I would argue that it’s a woeful lack of understanding for anyone to twist the argument that the Beatles changed the culture into the argument that the Beatles were the only ones of any musical importance or that they weren’t influenced by others.
Nobody’s arguing that. People have argued the exact opposite of that. In other threads I’ve argued that it was the breadth of the musical influences that the Beatles blended that put them above even their greatest competitors, who were more limited in their influences.
Having lived through it is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, I felt the culture - the whole culture, not just the musical culture - change around me. On the other, my knowledge is tainted by being too young to appreciate the influences that I learned about only later. And everybody has a special love for their first special music.
When I try to combine those memories with history I get a different picture than the one you present. Rock ‘n’ roll was dying as a genre. Motown was just beginning to take off. Dylan was still doing folk. Ray Charles was moving away from soul and r@b into a smoother sound. Most “white” stations never played “black” music to any great extent in the first place. The integration of radio, where Americans got around 99% of their music from, slowly grew over the 60s, but that was a result of the rock revolution and not a cause of it.
If you were a teen in the 60s you heard primarily Top 40 stations. In some cities you might have “black” stations to listen to. You occasionally saw a group on television. You might be lucky enough to see a group live. (No arenas then, of course. Small theaters only.) You may have contact with someone older who collected albums. But mostly it was Top 40 radio. If it wasn’t there it didn’t exist.
Top 40 existed in 1963. I know: I listened to it. After Feb. 9, 1964, when The Beatles appeared on Ed Sullivan, everything changed. Really. Overnight. It’s not just nostalgia. The world shifted on its axis. There’s been nothing comparable in music since.
