Growing up, my big brother was a big Beatles fan. I was casually interested, but was never nearly as into them as he was. My line (I believe I got this from an episode of Full House) was: "Interesting, but terribly overrated."

I recently finished a wonderful group biography of the Beatles, and have gained a newfound respect and understanding of them. I would recommend Can't Buy Me Love: The Beatles, Britain, and America by Jonathan Gould to anyone who has an interest in the Beatles or in 1960s popular culture, of which it is also a snapshot history.

I have found that if I were to generalize the type of books that I like the most, it would be books that give me in-depth information on a topic about which I am passingly but not intimately familiar. That's what I got in this book.

I took the time to read it with my iPod in hand. Every time a song was described (and the author takes the time to describe just about every song the Beatles ever recorded, and then some), I would turn it on and listen. Not only did this teach me to recognize each Beatle's voice whereas I previously found them indistinguishable, but it helped me recognize the significant musical advances they made at each step of the way.

Aside from learning various factoids about the Beatles that were fascinating in and of themselves (the original name of the group wasn't Johnny and the Moondogs, as I had believed, but The Quarry Men, named after John's grammar school), I felt like I got to know them and understand them better. For example, the author didn't directly make this claim, but I came to feel that the death of the Beatles' able manager Brian Epstein was every bit as much a factor in the group's breakup as Yoko Ono was (and Yoko only contributed to the breakup not because of anything she did, but because she diverted John's attention so much Paul felt he'd lost his collaborative partner).

One surprising thing, listening to the music as I went along, was how large a percentage of the Beatles' ouvre I was already at least passingly familiar with. They recorded hundreds of songs, and I had heard most of them. Some of that is due to my brother's playing them all the time when I was little, but a lot of it I learned by living in Western culture in a post-Beatles world. They are an inescapable force.

I used to think of the Beatles as the original boy band -- the 60s' version of the New Kids on the Block or N'Sync -- but the Beatles have made an indelible mark on culture and society that I don't think can ever be matched. Beatlemania was a unique thing, and these four guys made the most of their moment in the spotlight. There's no way a group nowadays could have the lasting popularity they did, let alone maintain themselves on the cutting edge as musicians (something pop stars rarely are anymore) the way they did. I came to a new level of respect for John, Paul, George and Ringo simply by cutting through the constant barrage of Beatle-related things we see and hear every day (at the sandwich shop next to my office there's a sign advertising a new raspberry salad that says "Raspberry Fields Forever") and stopping to really pay attention to what they did and who they were.

Interesting? Terribly. Overrated? Not even close.