Attempt To "Digitalize" Beatles Goes Sour 434
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."
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: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.
Re:Digital? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Is this that important ? (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?
Also, strangely enough, I can't find a single person above 15 who likes 2000's music. Why is that?
Re:Is this that important ? (Score:2, Interesting)
I'm 47 and I like new music, I actively seek good music I haven't heard 36 thousand times before.
It's harder than it should be, esp. considering I live in Chicago...
I know many 20 somethings who know the Beatles and consider them "classic" as in "From before my time but still worth listening to" Of course they think that about The Clash too...
Re:Is this that important ? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Is this that important ? (Score:1, Interesting)
So perhaps you could enlighten me, WHAT is so awesome about The Beatles, what the flying fuck is so special about them except they had insanely good marketers at a time when music wasn't yet used to the big record companies we know today?
Re:Is this that important ? (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 listen to them!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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]
Re:Is this that important ? (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 of "irony" you need before you can enjoy something (e.g. 50s, 70s and 80s music).
I'm over 40 and I love some of the music that's been released in this decade: Mike Doughty, Poe, Iron and Wine, Eels, etc.
Re:Is this that important ? (Score:3, Interesting)
Double nonsense. Or do you really think that it's impossible that prevailing social, technological and cultural conditions might give rise to relatively brief "golden ages" in which music (or other aspects of society) move forward in tremendous leaps? I mean, the Beatles themselves were smack bang in the middle of just such a leap forward, as amplification and rapid social change created a window for their art.
The very point the GP was making is that people DO still know who Mozart and Beethoven and the like were. Hell, any half educated kid would have at least heard OF them, if not (knowingly) listened to them. I doubt there are many people alive who haven't heard at least a few snatches of some of their more famous music in one form or another.
On the other hand, will the same be said of the Beatles in 200 years time? So far we know they were extremely popular, changed the conception of popular music in several very closely aligned countries, and made a lot of money. But I think it is a least arguable that when the dust settles from the mid-20th century music revolution (such as it was), that they may not be regarded quite as highly as you seem to be suggesting. In history's eyes they may come out as more of a Rachmaninoff than a Mozart - known to the discerning fan, but not universal.
Re:Is this that important ? (Score:3, Interesting)
I am so sick of this response.
As a matter of fact, I do play instruments, and even majored in music (vocal performance) for my first 2 years of college, until I realized I didn't want to be a music teacher, and that was all I'd be able to do with that degree.
So, I'd like to think I know a little about music. I don't know as much as my buddy in his PhD course, doing his dissertation on some godawful obscure nook of music theory, but I know a lot more than the average bear.
The Beatles wrote straight-up, standard pop music. There is nothing particularly noteworthy about them, aside from the hype that surrounded them. Don't get me wrong; comparing them to Britney is absolutely unfair, but they aren't really any more skilled or special than, say, Smashing Pumpkins. In fact, Corgan's guitar skill probably outdoes any of the Beatles (why he moved to synths, which he's no good at, I'll never know). It's on the top end of pop-music-seriousness scale, but it's still just pop music.
I have gotten into feelings-hurt-level arguments about this, but it just has to be said: The Beatles are/were nothing special, musically.
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.
Re:Is this that important ? (Score:3, Interesting)
I'll try not to bore you all with the rant you've heard thousands of times before, but today's music is so... cold. While the advent of MIDI sequencers and cheap pro audio equipment caused a grassroots indie revolution on the internet (Creative Commons/Jamendo), it also allowed the labels to easily produce a single sound. Today's "artists" have very little creative input on their work.
Any idiot can open up one of the many audio editors, lay down a synthesized rhythm track, and make a dance single. Try it yourself. Pop open an editor, get a beat, record some shitty lyrics (you can fix them with a harmonizer, just like the pros), and add tons of distortion and digital effects. Hey, look at that: you have a rap song that sounds just like one of the top 40.
You think with the power of modern synthesized composition, real artists could actually take advantage of the limitless possibilities. Need a 300-member orchestra for a difficult piece? No problem! A good composition program and a nice set of sampled sound and you've got it in a few days' work.
The problem, really, is the labels. There are LOTS of good independent artists and composers out there, who are doing good things with all these new tools. But the mainstream labels seem to stonewall all of them. All we get is dancefloor song after dancefloor song with the same sound.
Of course, the related issue is the conglomerate ownership of radio. I know of very few independent stations left that aren't owned by some massive corporation. In the local radio market where I live up in Canada, we have four main stations. They are/were called Jet, Magic, CBC, and Jump. Jet and Magic are/were both owned by one of the media conglomerates. CBC needs no introduction, as it is the Canadian national public radio service. Jump is a community-licensed, volunteer run station.
So, massive conglomerate decides that Magic (more locally-focused than Jet) is under threat from the community station, Jump. So they shut Magic down, and seek a new license from the CRTC to open a new station.
Now here's the fun part. The CRTC grants the license to the conglomerate. The new station, Sun, has as of now almost entirely eradicated the publicly-accessible community station, which appears will have to shut down. The airwaves are now pumped with top-40 crap, instead of locally produced content. What gets me is that the CRTC WILLINGLY chose to give priority to the station airing music that has ALREADY SATURATED the market, rather than LOCALLY PRODUCED content. The CRTC needs to be shut down and control transferred to Industry Canada, who at least understand the importance of niche radio applications (Canadian HAMs enjoy some of the laxest restrictions in the world).
Whew... now that that's off my chest...
Re:Is this that important ? (Score:3, Interesting)
The irony of the Beatles' music was that while so much of it sounded simple, it was much more complex that it seemed. In fact, I've found it's an incredible and rare talent to make complex music, but it's even more incredible and rare to make complex music that doesn't sound complex. It works on more levels for more people, and I think that's one of the reasons why people (including me) revere the music of the Beatles as much as they do:
They broadened the boundaries of "pop" music incredibly, helping to lay much of the groundwork for music of the next decade, and at the same time were sowing the seeds for the "art rock" progressive music movement that also thrived in the 70s.
Plus they had neat haircuts.
Re:Is this that important ? (Score:2, Interesting)
And it was dripping, not drinking.
Still, to this day I've never heard any musician utter the words "prison reform" since John Lennon.
(Have you? I hope to be corrected by young people or anyone more aware than I am.)
The whole social revolution of the 60's is tremendously tied together with the Beatles. It was actually
considered much cooler to be idealistic then, than to be cynical and ironic! Growing up today, I can understand
how some might see the Beatles in the same light as, say, Barney the Dinasaur, producing a similar knee-jerk
rejection.
One of those multi-decade-long pendulum things. Hope it's started back the other way!