The Beatles were a British pop group from Liverpool who made their first record in 1962 and became, for many people, the most famous and successful band there has ever been. The four members were John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. Songs you may still hear everywhere include Love Me Do, I Want to Hold Your Hand, A Hard Day’s Night, Yellow Submarine and Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. They changed how pop music was written, recorded and sold; young people copied their hair and clothes; the wild excitement around them was called Beatlemania. They stopped working as a group in 1970, and each man went on making music on his own. People still argue about who was “the best Beatle,” but almost nobody argues about the size of their mark. We say the Beatles (with the). One member is a Beatle.