The Development of Pop Music

By the end of 1962, the British rock scene emerged with groups like the Beatles picking up on a range of American influences, such as soul music, rhythm and blues and surf music. Following that they managed to rise to popularity in the United States too. A number of ‘beat’ groups emerged; they were mainly from Liverpool, inspired by the success of The Beatles and The Rolling Stones which were the dominating bands of the 60’s. Beat music is a mix of rock and roll, doo-wop, skiffle and R&B. One of the distinctive characteristics of the music was the strong beat.

During the week of April 4, 1964, the Beatles held the first five slots on the Billboard Singles chart. With members John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr, they are recognised as the greatest and most influential act of the rock era. Although The Beatles started out by performing cover versions of songs, they later experimented with several genres which together with Lennon and McCartney’s growing song writing skills kept their music interesting and sophisticated. "Love Me Do" was the Beatles' first single, which was then followed by endless hits such as Please Please Me, From Me To You, I Want To Hold Your Hand, Can't Buy Me Love, A Hard Day's Night and many more.

Named after the Muddy Waters song "Rollin' Stone," The Rolling Stones original band from London included frontman Mick Jagger, guitarists Keith Richards and Brian Jones, bassist Bill Wyman, drummer Charlie Watts and pianist Ian Stewart. In 1966, after The Beatles stopped giving live performances, The Rolling Stones took over as the unofficial "biggest touring band in the world". During 1966-1969 they toured the world, and updated their repertoire with many great hits like "Lets Spend the night together" "Sympathy for the Devil" (1968) and "Honky tonk woman" (1969). The Stones were commercially promoted as ‘bad boys’, as they wrote about brutality, sex as power, and other taboos.

The Ronettes were an R&B/pop...