Do The Beatles Still Matter?

Although the quartet ruled the pop roost for close to three decades, the gradual disappearance of their sort of music from the airwaves has rendered their sound -- which, let's face it, was once so monolithically inescapable it became almost stifling -- downright exotic, especially to fresh ears. The Beatles, says Zevin, made ''the sort of strange music that I like.'' And, to rebellious teens, strange music is always cool.

Then, too, there's the romantic appeal of those far-off, freaky '60s, especially for those who came of age just in time for the soul-deadening onslaught of '90s teen pop. ''I get a lot of students who are interested in political and social history, and they all have the sense that of all the decades they missed, the '60s was the coolest,'' says John Platoff, a professor of music at Trinity College in Hartford, Conn., who teaches a popular course called ''The Beatles and the Sixties.'' He reports that ''there continues to be a regular influx of students who at the very least know 30 [Beatles] songs and could sing them right off to you. Even those that know the least [about the band] still know a few songs.''

Adam Schlesinger, singer-bassist for Fountains of Wayne (whose recent minor hit ''Stacy's Mom'' is one of the rare Beatlesque tunes to sneak onto contemporary airwaves), isn't surprised that hip kids are flocking to the band. ''Somehow, instinctively, the Beatles seemed to know how to make records that would never sound dated,'' he says. ''In one sense, Beatles records don't sound anything like modern records, but people are still obsessing about how they did it, how they got that sound. They sound completely fresh, not like a relic from the past.''

If the music was indelible enough to capture any generation's heart, the studio techniques the band crafted with the aid of producer George Martin were nothing short of revolutionary; their innovations continue to inspire artists in a wide range of genres (Brit sensations Coldplay recently opted to record at Martin's studio), including hip-hop, oddly enough (see sidebar on page 38). ''They just started down so many roads with their wildly experimental stuff and technological innovations -- sitars, symphonies, feedback, echo, multitracking,'' says Platoff. ''They were like Orville and Wilbur Wright, even though people are now flying fancier airplanes.''

Finally, in an age when telegraphed, choreographed insincerity topped off with hubris seems to be the starting point for many pop stars, the palpable innocence of the Beatles, particularly in the early stages of their career, can be tremendously appealing. ''There's real honesty there,'' says Caruso. ''They never felt fabricated. They seemed like the warmest people.'' Vintage footage of the foursome on the recently released DVD The Beatles: The First U.S. Visit (directed by famed documentarians the Maysles brothers) bears her out, offering an astonishingly intimate black-and-white glimpse of John, Paul, George, and Ringo clowning, mugging, dropping non sequiturs, twisting at the Peppermint Lounge, and chain-smoking up a storm (the punks!) -- in short, just being themselves.

''The Beatles always wanted to be a mainstream band,'' Caruso continues, ''but they also wanted to expose people to new ideas -- spiritual, intellectual, and academic ideas. I think that's part of why a lot of kids in my [age group] respond to the Beatles like I have. They always stayed in touch with who they were and where they came from.''

Rooney's Carmine firmly believes the Beatles will remain ''the No. 1 band of all time, forever. There will never be a band that will come along and achieve what they achieved ever again.'' Ladies and gentlemen, the younger generation has spoken.