Young reader, you may know the Beatles as a teeniebopper boy band. You've probably seen old videos of them playing sappy pop like "I Want To Hold Your Hand" to crowds of fainting 14 year old girls.

What you may not realize is that they turned into an experimental band that really pushed the envelope of their day, in a way we almost never get to see in mainstream pop music today. (Sadly, almost all the boundary-pushing today is on the indie fringes - great stuff but only heard by people who seek it out)

To try and make an illustration using more contemporary pop acts, imagine if The Backstreet Boys turned into Radiohead and were the ones putting out albums like OK Computer and Kid A. That's kind of like the progression the Beatles took.

Skip the early albums and grab a copy of Revolver.