Just to clear the "bigger than Jesus" remark up, it was really more of John Lennon saying that in an interview, rather than the whole band. He was comparing Christianity with rock music in general, but the reaction, especially in America, has sort of clouded over what he was trying to say. Whether you agree with music having more of an impact than religion in different groups... well, that would depend on a lot of things. The short answer to the question, why did he bother, would be that he's John Lennon, and John Lennon played around with things like that. My favourite Lennon quote is still, in response to "How do you feel about teenagers imitating you with Beatle wigs?", "They are not imitating us, because we don`t wear Beatle wigs.". He knew he was being a troll, let's say.
And the Beatles definitely were manufactured in their early days. I'm not saying I dislike all of their early songs (I'll admit that some of them are annoyingly catchy, Eight Days A Week being the biggest culprit), but it's obvious in many areas, you've picked up on that. I'm pretty sure the only reason the first manager wanted them was for the kinky fashion of it all, because the Beatles were a bunch of young guys he could use easily. The phony Beatlemania that The Clash talked about was dry and not about the music, but I think the msic was still there, and not touring in their later years was almost hanging up on the very definition of Beatlemania.
There were some pretty dreadful songs on their post-'65 albums (notably When I'm 64: I'm in the group that thinks it ruins a brilliant album), but the interesting thing about the Beatles at that time was that they could show off what they wanted to write about, and while they weren't the first bandto do that, it was exciting because it was the Beatles. In the end you had George Harrison's Indian influences, John Lennon's thoughts on Marxism and similar ideas, and Paul McCartney going for the writers of the previous decade, etc. One song on this that really rings out to me is Baby You're A Rich Man. It's insanely simple, but the lyrics speak for themselves I think, but overall...
...obviously your whole opinion of the music is something else, but the ideas that brewed in the band members created something different I think... well, it was the sixties. Just about every popular musician of that particular time went through the same stuff.
Man, I'm going to listen to The Clash now.
