Genres

Originating as a skiffle group, they quickly embraced 1950s rock and roll, and their repertoire ultimately expanded to include a broad variety of pop music.^[297] Reflecting the range of styles they explored, Lennon said of Beatles for Sale, "You could call our new one a Beatles country-and-western LP",^[298] while Gould credits Rubber Soul as "the instrument by which legions of folk-music enthusiasts were coaxed into the camp of pop."^[299]
The 1965 song "Yesterday" made prominent use of a string quartet; and while it was not the first pop record to employ strings, it was the group's first incorporation of classical music elements in their recordings.^[300] They continued to experiment with string arrangements to various effect, as with Sgt. Pepper's "She's Leaving Home"; Gould writes, "[It] is cast in the mold of a sentimental Victorian ballad, its words and music filled with the clichés of musical melodrama."^[301]
The band's stylistic range expanded in another direction in 1966 with the B-side to the "Paperback Writer" single: "Rain", described by Martin Strong as "the first overtly psychedelic Beatles record".^[302] Other psychedelic numbers followed, such as "Tomorrow Never Knows" (recorded before "Rain"), "Strawberry Fields Forever", "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" and "I Am the Walrus". The influence of Indian classical music was evident in Harrison's songs, "The Inner Light", "Love You To" and "Within You Without You"; Gould describes the latter two as attempts "to replicate the raga form in miniature".^[303]
Describing the band's creative evolution, music historian and pianist Michael Campbell identifies innovation as its most striking feature. He writes, "'A Day in the Life' encapsulates the art and achievement of the Beatles as well as any single track can. It highlights key features of their music: the sound imagination, the persistence of tuneful melody, and the close coordination between words and music. It represents a new category of song—more sophisticated than pop ... and uniquely innovative. There literally had never before been a song—classical or vernacular—that had blended so many disparate elements so imaginatively."^[304] Philosophy professor Bruce Ellis Benson agrees: "The Beatles ... give us a wonderful example of how such far-ranging influences as Celtic music, rhythm and blues, and country and western could be put together in a new way."^[305]
Author Dominic Pedler describes the way they crossed genres: "One of [their] greatest ... achievements was the songwriting juggling act they managed for most of their career. Far from moving sequentially from one genre to another (as is sometimes conveniently suggested) the group maintained in parallel their mastery of the traditional, catchy chart hit while simultaneously forging rock and dabbling with a wide range of peripheral influences from Country to vaudeville. One of these threads was their take on folk music, which would form such essential groundwork for their later collisions with Indian music and philosophy."^[306] As the personal relationships between the band members grew increasingly strained, their individual tastes became more apparent. The minimalistic cover artwork for the White Album contrasted with the complexity and diversity of its music, which encompassed Lennon's "Revolution 9", whose musique concrète approach was influenced by Yoko Ono; Starr's country song "Don't Pass Me By"; Harrison's rock ballad "While My Guitar Gently Weeps"; and the "proto-metal roar" of McCartney's "Helter Skelter".^[204]