By "transcend time" do you mean "remembered and respected"? None of what you listed there is anywhere near the height of its original popularity, not even close.
In terms of profitibility the beatles catologue continues to grow in value as the songs can be found everywhere from commericials to chants used in rallys. The height of beatlemania in the press will never be seen again but they are changing into folklore and will be recelebrated as legend after they all pass.
I dont know, they are known, but they are not a craze in the art world now. Nothing remains constant!!
I generally interact with a lot of school students. All enjoy the current music, and some adventurous person has to go out of the way to even try the beatles.
I would love to understand this point more, if only because it's so contrary to my own view. The argument from most Beatles fans (other than "you don't get it, man" which is by far the most common) is something about how different they were.
What about their music is better to you? Is it their longevity or the volume of music they made, do they have several of your favorite songs/albums/performances? Is it something peculiar to their style that you really liked, or do you see them as more technically proficient at composition or perhaps it's their musical skill?
I'm not a long-time Beatles fan, but I've been going through a bunch of major popular music albums from the 50s on up in chronological order over the last few months, and gave IIRC seven Beatles albums at least one pretty close listen each as part of that project. Their qualities that still make them stand out as really damn good:
1) Their albums are eclectic. They're are all over the place in the best way. You listen to someone like Hendrix or Metallica or whoever and you're kinda in for just the one thing. Maybe with some notable variation here and there, but they're not gonna go way off some totally unexpected direction. They may be great, or they may just play the kind of thing you happen to like a lot, which is fine, but that's pretty much all you're getting. The Beatles may, by contrast, have five songs each with very different sounds and emotional content in not much more than ten minutes, somehow without giving the listener whiplash.
2) They do that thing great artists (in other media, too) do where they have complete confidence that they can come up with more good ideas, so they'll toss out great stuff and move on like it was nothing—they don't cling to good ideas, because they know more are coming.
3) Contributing to all the above, the creative input of various members of the band shining in different songs.
4) Legit good songwriting, music and lyrics. Rubber Soul, which is the album I keep coming back to (not sure I'd defend it as their best? The White Album is ~1.5 LPs worth of top-notch stuff spread over two LPs and it's hard to argue against it) has a some really good, understated moments of humanity and humor in just the first few tracks—lyrically, they know what to write and, as importantly, what not to. The Beatles could be blunt as hell when they wanted, certainly, but could also achieve sublime subtlety. Even their more straightforward songs often have one or two little thorns to catch you as you go through. The music itself is, as mentioned, eclectic but mostly very good despite ranging freely across instruments, styles, and continents. Haha, I've got that fuzzed-bass part from Think For Yourself stuck in my head now just from thinking about this. So, so good.
Going through those albums has been one of my favorite experiences to come out of this listening project. I'd barely heard anything but their radio hits (to be fair, there are a lot of those) until last year. Now they've got five albums in my regular rotation[0].
[0] The Beatles (The White Album), Rubber Soul, Abbey Road, Let It Be, Sgt. Pepper's—I've given Revolver two full listens and just cannot understand why people like it. I like a couple songs but most of it... bleh. I'll hit it again in a few years but for one that's often put up as their best, man, I don't even like it. Go figure. Magical Mystery Tour's (US version) back half is incredible, since it's just a bunch of their previously-released between-albums singles, but almost the entire first side sucks.
Of your original three examples of entertainment that "transcends time and grows its audience perpetually", none of them predate 1950. That's a terrible record for a phenomenon that "transcends time". This should be enough by itself to tell you that you're talking nonsense. What are the odds that 100% of literally timeless entertainment was developed in the last 70 years? Tell me about the timeless entertainment developed between 2200 BC and 1200 BC. Tell me how its audience today is bigger and more enthusiastic than ever.
Or is it possible that people have an easier time appreciating cultural products from 30 years ago than 3000 years ago?
1. Is not and has not been considered entertainment.
2. Is considered obsolete by both Christians (preferring the New Testament and a variety of more or less formal commentaries) and Jews (preferring the Talmud and its very formalized commentaries).
In what sense is it supposed to be timeless? How can a timeless work be so outdated as to embarrass its notional devotees when you bring it up?
