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Attempt To "Digitalize" Beatles Goes Sour
Posted by
timothy
on Thu Jan 08, 2009 08:19 PM
from the when-you're-64-and-probably-not-even-then dept.
from the when-you're-64-and-probably-not-even-then dept.
An anonymous reader points to this article at exclaim.ca, which begins "Just when Beatles fans thought the band were finally going digital, the Norwegian national broadcaster has been forced to call off the deal. Broadcasting company NRK has had to remove a series of 212 podcasts, each of which featured a different Beatles song and would have effectively allowed fans to legally download the entire Fab Four catalogue for free."
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Submission: Attempt To "Digitalize" Beatles goes Sour by Anonymous Coward
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The Old-Fashioned Way (Score:5, Funny)
Recently, Paul McCartney said negotiations to get the Fab Four onto iTunes had âoestalled,â leaving some fans more than a little ticked that they still have to listen to the band the old-fashioned way.
What's "the old-fashioned way"? Bit-Torrent?
Re:The Old-Fashioned Way (Score:5, Funny)
I interpreted that as an official statement from the fake Paul McCartney saying that the fans should listen to the band the old-fashioned way as a tribute to the late real Paul McCartney.
Parent
Re: (Score:3)
BitTorrent works for me. It comes in FLAC.
Peace and love and the most overrated band ever (Score:4, Interesting)
For a group closely associated with peace, love and everything good about 60s and 70s counterculture, the Beatles (and their heirs/hangers on/rights holders) certainly seem to behave like craven corporate shills.
Personally I find them to be tremendously overrated too, and not a patch on many of their contemporaries (Pink Floyd, Dylan, Hendrix, The Animals, etc etc etc). Sgt Peppers was rather good though.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Paul and Ringo loose out (Score:5, Insightful)
The only ones hurt by the Beatles not being on iTunes and other services are the remaining members. Those that want the Beatles either rip their own cd's or just snag them from torrents. Led Zeppelin finally relented, Pink Floyd gave in, I just find it amazing that a band that embraced technology in its heyday is now completely terrified by it.
Re:Paul and Ringo loose out (Score:5, Insightful)
Given Paul McCartney has left his major label, explicitly calling them out as out-of-touch with the current digital reality, I'd say he's less than terrified by technology.
Parent
Re:Paul and Ringo loose out (Score:4, Interesting)
Especially considering you can buy something like 40 albums with his name on them on iTunes. It's not him, it's the ownership of the music from his previous band.
Parent
Re:Paul and Ringo loose out (Score:5, Insightful)
The only ones hurt by the Beatles not being on iTunes and other services are the remaining members.
I don't think they're going to be hurt.
The Beatles have the biggest selling back catalogue in the world. The #2 seller AC DC are also not on iTunes.
Both bands think they make more money selling Albums than singles & selling singles on iTunes would cannibalise their album sales.
Not sure if I agree or not, but they've certainly got numbers (huge album sales) on their side.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
To be specific, this is the article that the GP should check out and thoroughly understand before he starts spouting off like that again
http://www.snopes.com/music/artists/jackson.asp [snopes.com]
Digital? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why use the word "digitalize", they have CD's, pretty sure those aren't recorded in analog.
Oh, and I'm sure all the die-hard Beatles fans have complete discographies in "digital" as it is and wouldn't really care about a new way of downloading it.
Re:Digital? (Score:4, Interesting)
Most of those have digital rips of superior vinyl masters, but Apple did provide a teaser of some tracks from a remastered White Album last September to raise expectations once again.
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Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
MP3s (Score:5, Informative)
The Beatles aren't on iTunes because Apple is pissed at Apple. I was also under the impression that under British law, early Beatles recordings are about to become public domain so there is this sudden urgency to create and sell Beatles music online in some format.
And if I'm not mistaken, there is a Beatles Rock Band game coming out next Christmas.
Copyright and jurisdiction question. . . (Score:5, Insightful)
"I was also under the impression that under British law, early Beatles recordings are about to become public domain. . ."
How does that work internationally? Can those same recordings still be under copyright in other nations (like the US)? Or, since the UK is the 'home' country of the Beatles, does their copyright term prevail internationally? Even if the recordings are still under copyright, in the US, but are public domain in the UK, can people in the US receive legal copies from someone in the UK, even though it would be illegal for them to further copy those works? I believe a fundamental principle of copyright law is that those receiving works don't need the right to make the copy, but rather the person/company that gives them the copy - leading to, I would think, an ability for someone in the US to be able to *receive* the legal copy from the UK?
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Digitalize? (Score:3, Informative)
Ah yeah The Beatles (Score:5, Interesting)
I remember my 14 year-old niece. She was wearing a t-shirt that said "The Beatles" as everyone in her school wore them.
I asked her if she ever listened to "The Beatles" and she replied "Who?" and I said "The Beatles, you know like your T-Shirt says." and then she said "What kind of music do they play? Are they rappers or techno or heavy metal?" I said "No, they were Rock and Roll, classic Rock and Roll, like from the 1960's." and she said "What kind of songs did they play?" and I said "Yellow Submarine, Yesterday, A Hard Day's Night, and a few others." she said "They sound silly, are they still alive?" I said "No, two of them are dead." and she said "Then how do they play their music, did they replace the two dead guys yet?" I said "They had like over 200 songs and they are trying to digitze them into new formats." and she said "How can they digitize them when half the band is dead?" and I asked "How could you wear a Beatles logo T-shirt and not know who they are?" and she said "It is a fashion trend at our school, everyone is wearing them because our grandparents used to wear them. You know, Hippies and stuff like that. Retrofashion is so in now."
Ironic that at one time The Beatles claimed they were bigger than Jesus. Now the youth of today hardly even know who they were other than some t-shirt sold in the mall as Retrofashion your grandparents used to wear.
This is the story behind the podcasts: (Score:5, Informative)
"Vår daglige Beatles" (Our daily Beatles) was a daily radio program presenting all 212 recordings by The Beatles in chronological order, presented by Bård Ose and Finn Tokvam. Every presentation lasted about five minutes and contained interesting facts about the song -- what the inspiration for the song was, how it was recorded, some trivia about the period it was recorded, and so on. A very well-produced and informative work. The radio show started January 2007, and every Beatles song was played in its full length. It's believed this is the only time Revolution 9 [wikipedia.org] was played in its entirety on Norwegian radio.
The last episode was aired 2007-12-13, and when christmas 2007 arrived, all 212 podcasts were put out for download at nrk.no as a christmas present for all Beatles fans, with the music removed. A real treasure, even though I had this cron job running every day to download each episode. Still, it was nice to get the complete collection.
This January NRK was planning to release every episode with the music. They got a deal with TONO (the Norwegian RIAA) and everything was OK, but it turned out that the agreement with IFPI and FONO only allowed publishing shows aired the last four weeks, and as mentioned, these programs were aired in 2007, so the podcasts had to be pulled.
Re:Is this that important ? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Hmm, why did the guy who posted a less well-thought out version of the same comment 3 minutes later gets modded up as "insightful", while OP gets modded down as "redundant"? Timestamps don't lie.
If that had happened to me I might be thinking, Christ. You know it ain't easy. You know how hard it can be.
Re:Is this that important ? (Score:5, Funny)
Look, nobody calls book publishing "Alpha/numeric character distribution".
Am I wrong for naming content by its content (MIME) type? My mother asked if I would send her pictures of my vacation, and I told her "yep, I'll have those image/jpegs to you in a multipart/mixed by saturday", then she called me a human/x-weirdo and I modem/NO-CARRIER'd her! We haven't spoken since, but at first I thought you were her posting AC before I noticed your improper labeling of publish/multichar so you couldn't possibly be her. Besides, a human/female on http://slashdot.org./article.pl [slashdot.org.]? No way!
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Re:Is this that important ? (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, let's put it this way. The Beatles are WAY more important than YOU are.
All these people who find the Beatles so uninteresting gets me wondering why they're compelled to write and
tell everybody about it. I mean, when I'm uninterested in a slashdot story, I just don't read it! And I
sure don't bother visiting classical music forums in order to announce my disinterest in classical music.
Why, that would be completely stupid!
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So basically... (Score:5, Insightful)
You're telling us all that you have no interest in people talking about their lack of interest?
Do you..ah...see the problem there?
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Re:Is this that important ? (Score:5, Funny)
Like Flock of Seagulls!
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Hell, Marlene Dietrich was "timeless", now most people don't even know who she was, same goes for people like von Braun
Re:Is this that important ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Nonsense. People always over-glorify that one period of music. Do you really think that the only great musicians in all of human history were born in a span of a hundred years?
The modern youth you describe remember Frank Sinatra and the Beatles just as well as they do Mozart and Bach. Which is to say, vaguely. No music remains truly popular forever. Your definition of timeless as "lasting until the end of civilization" is overly strict. Nothing could meet such a standard, or, if something could, there would be no way for us to know it.
Music can be fairly described as timeless so long as some people in the modern day, who were not around when the music first became popular, still enjoy it. I think the Beatles can easily meet that criterion.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Of course not all great music was done in that classical span of a hundred years, but I really wouldn't call The Beatles as something all that worthwhile. Dunno, they just don't seem all that special and most other people under 30 that I ask also seem to agree. Perhaps it's just not what's "in" these days as we seem to be far more into 1950's, 1970's and 1980's music than 1960's. Interesting no?
Als
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I really wouldn't call The Beatles as something all that worthwhile. Perhaps it's just not what's "in" these days.Interesting no?
No. It's just sad (for you).
I'm trying to be nice about this. Let me put it this way: I'm confident that most people your age appreciate the Beatles more than you and your friends.
I can't find a single person above 15 who likes 2000's music. Why is that?
Going out on a limb here: It's because you and your friends haven't yet been able to drench recent events in the thick layer
Re:Is this that important ? (Score:5, Insightful)
II can't find a single person above 15 who likes 2000's music. Why is that?
Define your terms. I'm an old guy (53), and I like a lot of music made in this century, but I despise the dreck that makes it to the top of the charts. The current A&R policy for pop music is driven by a business model based on focus groups [beforethemusicdies.com]; it's a dinosaur, thrashing its tail in its dying throes, crushing a few of the tiny mammalian successors that will eventually reign supreme!!!!
I feel better now.
But I still wish radio didn't suck so much.
Parent
Re:Is this that important ? (Score:4, Informative)
"Interesting observation actually, I think many more modern youth know Frank Sinatra than they do the Beatles."
I think you're dead wrong. I'm 17, and still in high school. *Everybody* knows who the Beatles are. If you mention Frank Sinatra, most of the time you'll get funny looks.
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Is this that important ? (Score:5, Funny)
I'm 47 .... I live in Chicago...
Hi Barak you really should register rather than posting as AC.
Parent
Re:Is this that important ? (Score:5, Interesting)
And only a fraction of Mozart, Beethoven, etc... are still around, or considered timeless...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_compositions_by_Wolfgang_Amadeus_Mozart [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_compositions_by_Ludwig_van_Beethoven [wikipedia.org]
Now tell me if all, or even a quarter of those are well known... hell half of them don't even have a wiki page, which means accorded to the internet masses, they are less relevant than most Beatles songs
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_The_Beatles_songs [wikipedia.org]
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Re:Is this that important ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Is this that important ? (Score:5, Insightful)
The moment everybody who remembers them from their youth dies, The Beatles will fade into obscurity and/or will become an musicophiliac's thing.
Kind of like ... oh, any musician ever born? Some prophet, you.
Hell, Marlene Dietrich was "timeless", now most people don't even know who she was, same goes for people like von Braun, Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Marlon Brando etc. etc. All very well known, all very timeless, all almost unknown of amongst the modern youth.
Yeah. Kind of like Mozart, Brahms, Beethoven, et al? Or do you hear the modern youth bumpin' those classics as they roll down the block? Yeah, man, music is dead all right. Might as well cut off our ears.
No. How about this one? Fuck the modern youth. What did the modern youth ever know?
Much as you might not like the Beatles, some (but not all) of their rather broad and diverse catalog still stomps the crap out of just about any rock band that ever existed. Yeah, Led Zeppelin was great, too -- but much of their stuff is pompous, self-indulgent claptrap. Pink Floyd was great, but a lot of their stuff was silly, navel-gazing pseudo-intellectual rubbish, with a good measure of holier-than-thou arrogance thrown in. And honestly, I doubt that either of those bands would deny the debt they owe to the Beatles.
And FWIW, at 35 I'm hardly the Beatles' "original fan base." To me, for you to imply that nobody but a bunch of rotting mummies listens to one of the greatest rock bands ever just shows you out as your basic, self-important young person who thinks you know everything. Guess what? The older you get, the more you'll "forget."
And P.S. my last girlfriend's favorite band was the Beatles, and she was 21.
Parent
Re:Is this that important ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Wow. You sounded sort of rational and convincing until this point, where your Beatles fanboyism came gushing out.
Led Zeppelin, I think it's widely acknowledged, are great for their guitar work and for bringing that style of music to the (white) masses and into the popular consciousness, but in their own right are probably not "great" musicians in the historical sense. But Pink Floyd... to say "a lot of their stuff was silly navel-gazing pseudo-intellectual rubbish" whilst defending the band which wrote lyrics like:
and
is just laughable. In fact, let me go one further. The Beatles are to Pink Floyd what Coldplay is to Radiohead: one writes catchier and perhaps more memorable songs than the other, but the other truly composes music rather than coming up with a good tune, and dares to create totally new musical concepts rather than tweaking and refining a reliable formula. I will admit the Beatles went through their creative phases, but your anti-Floyd attack is just stupid.
So, let's look at the rest of your ramblings:
Well, go into any half-decent music shop and I'll bet you find more Mozart, Brahms and Beethoven recordings on the shelf than Beatles, Floyd and Zeppelin. So it will be interesting to see how many Beatles CDs there are on the shelves (or whatever the 2038 equivalent is) in, say, 30 years time. I'd bet that many 'kids' will perhaps listen to a best of, a few will delve deeper, and most will have heard 1 or 2 songs, mostly those that the band and rights holders seem to kindly license to advertisers.
I direct you to one Mr Bob Dylan. While your boys were singing "She loves you yeah yeah yeah", he was writing "A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall" and "Masters of War". By the time the fab four got to something really interesting like Sargeant Pepper's, Dylan had (a) been the first popular musician to take a truly electric sound on the road, (b) reinvented himself from folk hero to rock rebel and in the process understood for the first time the true nature of modern musical stardom and the complex relationship between the superstar and the audience (c) written songs of huge cultural and musical significance like "Subterranean Homesick Blues" and "It's Alright Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)", (d) released easily the longest and most substantial 'single' to that date in the form of "Like a Rolling Stone", (e) invented a totally new sound (the "thin wild mercury sound" of Blonde on Blonde) and released arguably the most consistently good rock album ever in the process, (f
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
You're simply wrong - there were Britney Spears equivalents in the 60's, but that's not what the Beatles were. You're thinking of the Monkees, maybe. Good marketing at that time wasn't as important as today - the legitimately good musicians came through on top of the highly commercialized stuff.
Also - it just takes listening to the Beatles to get the answer you seek. They're very good, with very well written lyrics and musical accompaniment. I'm not sure what more of an answer you need than that - just list
Re:Is this that important ? (Score:5, Interesting)
OK -- and mind you it's not as if I listen to Beatles records every day or anything -- but for starters it largely depends on what you're listening to.
Most people who talk about the Beatles as "great music" are talking about their later catalog, and I'm certainly among those. My favorite albums are probably Revolver, Rubber Soul, and Abbey Road, and I like some of the stuff in between. I can not listen to songs like "I Wanna Hold Your Hand," so I can't defend them.
As for what makes it good music, believe it or not, at the time a lot of it was highly creative and original. Though a lot of the songs are credited Lennon/McCartney, in truth the Beatles were a band in the truest sense, with all four members contributing. (Witness the fact that none of their solo efforts were as good as the Beatles stuff.)
Furthermore, they really were good musicians, as well as songwriters/arrangers. If you walked up to Jimmy Page tomorrow and told him to his face that you think George Harrison was a better guitar player than he is, he might just agree with you.
As far as Beatles fans go, I myself am a "Paul." I think he wrote great melodies and just really nice songs. You can call them pop if you want, but then all of rock n' roll up until probably the mid-90s could just as easily be categorized as pop.
And I don't think you can really discount that there really hadn't been any music that sounded like that before the Beatles came along. In other words, hindsight is golden.
Example: Me, the first new music that was really compelling to me in my teenage years was Suicidal Tendencies, GBH, the Dead Kennedys, and Minor Threat. Then I discovered Metallica and Slayer, and I ran in that direction. Then one day somebody played me a Black Sabbath record from the 1970s. My reaction? It's crap. It sounds like crap, it's too slow, it's not "heavy," the singing is weak and silly. Well, look -- I was wrong. And really not a single one of those bands I mentioned would have come around had it not been for Black Sabbath. I just wasn't experienced enough, I didn't understand music or recording or anything else enough, to properly be able to appreciate what had come before the bands I was familiar with. I'm thinking a lot of the Beatles-haters in this thread are falling victim to some of the same.
Someone else in this thread said that the Beatles lacked anyone with the "power" of a Jim Morrison. Oh really? And John Lennon had no cultural impact, did he? Interesting.
I'm the first to admit that a lot of the Beatles' stuff is commercial -- particularly, I think they get way too much credit for inspiring the psychedelic movement -- but to pretend that they weren't groundbreaking, highly original, highly creative, highly talented musicians just makes a person sound ignorant.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You've got some very good points in your comment regarding the Beatles. However, if someone doesn't care for the Beatles, it doesn't necessarily mean that the band sucked; just means that the person doesn't care for the music.
I tend to agree - my parents were big Beatles fans, and I've tried to listen to some of it. Just doesn't get me going the same way other music does. The band could be the best thing the world has ever produced, but if I don't like it, I'm probably not going to truly appreciate it as
Not comparable to Britney - progression is key (Score:5, Interesting)
Watch and listen to the progression they made in just a few short years. Yes, arguably some of the earlier stuff might be dismissed as "teeny bopper" stuff, but even a lot of it had much higher production quality and songwriting quality compared to everything else out at the time. So the quality was head and shoulders above much of their 'competition' at the time.
But watch the artistic progression between
1963 - I Saw Her Standing There / All My Loving
1964 - Can't Buy Me Love / Eight Days a Week
1965 - Drive My Car / Day Tripper / Yesterday
1966 - Taxman / Tomorrow Never Knows / Eleanor Rigby / Rain
1967 - I Am the Walrus / Fool on the Hill
1968 - Revolution / Lady Madonna / The Inner Light
1969 - Something / Because / Get Back
Just in the span of a few years the songwriting quality exploded, and brought with it new production techniques and set new standards for what was considered 'art'.
Most of those songs above can hardly be considered 'teeny bop' music, or comparable with Britney Spears. For one thing, the Beatles were 4 people who increasingly expressed their individuality, yet managed to retain a 'Beatlesque' quality to most of their recordings. Britney is one person, and while she probably expresses herself in her music, it's limited by the perspective of her being one person, not bringing the perspective and talents of multiple people (well, multiple 'named stars') to the equation.
Few artists have displayed such remarkable growth and boundary pushing, while still retaining and growing a fan base, as the Beatles have. Arguably U2 might fit that bill, or perhaps REM. They didn't start off as primarily targeting teenage girls, then progress in to more adult themes later - they simply started targetting college age kids from the get go, so the artistic progression is harder to graph, in my mind.
"Had good marketers"? They had radio DJs, and a manager who dressed them in suits. That was about it. They had no massive PR team, or a marketing department. They had a roadie, and later a press agent, but hardly the stuff of mega-acts today (the Stones' organization comes to mind).
Another angle that captivates people about the Beatles is the 'rags to riches' story. 4 kids coming from essentially an outcast area of England London would have cared to forget, conquered the music world and changed pop culture. Simply the fact that they had such an impact is in itself part of the attraction for many people to discover and listen to their music (to see what the fuss is about).
Something about the music (quality of production, songwriting wit, energy of early performances, sophistication of imagery in later song) continues to entrance a large number of new people every year. You're apparently not one of them. Too bad - it's your loss.
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Re:Is this that important ? (Score:5, Informative)
If you listen in a general way and look for "appeal," then The Beatles will probably not impress you. At the time they recorded, there was nobody better. But since you're listening in 2008, not 1968, you're seeing them through the wrong end of 40 years of improvements in pop music technology and marketability. We're much better now at making "appealing" pop, so Britney Spears (or more precisely, her extensive team of producers, engineers and session players) is just plain better at it than The Beatles were, in the same way that a middling 2008 relief pitcher could consistently strike out Babe Ruth if you didn't give him the benefit of modern training, video replays, etc.
The difference only arises if you listen for detail, which requires a little more work on your part. If you actually want to get what people see in The Beatles, try the following:
1. Play "A Day In The Life" but focus only on the drums (when they come in at about 0:45).
2. Play "Drive My Car" but focus only on the bass.
3. Play "Nowhere Man" and focus only on the vocals. (If you don't get it on this one, remember that electronic vocal effects hadn't been invented yet: This is simply three people singing.)
4. Play "I've Just Seen A Face" and focus on the interplay of the two acoustic guitars.
5. Play "Eleanor Rigby" and really concentrate on the lyrics, and what they mean.
6. Do the same with "For No One."
7. Now that you're in the right frame of mind, play "Strawberry Fields Forever" and listen for detail. You should immediately feel how much "stuff" there is in it, and how it all comes together.
8. Finish with "Here Comes The Sun." Listen the same way.
Let me know if it works.
-Graham
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Re:Is this that important ? (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Re:Is this that important ? (Score:4, Insightful)
Perhaps timelessness is something only truly proven after a few generations. We can't really say that something from ours or our parents generation is timeless. Only declare hopefully that it will be.
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Re:Is this that important ? (Score:5, Insightful)
"Perhaps timelessness is something only truly proven after a few generations."
Given that the length of a "generation" is commonly defined to be 20 to 25-years (genealogy) and the early works of the Beatles is around 1962, I'd say that criteria has been met. YMMV.
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Re:Is this that important ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Being the first they perhaps weren't quite talentless, but they were as creative and artistic as Britney Spears.
Let me guess: You don't play any instruments, do you?
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Re:Is this that important ? (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree with you completely. I'd also like to take this opportunity to point out that Pythagoras was an idiot. After all, we currently have below average high school students doing more complex mathematics than he ever did.
The quote "If I have seen further it is only by standing on the shoulders of Giants" isn't only applicable to sciences.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
[quote]Would you say, "Can we please move beyond Mozart"? Some music is timeless.[/quote]
The Beatles were wildly popular, but their work is quite dated and much of it was lame fluff.
Their now elderly original fan base is dying off, and their work is not the sort that will excite many new fans.
The Beatles didn't have anyone with the personal intensity of a Jim Morrison, or the amazing guitar ability of Jimi Hendrix. Their work was accessable, but tame and not very interesting.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Is this that important ? (Score:5, Interesting)
http://www.last.fm/charts [www.last.fm]
And I seriously hope no one tries to argue that enough baby boomers are on last.fm to skew the data.
Parent