The Beatles reflect the growth of a generation. When I was younger, so much younger than today, they broke the U.S. market with hand-holding songs. I was 12 or 13 then, and this summed up the extent of my life's concerns. As I grew, the society underwent revolutionary cultural changes, and the Beatles were always the perfect mirror of those changes. The cultural changes in turn changed me, and I grew from a 12 year old to an adult, but every time I thought I had arrived somewhere, it turns out that the Beatles were already there, waiting for me.

I loved their music. Like most of my college acquaintances, I wore out Revolver and Rubber Soul before the cultural revolution, and I later wore out the White Album and Abbey Road in their turns. I agree with every word that Flatcat wrote in his analysis.

And I don't like Elvis that much. I don't own one of his albums. I know all his hits, just as all of you do, but I never was a special fan. Having said all that, Elvis is my pick as the answer to this question. Here's why.

If you go back to the dawn of the 50's, the institution of radio was dying. The radio dramas and comedies were breathing their death-gasps after TV disseminated through the culture, and the pop music of the time wasn't strong enough to create a new radio culture. White people, possessing almost all of the money to buy albums, had nothing worth buying. The great swing bands were just about dead, and there are only so many times you can listen to Rosemary Clooney and Perry Como records. Think about it, even if you love Perry Como (as I do), would you hang out with your buddies and sing Perry Como songs? Would you consider becoming a Perry Como impersonator? The industry had no vitality. Even Sinatra at that moment was in his famous career slump.

And yet, throbbing from the clubs and show theatres of Black America, there was a tremendous and diverse musical culture, ranging from the stylish sounds of Basie and Ellington to the predecessors of rock, to the great solo blues artists in the small smoky clubs. The dilemma for the music and radio industries? How to get this great and completely marketable sound into the hands of the people with the money? In those very different days (the first black athlete had entered baseball only three years earlier), the problem was how to get the sound into white music, because white people didn't buy many records cut by black people, nor were they likely to, barring a miracle.

The miracle arrived. The King appeared, with his great presence both shy and swaggering, his hips waggling and his lip curled unapologetically and unaffectedly into a something between a sneer and a come-on. He successfully fused black music into rockabilly. He was a white guy, but a new kind of white guy who could sing black music his own way, without seeming to be a twerp. And although he was cool, he was also polite and approachable. Kids loved him, and even moms and dads had to admit he was really a good kid, even if they were shocked by his hip gyrations. (He was known as Elvis the Pelvis by the Guardians of Culture).

The radio industry shortly underwent a metamorphosis into a mass medium to deliver current music. The record industry was saved because it was safe for white people to buy black music. Within a miraculously short time they were even buying it when it was sung by black entertainers. Elvis invented the radio industry and the record industry as we know it today. Although not known as a movie performer, he even sold a lot of movie tickets! I wonder who had a more profound influence on the media of the 20th century, Elvis, or Thomas Edison? Edison may have invented the hardware, but Elvis was the software that eventually made it all work.

And if that wasn't enough, he created a look that woman wanted and men envied and copied. (Hell, how many Beatles impersonators have you seen? How many Elvis?)

It's a shame that Elvis became such a cartoon, a big fat slob squeezed into white and gold outfits and performing in Vegas revues, singing crap like "My Way" and "In the Ghetto". That epoch soiled his greatness, as I see it. But that slob isn't the guy who should have gotten our votes. It was the lean rockabilly legend who transformed America, and then the music of the world. Rock 'n Roll is Elvis' world. The rest of us just live there. Even the Beatles.

"Page 3 Girl, Andrea Kalemenova was a regular in US Magazines like Swank and High Society for a while, then she disappeared. These pics that turned up recently sorta explain her disappearance. It's hard to believe that someone actually gets paid to write the dialog in these things. The genre could best be called Bathroom Graffiti." (#1, #2, #3, #4, #5, #6, #7, #8, #9, #10, #11)

( #2, #6)