All day yesterday Apple.com proudly wore window dressing in the form of this note: “Tomorrow is just another day. That you’ll never forget.” So here we are, and we’ll carry forward the call: Where were YOU the day the Beatles music was finally available for purchase via iTunes and you didn’t give a shit? As Grateful Dead lyricist John Perry Barlow said in yesterday’s NYTimes piece about this Apple + Apple Corps anticlimax, “Anybody that hasn’t managed to come up with a digitized version of the Beatles’ songs by now never liked the Beatles.”
A press release we just received offers these details: Starting today, all 13 albums are available on iTunes, as is a special digital Beatles Boxed Set ($149), and the Live At Washington Coliseum, 1964, an iTunes worldwide exclusive. Price points: Single albums are $12.99, double albums are $19.99, single songs are $1.29. Key quotes:
Steve Jobs called the process a “long and winding road” (blurgh), Yoko was glad it happened during “John’s 70th birthday year,” and most excellently, here’s Ringo Starr: “I am particularly glad to no longer be asked when the Beatles are coming to iTunes.” Fair enough.
Any real fanfare attending the announcement comes primarily from Apple itself, the company whose message is shaped by one Steve Jobs. To that end, there are two primary points to consider in understanding his excitement: 1) Steve’s a proud, goal oriented man who is a huge Beatles fan which makes it sweeter that 2) after many years of personal agitation and Macworld innuendo, Apple has finally made Apple Corps its digitally distributed bitch. For some it will be a moment of arrival and dominance for the digital format and the iTunes store; for most, though, this news is a snore.
So while this probably won’t mean much to Beatles fanboys on levels beyond the symbolic, there could be some value and entertainment to sifting through Apple’s undoubtedly hefty promotional campaign for the project. So far there’s the Beatles mini-site, with video of a concert from Washington Coliseum 1964, a gallery of other videos and prominent moments, and the TV commercials, which feature “I Wanna Hold Your Hand,” “All You Need Is Love,” “Let It Be,” “Yesterday,” and “Here Comes The Sun.”
As for the true Apple fanboys are better off saving their money for this, the real Apple core.
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Well sure this has taken a while, but how much longer will we have to wait for the flying car replica of John Lennon’s psychedelic Rolls Royce?
Sadly, this isn’t about the Beatles music but about how to keep making money off of their music.
The only positive thing I take away from all this is the fact that 50 years from now some kid will discover their music through a format only available to them…. digitally.
Or through telepathy.
>implying iTunes will the only option for digital music distribution in 50 years.
>implying iTunes will even exist in 50 years.
implying ANYTHING will exist in 50 years.
Very well put!
i knew it was something to do with the beatles, but i was still irrationally hoping that itunes would for some reason be the first people to actually give a release date for tomboy. that would be some unforgettable shit.
hahaha how is this getting downvotes?
i dont know! haha i was like “man, what did i say that could have been offensive?”
rutles.
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It might pretty unimportant news, but at least that DC show was entertaining and free. Probably some of the best drumming I’ve seen from Ringo
i agree with everything you said
BUT
you “blurgh” jobs’ beatles song pun (as you very well should) yet you and every other “journalist” have done the exact same thing with your articles’ headlines.
WHY did you think that was a good idea?