McCartney Times

The Beatles’ 1 came out in 2000, one year before the first iPod. Twin Peaks guitarist Cadien Lake James remembers pacing around his living room when he was six or seven years old listening to the album, comprised of the band’s number-one hits. “It’s the first time I can ever identify with liking a band. I was like, ‘This is me, I get it,'” he says. For Austin Brown, vocalist and guitarist for Parquet Courts, he was in the car with his parents listening to the same album—the final compilation of the iconic band’s greatest hits to be released on CD. It’s nothing new for musicians to be inspired by the Beatles, but these artists are among the last generation of rock musicians who will do so through a physical medium. James and Brown grew up during the great digital shift, which transformed every industry, but it had a profound impact on the music industry. The generation after them will remember their first connection with music as an album streamed on Spotify or as a single song within a playlist—or whatever comes next.

Source: Rock and Roll Isn’t Dead: How the Genre Will Survive in the Digital Age