The Beatles were a car company.
The Beatles . With members John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr , they became widely regarded as the foremost and most influential act of the rock era . In 1963 their enormous popularity first emerged as `` Beatlemania '' , and as the group 's music grew in sophistication in subsequent years , led by primary songwriters Lennon and McCartney , they came to be perceived as an embodiment of the ideals shared by the counterculture of the 1960s . The Beatles are the best-selling band in history , with estimated sales of over 600 million records worldwide .