The Beatles are a band of several elements:
The late 50s and pre-1962 leather clad rockers moving from a village fete in Woolton, Liverpool to Hamburg (because Cliff Richard and other pretty boy acts had the UK market sewn up at the time) doing covers of American songs and a few of their own little known ones.
The 1962-1964 Love me Do-Hard Days Night era of intense British Beatlemania when they were more or less a suited and cockily charming four piece act, with ambition for money, girls, fame whose songlist was still peppered with cliches, averageness and handmedowns.
The 1965 Rubber Soul era when the likes of Bob Dylan had inspired them towards country rock eg Lennon's Norwegian Wood. Harrison also demonstrated Who-like proto-punk with Think For Yourself and If I Needed Someone, for which he'd been inspired by The Byrds, who'd been inspired by The Beatles and Dylan (the best songs on the album to me, along with McCartney's Drive my car).
1966's Revolver, an era in its own right. The quintessential example of the full range of 'Beatleness' in a way, from the angry proto-punk of Harrison's Taxman and the Indian-tinged Love You To, to the group singalong of Yellow Submarine to the psychedelic-like Lennon's Tomorrow Never Knows (thank goodness for Lennon as The Byrds Eight Miles High would have otherwise made The Beatles look a bit antiquated). With Eleanour Rigby, Here There and Everywhere, For No One,
and Got To Get You In To My Life by McCartney, for some Revolver will be their favourite for McCartney songs. For others, they'll take Brian Wilson and The Beach Boys singular musical vision Pet Sounds instead, thank you very much. In fact, The Beach Boys were named best band in a 1966 UK public vote.
1967's Sergeant Pepper, a concept of Paul's (and one that some might say was inspired by Brian Wilson's Smile being recorded at the same time after the original idea of making only songs with a specifically northern theme was only achieved by some brass band instrumentation and the the lyric '40 holes in Blackburn, Lancashire' ) was part Revolver-like Paul storytelling eg She's Leaving Home and John lazy day reading Alice in Wonderland dreaming. But John's Lucy in the sky with diamonds,with its uncool Paul-style reggae-like chorus, is arguably beneath his later output. George, deep in Indian mysticism, only got one song on the album. With some lightweight fluff like Getting Better and Good Morning, some of this is schoolboy-like attempt to be Brian Wilson-like. But the opening title song by Paul is a great rocking intro to the album). John went as far as to say there was only one 'song' on Pepper, A Day In The Life.
‘Magical Mystery Tour' from the same year is arguably closer to the spirit of Brian Wilson's Smile but largely courtesy of some of Lennon's best known songs, I am the walrus, Strawberry Fields Forever (which Wilson loved) and All You Need Is Love. But the new-agey aspect of part of Smile was arguably best demonstrated by Harrison's Blue Jay Way.
But this was the year of The Doors, Procol Harum's A Whiter Shade of Pale. And in 1968 The Small Faces released their magnum opus Ogden's Nut Gone Flake. The Beatles arguably didn't bridge the gap in to the 70s as well as these r and b , hammond organ, type groups could do. By Abbey Road, the likes of Fleetwood Mac and Jeff Lynn were the awkward face of those seemingly inspired by The Beatles. But so was David Bowie who, basically, in his early days, merged the style of John Lennon and Syd Barrett in to one.
There were so many groups who were more genuinely fun, genuinely soulful, than The Beatles so it's entirely correct that the 60s is regarded as a wave of many musicians who created a musical landscape. The Beatles were experimental as they proceeded but they were also sometimes magpies who'd briefly cover a genre, as if in a postmodernist, pop art collagey, way, far more comprehensively covered by another band and their progressions didn't necessarily seem natural but more like attempts to keep up with the zeitgeist. The three main songwriters were not hugely talented musicians in a conventional sense. They were opportunist ideas people - often using other, older, people's. They were not necessarily subtle. They had 2 gears. They either made a grand 'aren't I anthemic / sentimental / Lewis Carrollian / raunchy rocking' statement or nothing much at all hence their excursion in to 'Ob la di Ob la da' kitsch lead by Paul.