Every time the Beatles come up, there’s the inevitable danger of hyperbole. But at the same time, it’s sort of hard to be that hyperbolic considering the scope of the group’s impact. Pop music and pop culture as we know it incubated in the ’50s, and then really blossomed in the ’60s — and the Beatles were at the very top of a feverishly, rapidly changing medium in tumultuous, transformative times. All these decades later, they still influence up-and-coming artists; new generations are still falling for them (on TikTok, they’re worshipped as if they were a currently active band); and their songs can still surprise and disorient no matter how long they’ve been in the atmosphere. Nobody really thought pop music was supposed to have a 60-plus year shelf life back then. But the Beatles proved everyone wrong.