseybeat) · Beatlemania to the world
- 1963Please Please Me
- 1963She Loves You
- 1964The Ed Sullivan Show
- 1964A Hard Day's Night
- 1964The Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show
- 1965Shea Stadium
- 1965Rubber Soul
- 1966Revolver
- 1966The last concert, Candlestick Park
- 1967Rock · Studio years
- 1967Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
- 1967All You Need Is Love on Our World
- 1967Monterey Pop Festival
- 1968The Beatles (the White Album)
- 1969The rooftop concert
- 1969Abbey Road
- 1969Woodstock
- 1969Altamont
- 1970The split
2 platforms, 18 moments and landmarks along the way. Lines the journey does not ride are dimmed, as they are on the map while a journey plays.
Platforms
Beatlemania to the world
Please Please Me (1963) and "She Loves You" made the Liverpool beat sound the sound of Britain; With the Beatles and A Hard Day's Night (1964) carried it into the American charts and started the British Invasion. The touring years end at Candlestick Park in 1966.
Key album: A Hard Day's Night, 1964
- 1963Album
Please Please Me
Ten of its fourteen songs were recorded in one day, 11 February 1963; it spent thirty weeks at number one in Britain.
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- 1963Single
She Loves You
Released in August 1963, the best-selling single of the 1960s in Britain and the record that gave the press the word Beatlemania.
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- 1964Performance
The Ed Sullivan Show
On 9 February 1964 about 73 million Americans watched: the British Invasion started that night.
Encyclopaedia Britannica, The Beatles (opens in a new tab)
- 1964Album
A Hard Day's Night
The film and the album, July 1964: the first Beatles record made entirely of their own songs.
- 1965Performance
Shea Stadium
On 15 August 1965 they played to about 55,000 people, the first stadium rock concert, and could not hear themselves over the crowd.
- 1965Album
Rubber Soul
December 1965: the album as a whole work rather than hits and filler, with a sitar on "Norwegian Wood".
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- 1966Album
Revolver
August 1966, with "Tomorrow Never Knows" at the end: the record on which the studio became an instrument, and the one that opens the Psychedelic rock line on this map.
- 1966Performance
The last concert, Candlestick Park
29 August 1966, San Francisco: the last paid concert. The band stopped touring and went into the studio for good.
Encyclopaedia Britannica, The Beatles (opens in a new tab)
Studio years
From Sgt. Pepper (1967) to Abbey Road (1969) the band stopped touring and made the studio album the central form of rock. An interchange between the Beat branch and the trunk.
Key album: Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, 1967
- 1967Album
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
Released on 26 May 1967 after five months in the studio; the record that made the album the measure of a rock band.
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- 1967Performance
All You Need Is Love on Our World
Performed live on 25 June 1967 for the first global satellite broadcast, to an audience estimated at 400 million.
- 1968Album
The Beatles (the White Album)
A double album released in November 1968, and the first on their own label, Apple; four musicians increasingly recording apart.
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- 1969Performance
The rooftop concert
On 30 January 1969 they played on the roof of Apple's Savile Row offices for 42 minutes until the police stopped it: their last public performance.
Wikipedia, The Beatles' rooftop concert (opens in a new tab)
- 1969Album
Abbey Road
Recorded after Let It Be but released first, in September 1969: the last album the four made together.
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- 1970Moment
The split
Paul McCartney announced his departure on 10 April 1970; Let It Be followed in May. Four solo lines and Wings begin here.
Encyclopaedia Britannica, The Beatles (opens in a new tab)
Encyclopaedia Britannica, The Beatles (opens in a new tab)
Line-ups
The Beatles has a line-up of its own: The Beatles, 1960 to 1970, every member and spell as a line diagram.
Connections
The lines
Sources
- Encyclopaedia Britannica, The Beatles (opens in a new tab)
- Holly George-Warren and Patricia Romanowski (editors), The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll, Fireside, 2001
Cite this page
The Metro Map of Music, ‘The Beatles: station’, /stations/the-beatles.