On Wednesday — 9/9/09 — remastered versions of the Beatles catalogue will be released, giving listeners what the remaining members of “The Fab Four” say is the closest reproduction ever of how their music sounded in the studio.
The same day, the video game “The Beatles: Rock Band” is set to be released by Harmonix. Modeled after the already popular “Rock Band” game, and closely supervised by The Beatles and their estates, the game lets players sing and strum along on a huge list of Beatles classics over scenes ranging from Liverpool’s Cavern Club to their final performance on a London rooftop.
And on top of that, there’s rampant speculation that a planned “music-themed” announcement by Apple Inc., also scheduled on 9/9/09, could involve the supergroup.
I collected all the Beatles, Stones, Beau Brunnels, Kinks thru vinyl, cassettes and into CD’s. Somehow I skipped 8-track.
I think I already have all their stuff “digitally remastered.” Really can’t imagine anything “better sounding” unless they remastered it to be acoustic. Or maybe add more cow bell?
It is amazing how little current music is leaving any long impressions on us. Most of the big concerts have been from bands of the 80’s or earlier.
The Beatles seem to hold the key to longevity though. Great music is truly timeless!
Yeah, they are a great band, like Led Zepplin, Pink Floyd or Bob Marly and the Whalers, but like those bands, I have heard every thing they did so many times now that I don’t give a crap anymore.
It’s like that song on the White album, number 9, number 9, number 9,…
They should intrview Charlie Manson for the occasion!
Will the game allow peripheral characters? Like Yoko, Linda Eastman, Mark David Chapman…
#2 “I think I already have all their stuff “digitally remastered.” Really can’t imagine anything “better sounding” unless they remastered it to be acoustic. Or maybe add more cow bell?”
I think its really more about the fact that the original CD releases weren’t very well done. Not mic-held-up-to-the-radio bad, but not great either.
The Beatles 1 (2000) and Yellow Submarine Songtrack (1999) albums sound really nice. I’m hoping its the same for these re-release albums.
Who cares about beatles?!
People over 50 don’t buy music, the few who do won’t make any difference.
If anything, it is RIDICULUS that a FOURTY YEARS OLD music is still copyrighted!
It would be news if on 9/9/9 the entire Beatles catalog becomes public domain property (in spite of current corpocracy’s swindles extending copyrights to ceturies everywhere).
In the 60’s the Beatles were considered marijuana smok’in, homo, hippie, Charles Manson loving, homo communists by conservatives. Worse, that was only because of their bellbottoms! Never mind the hair and the music!
There seems to be a 30-40 year gap for conservatives to come to terms with the times. maybe that’s why they’re called conservatives?
They might have waited too long for most.
25 years ago I started waiting for digitally remastered Beatles CDs having most of it on vinyl that I also had copied to cassette(for the car) it seemed silly to buy CDs of the same sound quality. Now that the world streams and lives on mp3s a quarter of a century after I wanted this it comes along. Not so fab you 4. I have ripped a few of my brothers CDs to my iPod I don’t see it as piracy I own the vinyl have played the royalties and it should be under my his fair use anyway.
Will I fire up the NAD get out the big Princess Liea headphones and go to Pepperland? Yes I probably will but it should have come in 1989 not 2009 seems odd that the band that was so renowned for great sound on vinyl made us wait until the CD was all but dead.
Doesn’t Michael Jackson own the Beatles catalog?
I unreliably recollect that John hated 70’s electric rock. The long come-around to iTunes is probably his estate’s wish to honor his gift to music.
I listen to the ballads the most now. Jackson co-owned the catalog with Sony, but I believe he used them as collateral and was in hock with Sony.
#1 – PeeDrool, you’re just upset because it’s not on a Zune.
I have the catalog on vinyl and CD already. I’m not paying a third time, particularly because my two favorites* aren’t even around anymore to get the tuppence that EMI would pay them.
* John was the brains of the outfit, clearly and he had the best blues vocals of the bunch.
George was the cutest, played lead guitar, wrote the most covered Beatles song of all time (Something), etc.
Paul, while he has excellent moments, maybe even more than John, is clearly an asshole. F’him.
Ringo is a competent drummer and singer, but could have been replaced by darned near any other competent drummer. Is Pete Best still in the laundry business??
And they’re still bigger than Jesus.
The Beatles are a great example of the benefits of marijuana and LSD. IMHO their stuff blew goats before, say … Rubber Soul, and the change into counter-culture was remarkable. Still, I never really listened to them until the early 90s when I was in my mid 20s.
Light a scoobie (sadly something I don’t do anymore), relax and kick back!
People over 50 don’t buy music? Clearly stated by someone well under 50. I’m not 50 yet either but I download from Amazon regularly, and I don’t anticipate this changing.
Relevant? prolly not! Marketable?? YES, to the crowd that has lost it youth, now they cant enjoy the full rich sounds of remastered recordings, as their hearing is failing,… but i’m sure the marketing department isnt pushing that reality to the fans of the beatles for these recordings.. 😛 (llook at these old recordings!, we can get 10x as much for them and not have to really pay the artists but a pittance).. 😛
#17 – PeeDrool, for you!
http://tinyurl.com/peedrool
#18 11 albums post Beatles. 4 gold, 1 double platinum, 1 triple platinum.
#24 Best know Christian in the world: Ned Flanders. Better known than the Pope. Sorry about the shrinkage.
#24 – Alfredone – the calendar marks the years since the birth of Christ
Which is inaccurate, since they’ve changed calendars a couple of times since Jesus was born.
and more than a billion people consider Jesus Christ their Lord or at least, spiritual mentor.
And the Beatles have sold between 600 million to one billion records… and been bootlegged another couple of hundred million times plus is freely available on the net. And guess what… they unite people across racial and religious barriers… not dividing them, like religion does.
By contrast, the only folks that have heard about the Jägermeister post here, or are in the special Olympics.
Wow… dvorak.org/blog is posted at the Special Olympics?! You’re well-informed… 😉
So … I have to buy the White album AGAIN?
#24 – Alfredone, how do they handle handicapped parking at the Special Olympics? Figure you’d know…
#28 – Alfred1
Yeah, please demonize me… that’s what right-wing Republicans try with anyone who opposes their twisted view… but you’re still not correct.
They’re still relevant to me – I don’t give a fuck about the rest of you. Listen to anything you want.
Still relevant, I think so… My 20 year old daughter and her college friends love the Beatles as much as I did 40 years ago.
Shouldn’t the day be the one AFTER 9/09?
Back on topic
If you want to understand Steve Jobs and Apple you have to understand the Beatles – seriously. Jobs says everything he learned in life was from the Beatles and Bob Dylan. Think “Steve Jobs” when you look at the Beatles:
Different from anything before: hair, Cardin suits, Hoffner bass
Single handedly created fashion – sound, art, clothes, and attitude
Single handedly changed the music business from singles sales to albums
Pioneered music videos
Shea Stadium – first large outdoor stadium concert
First rock and roll band to have a logo
Consistently surprised – music, themes, even packaging with album covers
One consistent theme through everything – peace and love
Grew brand and kept tight ownership through their own record label with distinctive Apple logo
Didn’t license music or do music compilations
Staying power – One album (2000) sold 28 million copies
Never heard their songs as it sounded “in a studio”, so I don’t know why I’d want to. And all of their music probably wasn’t made in the same studio, over the decades. So which studio are they talking about. Or is this just some boast of its quality. Seems like CD ought to have eliminated the reproduction quality difference between retail record and studio media, long ago. Beside, with all our aging eardrums, who could tell the difference now.
This is just another “stirring the pot” product, to get collectors and novices to buy, and buy again. Just like George Lukas remastering (and altering) his Star Wars movies, every time it get released on a new medium. Ha! I never bought a single Star Wars LD. But I still got a pretty good, early “Solo shoots first” tape copy. Once Lukas got his next installment of Star Wars chapters, he quit “fixing” and rereleasing the older ones. It was just a money making gimmick.
BTW, if these new “remastered” CDs don’t sell (mostly because of the economy). What do you want to bet the industry will blame piracy? Let’s face it, the music industry depends on piracy. It’s their scapegoat, that the can hold up to their shareholders, for not being able to get them sinking rich, off of crappy songs. But I’ll bet the industry execs aren’t hurting. If there wasn’t ANY piracy, they’d have to invent some boogieman excuse to replace it. But I’m certain that they helped engineer the whole thing, so that piracy was both easy and desirable. After all, Sony made CD burners. And didn’t restrict how they worked, or what they could copy. Probably figuring to clean up selling CD-RW units for this purpose, more than any other. They just don’t like the idea of copied music files crisscrossing the globe. Because they don’t make as much money from selling CDRW units with that. Harddrive to harddrive (aka P2P), circumvents that. But now that Sony sells Harddrives too, maybe they’re all smiles about it.
Anyway. Pricing music at a more reasonable price range, would kill 99% of piracy. So they keep it inflated, so college students and third world music lovers, can’t afford it. And this keeps piracy alive. And gives them the excuse to go around all Gestapo like, tossing people in jail for such a petty crime. And it also greatly hinders independent music distribution, by P2P. Because that’s more of what they’re REALLY afraid of.
They love piracy, because it lets them kill ALL free music. Not just theirs. It wouldn’t surprise me that the recording industry plants copies of their music into P2P, just so there was enough to make a federal case of it.