[The music on Meet the Bealtes] was instantly recognizable and like nothing we had ever heard. It was joyous, threatening, absurd, arrogant, determined, innocent and tough….

It was only in the context of the Beatles event that their music was perceived for what it was.

The event was a pop explosion; the second, and thus far the last, that rock and roll has produced. (p. 175)

[At] its heart, a pop explosion attaches the individual to a group—the fan to an audience, the solitary to a generation—in essence, forms a group and creates new loyalties—while at the same time it increases one's ability to respond to a particular pop artifact, or a thousand of them, with an intensity that verges on lunacy. Ringo's shout of "All right, George!" just before the guitar in "Boys" becomes a matter of indefinable and indefensible significance; styles on Carnaby Street...