Congratulations to the Fab 4 for making the "big time" and getting on iTunes...
I guess I might not understand the true magnitude of the digital age. According to the folks at Apple I must not. They're talking about making tons of cash, and this is a huge score for them. I love the Beatles, and I am a user of iTunes but I don't understand all the fuss.
I guess I look at the Beatles as a band where you have hard copies of their music. Your parents had it, they've come out on CD (more than once), not to mention the massive amount of copies "1" sold on CD a few years ago.... It just seems like most people have this music, or it's passed down. I have all the Beatles I desire in my iTunes already, and it came from the CDs I already own. People who want Beatles music already have it...
Unless:
Are the versions on iTunes better sounding? Better than this last batch of CDs that were re-issued last year?
Are there people out there saying "I'm not going to buy Revolver, I'm going to wait until it comes out on iTunes"?
Now that they're on iTunes, will they get exposed to people who have never heard their music? They're going to search for them, and snatch up the entire catalog? Or don't own any of it?
I guess there's also the fact that album artwork mattered in the day. Listening to Sgt. Peppers and not checking out the artwork is almost a sin in my book. Maybe I'm blowing this out of proportion, and I'm still in denial that this format is killing the actual media. Or, I don't understand the true magnitude of the digital age...
-MD
I totally agree Mike
ReplyDeleteI'm a huge fan, yet I didn't re-buy the stereo remixes, I just didn't see the point.
However I have seen people who said they never bought them cuz they never buy discs be it CD or DVD, but I doubt there are many of those people out there.
The only reason I can see this being a big money maker is if it catches on with younger kids who never bought the CDs in the first place
I hate iTunes with a passion. It's just another giant thing that's everything wrong with modern music. I have never, nor will ever, use iTunes.
ReplyDeleteI'm so proud of what Pink Floyd did recently with pulling their catalog off of all digital services until an agreement is reached where the albums are sold as "whole" as they were intended.
I've paid for The Beatles catalog several times on several formats. I will never pay for it again, period. Let alone so I can have part or none of the cover art on a 2x2 LCD screen instead of in my hands where it belongs.
There is nothing earth shattering, impressive or beneficial in this for anyone outside of Apple and Apple. It's just one institution giving into another and trying to put positive spin on it.
Sorry, but this subject makes me extremely angry.
-Russ
Isn't ironic that they did an interesting thing by remastering everything and making it sound better just to turn around and put out crappy sounding MP3s a year later? It's a shame that anyone listening to these will never hear them in the proper format or sound
ReplyDeleteTo your point, I think they'll be exposed to a new generation that never would've purchased their music in another format. The thing that angers me is that the week they debuted on iTunes, Rihanna was the number one downloaded artist. That sucks.
ReplyDeleteAll of that being said, I am an iTunes user, though I only use it because I have a Mac and an iPod. I don't use iTunes to download music, only to play and sync.
Russ, I'm with you at HATING iTunes, but probably for different reasons ;) I hate it because it's a bloated POS and if I had a choice, I wouldn't touch it. Unfortunately, I really love my iPod, and I can't use it without iTunes.
ReplyDeleteI definitely don't buy music on iTunes though, again, probably for a different reason. They DO offer album downloads as an option, but if I'm going to pay $15 for an album, I'm going to get the CD with artwork. Especially if I can find the CD on sale for almost half that price.
Anyway, iTunes (and it's business model) aside, I'm glad that the Beatles will now have a better chance of exposing GOOD music to our kids.