RockBoar.com

   Beat music, British beat, or  Merseybeat  (for  bands  from  Liverpool  and  Manchester  which are beside the River Mersey) is a pop and rock music genre that developed in the United Kingdom in the early 1960s.

      Beat music is a fusion of rock and roll, doo-wop, skiffle and rhythm and blues. The genre provided many of the bands responsible for the British invasion of the American pop charts starting in 1964, and provided the model for many important developments in pop and rock music, including the format of the  rock  group  around  lead,  rhythm  and bass guitars with drums.

    By 1967 beat music was beginning to sound out of date, particularly compared with the "harder edged" blues rockthat was beginning to emerge. Most of the groups that had not already disbanded moved, like The Beatles, into different forms of rock music and pop music, including psychedelic rock and eventually progressive rock. Beat was a major influence on the American garage rock and folk rock movements, and would be a source of inspiration for subsequent rock music sub-genres, including Britpop in the 1990s.

^{Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beat_music}