ABSTRACT

Can the economic approach to looking at pop music, organizational structure, and innovation be applied to bands other than the Beatles? How general is this perspective? This chapter uses the case of the Rolling Stones and the Beach Boys to show examine the history and performance of what were likely the two biggest competitors to the Beatles. Both bands benefited from the same economic expansion of the economies and a burgeoning youth market hungry for pop music. One entered the market slightly later than the Beatles and benefited directly from the British Invasion. The other entered the American market earlier than the Beatles and showed just as much potential to break down boundaries and expand the frontiers of popular music. The framework used to analyze the innovation process for the Beatles—entrepreneurial judgement, heterogeneous capital, transaction costs, and human capital—help show how the Rolling Stones brand of blues-driven rock was both enhanced (bigger market) and limited (fewer opportunities to be successful in new genres). The framework is also useful in explaining why the Beach Boys failed to capitalize on their path breaking studio work to compete with the Beatles at the highest level.