Fifty years ago tonight, pop music was reborn when four lads from Liverpool astounded America with their debut performance on the Ed Sullivan Show. They write their own songs, you say? They play their own instruments? They sing, too? In the era of Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello and manufactured “teen entertainment,” the Beatles were revolutionary. In this fan-dub video, the lovable Mop Tops sing a (deservedly obscure?) Spanish version of And I Love Her.
Los Beatles weren’t universally popular, however. The band’s debut was “appallingly unmusical” and “destined to fade away,” critics wrote.
And yet…