Yet the Beatles remain the band that we can't live and let die, doomed to be recycled as fading photocopies of the original with every incremental improvement in music technology and significant anniversary until one day we can all look forward to high-definition holograms of John, Paul, George and Ringo performing "All You Need is Love" in our living rooms.

CNN: Beatles and Bond: Half a century on, can we now let them be?

Sixties legends The Beatles and The Rolling Stones are also in the running - although the Fab Four's All You Need Is Love may fall foul of its opening blast of the French Marseillaise.

BBC: Anthem to rock the millennium

The album is filled with creativity, and climaxes with All You Need Is Love, perhaps the perfect pop record - catchy, playful, joyous and irreverent.

BBC: CD Review: The Beatles

Sadly the most famous pop sampling - at the start of the Beatles' 1967 hit "All You Need is Love" - is left out for copyright reasons, though there are copious notes in the accompanying book.

BBC: Jazzing up the Marseillaise