10 Bands That Mixed Different Music Genres

There's been a legend about one of the producers of the Ed Sullivan Show only giving the Beatles a year in the spotlight before they disappeared completely. It might be funny now, but you could see where he's coming from, as the likely lads from Liverpool set the world on fire with basic pop songs that were certainly well crafted but didn't have anything too substantial in the early days. Once they started listening to stuff outside of their early rock and roll records though, the rock world was never going to be the same.

Being informed by everything from Indian music to the avant garde, everything the Beatles from 1965 onward remains some of the most interesting rock and roll that has ever been created, from creating some of the first psychedelic songs on Revolver to breaking new ground with one of the first concept albums on Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band. While something like Paul McCartney's old timey music may have been a bit of an acquired taste, hearing something like the White Album feels like a band playing with their sound however they want to, going from hard rock on Helter Skelter to the soft sounds of something like Julia.

Right to the end with Abbey Road, the band was still willing to push themselves that much further in terms of what could be done with a traditional rock song, from taking on doom metal on I Want You (She's So Heavy) to stringing many different song fragments into one piece that sounds almost operatic on the back half of the record. Each of the band members were definitely curious to push even further in their solo careers, but the distance they covered together was never going to be seen again.