February 9th, 1964 - A scant two days earlier, The Beatles - just a couple of weeks after release of their second album Meet the Beatles - appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show to a 45.0 rating - the sort of thing only Super Bowls seem to get anymore. It is pretty amazing - from the album release to the TV appearance, to the spring release of A Hard Day's Night, a movie made to sell the soundtrack - but also ended up being one of the great musicals of movie history - just an amazing traffic accident of events, skill, a small spectrum of media and luck - and Beatlemania was for real.
Obviously the Beatles did not invent rock and roll, but they were among the first kids who wanted to be musicians who DID listen to it - and become majorly influenced. I think it is safe to note that if Chuck Berry took the ball from the blues and ran with it, that the Beatles did the same with Berry and the pioneers. And of course - without Beatlemania, the rest of the British Invasion - and what it spawned for rock, both in its evolution and its counter-revolution and the counter to counter that, and the corresponding back and forth that has shaped popular music the last 50 years - doesn't seem to have been able to exist without it.
Of course, the Beatles would evolve - and as they shifted into a studio band largely, we get some of the defining music of - well, many generations. Indeed the voting public seems to look at Sgt Pepper or the White Album as artistic peaks - but personally the crackling power and beauty of their youth should not be understated. That holds up pretty well too. Personally, Rubber Soul is my favorite of the albums - for me the nexus of where they started and where they were going to go. Anyway, Happy Anniversary Beatlemania!