You may not have even heard the news that a Norwegian broadcaster was offering up the entire Beatles catalog, previously unavailable in any digital form, as a downloadable podcast earlier this week. Well, it doesn’t really matter, because as of yesterday the plan is dead, and Paul McCartney describes the effort to finally offer a digital Beatles catalog as "stalled." This is getting ridiculous. The Beatles will never become irrelevant, but this refusal to join the 21st century isn’t doing the legacy any favors. Already, there are kids today who call the Beatles overrated, saying they "don’t get" the hype, etc. Music, and the way people listen to it, has changed, for better or worse, and the iPod generation is more interested in the hot new single than an LP work of art like The White Album. There’s nothing the Beatles or Apple Corp. (the company established to manage their catalog) can do about that, but it would definitely help keep the band’s music alive and well if the young music fans who live on iTunes were at least given access to Beatles tracks, should they decide they want to hear for themselves what all the fuss is about.
But perhaps even more important, this "stall" is just bad business. Shunning a distribution model that is growing for one that is dying (CDs) makes no sense, not to mention the fact that anyone savvy enough to use bittorrent can get the entire catalog for free anyway. Interestingly, Amazon just revealed that its top-selling MP3 album of the year was Nine Inch Nails’ Ghosts I-IV – an album that Trent Reznor also offered as a free, high-quality download through a Creative Commons license. This means a TON of people paid for an album, even though they didn’t have to, simply because they wanted to support the artist. But the only option for someone interested in obtaining the Beatles in digital form is an illegal version where nothing goes to the artists. In other words, even if a kid WANTED to pay for an Abbey Road download, there’s just no way.
Enough is enough. I love and respect the Beatles and hope that future generations are exposed to their brilliance so the legacy lives forever. Hopefully, Apple and the Beatles themselves will realize their wrong-headed resistance to change is putting that in jeopardy. What think you?
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It seems I keep saying this every few months or so on EW.com: I already own all the Beatles’ music (well, all that’s been commercially released). If/when the entire catalog gets remastered, I will be buying it on CD and then ripping it to iTunes. Since age may matter in this, I’m 34 – and there’s something about having the physical piece, something tangible, when getting a new album. Individual songs I will download and keep solely in that form, but when I get an album, I need the whole kit ‘n caboodle.
That being said: there has been a long history of legal wranglings when it comes to the Beatles themselves, their name, their music, etc. Of course this is going to be messy (a “long and winding road” shall we say), and I think it’s stupid that there’s been such a delay. Those of us who really want the Beatles’ music already have it anyway, though. If the kids want to hear what the fuss is all about, they can stream the music on Beatles-a-Rama or go to their local library.
THANK YOU WINONA!!!
As for age it doesnt matter, im 22 and I will not pay to download a cd. I go buy the album and then upload it to my ipod. If you are going to pay the $ for it my aswell get the actuall cd!
And i also take care of them so that in future maybe my kids or kids kids can have a CD collection cus i know they will become extinct very soon!!
I’m a 35 year old avid Beatle fan as well and I do own all of their CDs. But I have been waiting for their songs to be available for download as well because there are a few songs I don’t have that are only available on the 2 past masters CDs like Rain and This Boy. I want those few songs but don’t want want to buy those entire CDs just to get them. I’m also hoping for a Beatles Guitar Hero!
Seriously. Is it that hard to find a used copy of a Beatles CD and rip it to your computer if you want a digital copy? Most of their albums are available on Amazon Marketplace for less than what iTunes would charge anyway. I really don’t see what the big deal is. If they don’t want to put their catalog up for sale digitally, that’s their right. You don’t have to buy it or illegally download it in order to get it digitally.
Their refusal to get on board with digital downloads makes them irrelevant as far as I am concerned. My profession requires me to be very transient as I have, at least in the last few years, moved a great deal and I don’t have the time or the energy to to lug around boxes of cds. If the Beatles wish to remain in 1990 than by all means let them, but I won’t think about them or care if they don’t choose to get with modern means of distribution. Imagine a movie theatre that refused to show colour films. Fine, fair enough, but don’t expect sell out numbers vs. that crazy place down the street that is showing the talkies. Evolve or die. Ask Darwin…he knows a thing or two about it.
Buy the cd’s and make them mp3’s and there you go. That’s what I did, not that hard people
The Beatles irrelevant? That statement just won you the prize for ignoramus of the new Millenium.
I’m 28, and honestly the idea of buying a physical CD is ancient to me. I don’t own a single device that even plays CDs besides my computer. I listen to music in my car, on my home stereo (iPod connected), or my iphone. I ripped all my old CDs to my computer, backed them up on an external hard drive and threw out all the physical disks. What’s the point? I love having my entire music catelogue at my finger tips. As I was flipping the channels yesterday, I came across a re-run of American Idol where the people were singing Beatles songs. They mostly butchered them, but it reminded me of how many great songs the Beatles have, and how few of them I have on my iPod. The Beatles need to join the 21st century. I simply won’t buy CDs anymore through stores (online or real). I need it distributed digitally and placed on my iPod.
I’ve been dying to buy the Beatles electronically – namely because I love almost exactly half of each album and refuse to pay $14.99/album when I need only pay $7 for the half that I want. Please, please, please convert already!!
You can get all the beatles albums in digital format at http://www.mp3sale.ru.
This site has been declared legal and you pay just 10 euro cents per track.
You know what you can do? Put the CDs on to the computer like I did! Whoa. Now that’s a freaky idea.
I have to agree-anyone who would even say something as dumb as calling the greatest band in the history of recorded music “irrelevant” doesn’t know a damn thing about music.
I agree with the article completely.
This, on top of Ringo’s much-publicized shitty attitude towards fans has created a massive P.R. headache for the Beatles.
I’ve been a fan since childhood (I’m 40 now), but am getting sick of the sainthood attached to these very human beings. They helped shape modern music–yes–but things are changing yet again. Paul and the other powers that be need to realize they are jeopardizing their place in music history if they don’t keep up with technology.
More incredible corporate leadship…. the best and the brightest…
the Beatles are the Beatles, and they can and should be able to do whatever they want to do. Download the CDs and call it a day! They will NEVER be irrelevant, moron.
Their music has a place in my heart and my soul. There comes a time where it matters not whether you hear the music. If it was never made accessible by download, that would be quite alright with me…On the other hand, Apple Corps are a bunch of elitist snobs.
Paul McCartney is fighting to get the Beatles catalogue digitlized, but it’s Apple co/EMI refusing, he even doesn’t mind the free downloads
I don’t give a rip (pun intended) about whether or not they are available for download. They’re still readily available on CD, and it’s not that difficult to extract them to a computer. I’ll always want a physical hard copy of my music, and I don’t think I’m the only one who won’t let CDs go obsolete. But I do wish they’d remaster the catalog, and I doubt that this will happen until the digital dispute is settled. The Beatles and Bruce Springsteen are two major acts whose CD catalogs are hopelessly outdated in terms of sound quality, and that need to be remastered with technology that has been around for too long to have ignored.
Just so everyone knows, this is out of the hands of the Beatles themselves. You can download any of the solo works of Paul, Ringo, John or George on i-tunes itself. It is just Apple that is standing in the way. The real crime is that Frank Zappa refuses to release his material on i-tunes (and some of it is actually really hard to find in physical form!)
correction… it is the estate of the late Frank Zappa that refuses to release his stuff on i-tunes (he is such a presence in my house that it is as if he were still alive).
Listen. The Beatles are and will always be the pioneers of recorded music. The songwriting of Lennon and McCartney will stand the test of time for tens, perhaps hundreds of generations. They were a gift from heaven, pure and simple. They weren’t musically trained in school, and that’s why they did things that didn’t conform to standard ways of composing and performing. They were simply the perfect group that came together in the perfect storm at the time that the world needed them. All of the music today has some influence drawn from Beatles music. I became a drummer and musicial from having been exposed to Beatles at birth. My children are musically inclined as well because of the Beatles. Had Lennon lived, there would’ve been a reunion.
This is really about a record company that has been in the dumps for years, holding there best cards until they can get all the money they can get there hands on. Lets face it The Beatles are the goose that can lay the golden egg for them. I personally don’t care I already have the Beatles on LP & CD, do I really need to buy the whole catalog again.
I’m 39, and a huge Beatles fan. I own all the CDs. I’ve ripped them to my computer and listen to their music often. I also still have my LPs, which are unfortunately, gathering dust until I rehook up a proper turntable. The Beatles catalog should be made available for purchase and download on their own site, beatles.com, if they don’t want to participate in iTunes.
If you actaully *read* what’s written, the author says the Beatles will never be irrellevant, but that their seeming refusal to get on board with a format that, for some people now, the *only* way they buy music, is “hurting” them from a business standpoint. And while it’s all well and good to suggest people just go out and buy CDs (and most stores sell Beatles albums for over $20 Cdn, which isn’t attractive vs. almost any iTunes album price), you have to actually be out at the mall, etc; with digital, you just have to be online. Trust me, the music industry has made more from me due to late-night impulse buying than they have when I’m at a store trying to justify ridiculous prices on the “how much do I really need this” scale. I have no idea as to what’s holding them up, but I, too, wish they’d just get over it already. That being said, it’s nice to have a tangible copy in your hands, but how often do I listen to my Beatles *records* these days? Sadly, I don’t.
This is really a terrible argument presented here. If you have any respect for music then you already have a healthy respect for the Beatles. I am not a huge fan but I know what they mean to music. And for all the lazy people who only download stuff, you can have your Death Cab and your Everytime I Die. You really aren’t music fans if that’s all you do. A music fan seeks out the hard to find bands. Nothing more rewarding than digging thru a crate of vinyl at a mom and pop brick and mortar store and finding that lost gem from the power pop era or first of british heavy metal. I see in the not to distant future a need for those stores again. just have patience. These kids are missing a great tradition. not to mention social skills. Now stop whining and pay your respects to those classic bands who laid the foundation. there’s a reason we still care about them. And for the record I am very into the Replacements, Husker Du and Soul Asylum. But I know where all that came from.
I understand that the Beatles are widely loved, and some of you might get indignant about me saying this, but my husband and I are two of the people that “just don’t get the hype” about them. I really don’t like their music and don’t understand what is so great about it. I assume that it must have been more of a cultural thing because the music is nothing special.
Where do they charge $20 for Beatles CDs other than at those overpriced Sam Goody’s and Musiclands that used to be in the malls?
I listen to most of my music on my ipod with earbuds. But anyone who listens to music exclusively this way is really missing out. Not only do you miss the full sound of speakers on a stereo system, but the compression of most mp3s ripped at 128kpbs really loses a lot of the clarity and power of the recording.
I understand why the songs should be avaiable for download, since that IS a legitimate way of obtaining music. However, I think it’s disingenuous to make the argument that music is somehow out of reach and in danger of becoming irrelevant if you don’t put it on itunes.
To TIm Lade: I think you might be confused. The Beatles’ inability to settle on a digital distribution agreement (rather, Apple/EMI’s inability) does not make them irrelevant. It might make them inconvenient, annoying, perturbing, or even vexing, but irrelevant? How does the distribution model have the remotest impact on the legacy of the world’s best known and most loved music?
As to the aforementioned “kids today,” I personally have a 7 year-old who has been listening to The Beatles for her entire life. She’s a huge Yellow Submarine fan, and grew very upset when we explained why she couldn’t meet John or George. Music, like anything, is appreciated by exposure. It’s hard to envision anyone who appreciates music not finding something they like in the broad Beatles catalog. Even if they don’t, their impact can’t be denied. Whether or not the new generation “gets it” is what’s irrelevant here. “It” exists, whether it’s gotten or not.
Yes, it’s hard to beleive McCarteny could be so callous as to not leave his property around where people can easily steal it. (Perhaps he has some sort of mania.)
LM, with all due respect, your personal opinion about them doesn’t really matter. There are plenty of bands that I don’t like (the Stones and U2 being two of them) but whose impact and popularity I recognize and whom I think it would be foolish not to make available through contemporary technology.