I can only speak from our own experience - I was a 13 year old trudging through morning frost to school singing Love me Do with all the rest. I loved that single: the B side was PS I Love You. My initials before I was married were PS, so it was a particularly special one to me.
I'd been given my first record player for my 13th birthday a couple of months earlier, and that single was a special pocket money purchase.
There followed a regular stream of more, and The Stones were growing in popularity too.
After a few years, the changes taking place were tangible. Everyone could feel it, live it, enjoy it - yes, plenty of other music revelations from the UK & the US were growing along with those two bands - and the images we'd see in newspapers, magazines and TV news all added to the huge changes that the younger generation were becoming a part of: Woodstock, Carnaby Street, mods/rockers, rock concerts, wonderful motorcycles, fashion, hairstyles, guest bands at coffee bars, burgers and cola ....so much came together to form what for me and my generation was one of the most joyful, life changing times to be growing up in!
When our own two sons were old enough, they gradually discovered our music collection, and took to The Beatles pretty much in the same way that we had. Both said how much they envied us to be teenagers and young adults at such a wonderful time.
Anyway, that's how it was for my friends and I in the 60's/early 70's
As for the Grateful Dead, I didn't know much about them back then ..suppose it all depends what type of music you gravitate towards
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