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 built their reputation playing clubs in Liverpool and Hamburg over a three-year period from 1960 , with Stuart Sutcliffe initially serving as bass player . They acquired the nickname `` the Fab Four '' as Beatlemania grew in Britain the next year , and by early 1964 became international stars , leading the `` British Invasion '' of the United States pop market .