My mom grew up in the 60s, so naturally she is a huge Beatles fan.
That fandom passed on to me. I can remember listening to her Beatles records when I was as young as 3 or 4. Luckily for me my dad had bought her an import copy of the Beatles Collection, so even though we're American, I was able to experience the real versions of Beatles albums on vinyl, not those Capitol abominations.

And now I am happily listening to the mono and stereo remasters, which is making me more interested in the music than I've ever been. It's amazing how many songs simply sound better in mono. At times, listening to the mono versions is like listening to a whole new song. In a way it's like I'm discovering the band all over again.

Michael Jackson is partially responsible for me getting interested in The Beatles. When I was younger I remember hearing the Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson collaborative song, Say,Say, Say on one of my mother's records. I remember that I became interested in Paul because of this song and I listened to Band on the Run shortly after that. That record pretty much sealed the deal on me deciding that I liked this Paul McCartney fellow, and I "discovered" most of the Beatles discography after that throughout my preteen years (probably aged 9-12 or so).

The first Beatles record I listened to was Rubber Soul followed by Magical Mystery Tour and Abbey Road. Once I was initiated into the Beatles lore I decided I'd also enjoy John Lennon's solo stuff, which I do for the most part. :)

my father did. it's as simple as that. i can remember many beatles songs from my childhood, as some of my earliest memories. songs like yellow submarine, mean mr. mustard, please mr. postman, come together, love me do, she loves you, hey jude, etc. ahhh. good times.

My dad was never into them, and my mom liked them, but never really got me listening. I started when a few of my friends from school gave me a copy of Rubber Soul.

At the ripe young age of 17 I can not stand the look on the faces of my peers when I tell them my favorite band is The Beatles. With my age group its sort of a love/hate relationship, either you adore them or despise them.

I remember a few years back, probably when I was 11 or 12, that I recognized a song being played on the stereo. It was around that age that I didn't just listen to the music, but wanted to learn about it and learn how to play it. So when this song came on, I asked my mother about the band playing it. She said it was The Beatles and ran to the stereo, taking it off of shuffle and playing the album from start to finish. I ended up stealing the CD and playing it in the car every time we went some where. The CD was The Beatles One album, with all of their number one hits.

Needless to say, my parents got sick of that CD FAST, so I looked into other albums by The Beatles. I bought Rubber Soul on CD first: it was their first 'serious' album I found out (thank you Rolling Stone) and it had my mom's favorite song on it, Norwegian Wood.

Loved it.

I ended up purchasing every other CD by The Beatles (sans Revolver). My ex-girlfriend even bought me Abbey Road on vinyl (best thing out of that relationship).

I now play Bass guitar on an amazing viola bass ala Paul McCartney, in his honor. I plan on getting rid of all of my Beatles CD's though, as I'll be purchasing the remastered box sets shortly.

My father was probably the biggest Beatles fan in all of Peru, and he'd spend most of his free time when he was a kid listening to his Beatles records. He's told me that it was the Beatles that inspired him to learn English. Years later when he came to California and I was born, I'm almost positive that he made sure that the Beatles were the first music I ever heard. He'd always the the Beatles in the car nonstop, and by 3rd grade or so I think I had pretty much every Beatles song memorized.

Then I got into the Stones in 7th grade and thus began my discovering of many many other bands and music, moving on past the Beatles almost never listening to them anymore. Though TB:RB has made me rediscover the Beatles' music and now I'm downloading all the remasters and realizing how brilliant they were and how many great songs they wrote

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Originally Posted by Suprmallet

As a child, I was not much into music. I adored film and literature, but had never heard too much music that really grabbed me. It didn't help that my mother often listened to musicals, most of which to this day I still cannot stand. My dad, however, used to play a soft acoustic song that he had taught himself on guitar. I didn't know it at the time, but it was in fact "Blackbird" off The White Album.

When I was around 11 or 12, my grandparents got the family a CD player for the holidays. My dad seized upon the opportunity and purchased A Hard Day's Night, his favorite Beatles album (he had seen the film seven times in the theater as a child). From the moment he put it on the stereo, I was entranced. Who had come up with these catchy hooks and melodies? How could they possibly sound so jubilant? Why did it seem like I knew each song intimately, even though I was hearing them for the first time?

Every week my dad would bring home another Beatles album. Sgt. Pepper, Rubber Soul, Please Please Me, and so on. It was a little strange for him, having grown up in America, to hear the albums in their British formats, but for me, each new collection was a revelation, especially Abbey Road and The White Album.

It was around this time that The Beatles Anthology premiered on TV. My father let me stay up late to see each episode, and it become a bonding activity for the both of us. He picked up the Anthology CD sets, which I pored over, listening for the slightest deviations from the studio version, and rejoicing at unheard versions of solo tracks like "Teddy Boy" and "Not Guilty."

In all, I spent a year listening to nothing but The Beatles. My fervor culminated with a Beatles-themed Bar Mitzvah, where each table had a different Beatle figure for a centerpiece. To this day, they are still one of my favorite bands, and their boundless creativity has inspired me in my own life.

To thank my dad, I recently purchased the Beatles in Stereo box for him (I grabbed the Beatles in Mono box for myself). He now listens only to classical music, but still clearly has a soft spot for The Beatles, because he put on a few of his favorites from the box set and said he enjoyed them immensely. I still plan on bringing him to my place to show him Beatles Rock Band, but I feel he would only get mild amusement out of it. Still, I'm curious to see his reaction.

And then one day I found a copy of David Bowie's greatest hits, which really changed my life, but that's another story for when Rock Band: Bowie comes out... ;)

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:p

OK but for real my first exposure to The Beatles, and my first real enjoyment of the band, came around the time I was around 5 years old (circa 1976) and a local television station was playing the "Yellow Submarine" animated movie. I just fell in love with the visuals and the music.

When Lennon was killed in 1980... I was nine and didn't even know who John Lennon was by name. When I found out he was a member of The Beatles, I was flabbergasted. His music (and Beatle music) flooded the airwaves for weeks.

But what CEMENTED my love of The Beatles... was a dopey, idiotic, disco-esque Beatles medley called "Stars on 45" that was released in the Spring of 1981. A bunch of Nordic soundalikes did a 4 minute medley of a bunch of Beatle hits to a disco backbeat. Looking back now, it was pretty awful, but I had the tape and the 4 minute medley was on the single version. The album cut lasted something along the lines of 12-15 minutes or so, and was my first wide exposure to The Beatles catalogue.

That fall, I became hooked. I started buying and collecting the albums, as well as finding or reading ANY book I could find about the band. I dragged my Dad to a local art cinema in 1982 to go see a rerelease of A HARD DAY'S NIGHT. They became my favorite band. I was 10. I'm now 38. They still are my favorite band.

Let's hear it for the groin.

back in 1999-2000 my dad tried to get me into them, I was more into Alternative/ Grunge at the time haha (whatever they played on the radio) so I just dismissed them. For a few years I wondered: "why the hell are they so popular?" I think it was back in 07-early 08 that I really got into them. I was in the car with my dad, we were listening to this satellite station that exclusively played Beatles songs, (we had a 3 year free subscription to Sirius) while we were listening he was telling me about the songs they liked to write and how John and Paul had to write songs for Ringo haha. So I decided to downloaded a few singles and found them enjoyable. Later on I got a hold of their full discography, I decided to listen to Abbey Road first... and I was simply blown away, it was like nothing I had ever heard before. And now Ive heard just about every Beatles song, and know almost everything about each one :)

I still kick myself for not getting into them at an earlier age haha

Harmonix announced The Beatles Rock Band. I got Abbey Road. The end.

I first got into The Beatles in the early 70's when they started showing Yellow Submarine once a year on TV. That was the greatest cartoon I ever watched.

Now, you young'ens wouldn't understand. At that time in life there were only three or four channels on the TV to watch and there were no VCRs, DVDs, or pirated vids to download. So, the only way to see such a show was to plan to see it.

After the first time I saw it I was mesmerized and I started asking my parents each week if the cartoon was going to come on again. They would look in the TV guide for me and tell me no. My father, in order to shut me up, bought me the Revolver album. It was the second album I ever owned. The first being a set of Disney albums... hey, I was only a kid.

Revolver is still my favorite album of all time.