Hi,
Some of this is slanted badly.
For example, in Brazil, there was in 1963 and 1964 a very different attitude towards "culture" that does not quite exist in America, because everyone is into soooooooookissing what they are told that is supposed to be good.
Our house, already had 2K LP's of classical music, and even mom, who had a decent ear for music commented that there were some interesting melodies and vocal things. My dad, a bit more of a snob literatii -- the academic intelectual -- of course, did not think much of it, but he liked his Edith Piaf and Yves Montand (you never heard them? ... shame! hehe!). I never saw, or heard, in Brazil, the "negative" bullpucky that American folks supposedly showed in the media ... which already tells you about the media control of the arts, which Tom Dowd had suggested that was in place ... but then, we never ever thought that the media, also owned by the same conglomerates that owned the music would do that to ensure their own sales. Luckily, things like the Beatles and Rolling Stones started selling so much that the malevolent media had to die out and eventually get hit from the other side ... but it always continued in America ... I hate how Woodstock looks at our generation in the end ... and an anthem is played in front of garbage ... it was the perfect editorial of how it was looked at ... and we STILL refuse to take stock in that ... but it will continue to be so, as long as the music is vapid, just another song, and the music itself is just a copy of another song's format.
My European attitude towards the music and its internationalization is very different. Did you know that the Beatles, for example, along with Stones and Kinks, were the three most played groups in the days of the Berlin Wall, and the days of Radio Free Europe and what was done to break the Soviet Union's hold in the 60's? It really ought to say how important some of the music was, and became as time went by.
For that alone, my appreciation of pop music is very important ... and it is sad when older folks trash this because they were the "squares" in those days and thought all hippies were dirty and sick. Like most of those "squares" weren't!