When The Beatles first stepped off the plane and onto U.S. soil, Beatlemania was launched. And the hysteria was unmatched at the time and perhaps will never be matched in American pop music history.

Carter Alan details The Beatles’ debut album Meet The Beatles (the name of the U.S. version) in the latest Carter’s Catalog, in which he calls The Fab Four the “first boy band.” And it’s not an unfair assessment – upon their arrival in America, The Beatles were a pop group with a mostly female audience and dominated the Billboard charts.

But the difference between them and superstars that came before them is that the big stars were always solo singers like Elvis Presley or Frank Sinatra. The Beatles were the first to offer a group of guys that the fans could fawn over and argue over who was the best.

Of course The Beatles would go on to prove their “musical depth” as Carter calls it in the video, with albums like Rubber Soul and Sgt. Pepper’s, and ultimately be embraced by fans of both genders and all ages as one of the greatest, most influential groups in the history of popular music. Meet The Beatles may not have gotten them there, but it certainly established them as superstars.

– Matt Dolloff, WZLX.com

More Carter’s Catalog on WZLX.com:

• Bob Dylan, “Planet Waves” and “Blood on the Tracks”
• Jimi Hendrix, “Axis: Bold As Love”
• David Bowie, “Low”
• Led Zeppelin’s Debut Album
• Van Halen, “1984″