I've come to think that there is something a little bit special about a group of boys who were a group before they were cultural icons. They all discovered music together at about the same time, using it first and foremost out of an attraction for the genre and then as a life's avocation.

The Beatles and the Stones came of age in Liverpool and London, respectively. The Beach Boys of course not only all grew up in Huntington Beach but were brothers by blood as well.

This is not to diminish the success or talent of other groups of the time who may have come together differently, at an older age. The members of the Beatles, Stones, and Beach Boys weren't hand picked, except in the sense of being attracted to each other by their mutual interest in the music.