ABSTRACT
In May 2015 an analysis conducted by researchers at Queen Mary College and Imperial College, London, applied techniques derived from evolutionary biology to 17,000 songs from the US Billboard charts between 1960 and 2010 and concluded that hip hop was a more significant musical intervention than the ‘British invasion’ of the US charts in the mid-1960s, spearheaded by the Beatles. The study, widely reported internationally, provoked considerable debate and opposition to its findings and a reassertion of the importance of the Beatles as the catalyst for a musical and cultural revolution.
